Stabbing Preamble to the Boundary Waters
Around this time of year, me and some folks get together for an annual trek up into the BWCA, or Boundary Waters Canoe Area. It is a federal reserve at the northern part of the state where you basically have to rough it. No motor boats, no glass, no cans. You get a canoe and paddle until you run out of water, and then put the canoe on your head until you find more water.
I have been going up to the Boundary Waters for a few years now, and the four of us usually head up the week before Memorial Day to get ahead of everyone else as well as gamble on it being cold enough for the bugs to still be down. However, conflicts arose that dropped out two of our normal crew and between that and the cold spring, it pushed out our trip a few weeks.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
The story of this year's trip actually begins with a fencing tournament in Des Moines. This is another annual trek I make and it generally falls after my return from the wilderness. I like this tournament because I really like the folks down in Des Moines. Additionally, since I have been on the administration end of tournaments up in the Twin Cities, this is a rare occasion for me to fence in the even as opposed to working it.
The tricky bit was that the tournament was on Saturday, and I would then be getting together with Squid on Sunday to pack and drive up north to enter on Monday. A slim timeline to be sure, but I took comfort that since my events were the first two of the day that I would get back home in time to get any last minute packing done.
With summer hours in effect at work, I had a jump on my drive down to Des Moines. It was a good thing too because I had some last minute fiddling to do on my equipment and it gave me an opportunity to stop at the Cabela's in Owatonna to pick up some gear. Anyway, I get down to Des Moines in good time and check in. First order of business was to get some dinner and ended up at a Chinese place right across the street. After that, I settled in to checking some of my gear. Since I signed up for foil, for whatever bizarre reason, I needed to go through some of the more sketchy equipment and try to get it to a passable state. Then I turned in for the evening.
In the morning, I went with a club mate to a trucker diner spot for breakfast and fueled up for the day's activities. We found the venue alright and I started getting ready for the first event.
Knocking off the rust
We kicked off the day with mixed foil. With the exception of some brief bouting the week leading up to this tournament, I hadn't really picked up a foil in over a year. I suppose that is what happens when you don't keep your equipment in order. Anyway, it was a pretty decent size for Des Moines. Normally the numbers are pretty cozy, but today we had 15 and along with some talent... to keep me honest.
In fact, I got the number one ranked guy in my pool and got to fence him right out of the gate. He blanked me in short order and gave me pause to think on whether or not I made a drastic mistake. The second loss wasn't much help either, even though I managed to eke out a few points.
But maybe I just needed a little warm up because I rallied for the last two bouts and came out of my pool 2-2.
Click here to look at the pool round
Seeded 7th, I ended up on a bracket that had me fencing many of the same people I ran into at the pools. The first DE was against Harms, and though I had beaten him, it wasn't a comfortable victory. It was odd though because he changed his game when we go into it, and it wasn't working for him. He left me define the distance and since I kept choosing different targets there were few instances where he seemed to control the action. So I won handily, 15-3.
That put me back into the jaws of the 1st seed. Casey is one of the guys from the very strong club in Nebraska. He is athletic, precise and aggressive. The first period of our bout went very much like the pool. I was too close and too slow to give myself time to react to an advance lunge he has refined to pure gold. As we got into the second period, I was already down five or more touches but I had finally adjusted enough to make him work for it more. I even rallied a little bit with a little aggression of my own. If I had found a way to neutralize his bread and butter shot, it might have been a closer bout. A 9-15 loss was respectable to me, considering my earlier performance. It was fun and I even managed to place in the top eight.
Click here to look at the direct elimination table
Touchy touches
With the foil event out of the way, I could focus my attention on epee which also turned out to be a record tournament for the Des Moines folks. We had 25 in the end with about half of them in the upper echelon of the classification bracket. Four A's and five B's? Come on now. I was hoping to relax a little bit and now it looks like I might actually have to work. It didn't help that I felt pretty flat from my normal competitive regimen. So it would have been safe to say that I was not necessarily setting my sights high on my performance.
Click here for a look at the pool round
With 25, we had another five fencer pool and pulled Kovanda as my A. Again, I got the privelege to fence the top guy in my pool right out of the gate. If you've read some of the other tournaments I have posted, you may have seen this name come up before. Kovanda is another one of those strong Nebraskans and I always admired how well he sold his feints. He is also pretty wily.
He got off to a strong start and racked up a couple of touches out of the gate. I managed to claw one back with some infighting and then he got another. I picked up another a little later on, but I had considerably slowed down the pace of the bout. He was happy to follow suit because he was in the lead. I make another attack and hit him on the thigh. Tied at three a piece and time expired shortly after that. I could see that he was pretty frustrated about it too. Priority went his way so the onus was on me to make something happen in that minute, but he found some counter time in my actions and got a touch to beat me 3-4. That was much more than I expected.
Of course, I had to follow up that tough bout with another. Musgrave is another name common to these accounts and while his primary weapon has been foil, his style makes him a remarkably strong epee fencer. It is usually a toss up who takes the bout and this time it was me, though by a scant margin.
My other two bouts were a little easier because they were the less experienced fencers in the pool and I ended up with a 3-1 record.
Click here for a look at the direct elmination table
This placed me 9th in the seeding and my first bout was an older gentleman I had been talking to earlier in the day. He was relatively new to the sport, so I kept things pretty simple. He had a good rally after the break, but I ended up winning the bout 15-5.
After that, I fenced a kid named Welsch. I never faced him before, but he seemed a little rough around the edges. His bag was counter attack from a defensive position, so I would back him up to the end of the strip and then go at him. It worked for the most part. Since I was stronger at infighting, his attempts to push back the distance also worked in my favor. However, I could tell that I wasn't really invested in the bout. I felt like I was toying with him when I should have been pressing the advantage.
(BTW, I'm the guy on the right)
Well, that is sometimes enough to fence sloppy and he started chipping away at the minor lead I had. On top of which, somewhere in the second period, I moved laterally and for the first time in the years I've fenced, I rolled my ankle. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The whole game changed for me because I was no longer fencing to win, but rather to keep from aggravating my injury... cursing the whole time to myself for doing something so bone-headed the day before I was to go up the Boundary Waters.
At the end of regulation, we were tied at 14-14. I think he got priority for the overtime, but it didn't matter as I made a half-hearted attack that he parried and finished me off. So, I lost the bout and part of me was grateful while another part of me was still cross from being careless and yet a third part of me dwelt on the fact that I should have beaten this kid. Anyway, my performance pretty much keep in the top 10, which wasn't bad considering how little I've competed this year... still... I should have beaten that kid.
Hobbling home
After the loss, I didn't waste a lot of time packing up and getting on the road. It was mid afternoon and I wanted some daylight to burn for the final packing session. So I said my goodbyes and beat a hasty retreat home. The drive back was interesting around the Iowa border due to some severe weather. About every five or ten minutes, the radio program would be interrupted with updates on the local tornado warnings. I was grateful that I seemed to be ahead of the main cell, but found it quite entertaining to see it roll in.
I did have to make a stop for gas and a few other things. By this time, not only had the adrenaline of bouting worn off, but I had basically been sitting for a couple of hours. Needless to say the ankle was a might tender. I bet I looked like some sort of idiot, limping around. When I got home, I spent about an hour icing it down before hobbling around to gather things for the camping trip.
Then I doped up with a couple of painkillers before I went to bed, hoping for the best in the morning.
I have been going up to the Boundary Waters for a few years now, and the four of us usually head up the week before Memorial Day to get ahead of everyone else as well as gamble on it being cold enough for the bugs to still be down. However, conflicts arose that dropped out two of our normal crew and between that and the cold spring, it pushed out our trip a few weeks.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
The story of this year's trip actually begins with a fencing tournament in Des Moines. This is another annual trek I make and it generally falls after my return from the wilderness. I like this tournament because I really like the folks down in Des Moines. Additionally, since I have been on the administration end of tournaments up in the Twin Cities, this is a rare occasion for me to fence in the even as opposed to working it.
The tricky bit was that the tournament was on Saturday, and I would then be getting together with Squid on Sunday to pack and drive up north to enter on Monday. A slim timeline to be sure, but I took comfort that since my events were the first two of the day that I would get back home in time to get any last minute packing done.
With summer hours in effect at work, I had a jump on my drive down to Des Moines. It was a good thing too because I had some last minute fiddling to do on my equipment and it gave me an opportunity to stop at the Cabela's in Owatonna to pick up some gear. Anyway, I get down to Des Moines in good time and check in. First order of business was to get some dinner and ended up at a Chinese place right across the street. After that, I settled in to checking some of my gear. Since I signed up for foil, for whatever bizarre reason, I needed to go through some of the more sketchy equipment and try to get it to a passable state. Then I turned in for the evening.
In the morning, I went with a club mate to a trucker diner spot for breakfast and fueled up for the day's activities. We found the venue alright and I started getting ready for the first event.
Knocking off the rust
We kicked off the day with mixed foil. With the exception of some brief bouting the week leading up to this tournament, I hadn't really picked up a foil in over a year. I suppose that is what happens when you don't keep your equipment in order. Anyway, it was a pretty decent size for Des Moines. Normally the numbers are pretty cozy, but today we had 15 and along with some talent... to keep me honest.
In fact, I got the number one ranked guy in my pool and got to fence him right out of the gate. He blanked me in short order and gave me pause to think on whether or not I made a drastic mistake. The second loss wasn't much help either, even though I managed to eke out a few points.
But maybe I just needed a little warm up because I rallied for the last two bouts and came out of my pool 2-2.
Click here to look at the pool round
Seeded 7th, I ended up on a bracket that had me fencing many of the same people I ran into at the pools. The first DE was against Harms, and though I had beaten him, it wasn't a comfortable victory. It was odd though because he changed his game when we go into it, and it wasn't working for him. He left me define the distance and since I kept choosing different targets there were few instances where he seemed to control the action. So I won handily, 15-3.
That put me back into the jaws of the 1st seed. Casey is one of the guys from the very strong club in Nebraska. He is athletic, precise and aggressive. The first period of our bout went very much like the pool. I was too close and too slow to give myself time to react to an advance lunge he has refined to pure gold. As we got into the second period, I was already down five or more touches but I had finally adjusted enough to make him work for it more. I even rallied a little bit with a little aggression of my own. If I had found a way to neutralize his bread and butter shot, it might have been a closer bout. A 9-15 loss was respectable to me, considering my earlier performance. It was fun and I even managed to place in the top eight.
Click here to look at the direct elimination table
Touchy touches
With the foil event out of the way, I could focus my attention on epee which also turned out to be a record tournament for the Des Moines folks. We had 25 in the end with about half of them in the upper echelon of the classification bracket. Four A's and five B's? Come on now. I was hoping to relax a little bit and now it looks like I might actually have to work. It didn't help that I felt pretty flat from my normal competitive regimen. So it would have been safe to say that I was not necessarily setting my sights high on my performance.
Click here for a look at the pool round
With 25, we had another five fencer pool and pulled Kovanda as my A. Again, I got the privelege to fence the top guy in my pool right out of the gate. If you've read some of the other tournaments I have posted, you may have seen this name come up before. Kovanda is another one of those strong Nebraskans and I always admired how well he sold his feints. He is also pretty wily.
He got off to a strong start and racked up a couple of touches out of the gate. I managed to claw one back with some infighting and then he got another. I picked up another a little later on, but I had considerably slowed down the pace of the bout. He was happy to follow suit because he was in the lead. I make another attack and hit him on the thigh. Tied at three a piece and time expired shortly after that. I could see that he was pretty frustrated about it too. Priority went his way so the onus was on me to make something happen in that minute, but he found some counter time in my actions and got a touch to beat me 3-4. That was much more than I expected.
Of course, I had to follow up that tough bout with another. Musgrave is another name common to these accounts and while his primary weapon has been foil, his style makes him a remarkably strong epee fencer. It is usually a toss up who takes the bout and this time it was me, though by a scant margin.
My other two bouts were a little easier because they were the less experienced fencers in the pool and I ended up with a 3-1 record.
Click here for a look at the direct elmination table
This placed me 9th in the seeding and my first bout was an older gentleman I had been talking to earlier in the day. He was relatively new to the sport, so I kept things pretty simple. He had a good rally after the break, but I ended up winning the bout 15-5.
After that, I fenced a kid named Welsch. I never faced him before, but he seemed a little rough around the edges. His bag was counter attack from a defensive position, so I would back him up to the end of the strip and then go at him. It worked for the most part. Since I was stronger at infighting, his attempts to push back the distance also worked in my favor. However, I could tell that I wasn't really invested in the bout. I felt like I was toying with him when I should have been pressing the advantage.
Click to view(BTW, I'm the guy on the right)
Well, that is sometimes enough to fence sloppy and he started chipping away at the minor lead I had. On top of which, somewhere in the second period, I moved laterally and for the first time in the years I've fenced, I rolled my ankle. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The whole game changed for me because I was no longer fencing to win, but rather to keep from aggravating my injury... cursing the whole time to myself for doing something so bone-headed the day before I was to go up the Boundary Waters.
At the end of regulation, we were tied at 14-14. I think he got priority for the overtime, but it didn't matter as I made a half-hearted attack that he parried and finished me off. So, I lost the bout and part of me was grateful while another part of me was still cross from being careless and yet a third part of me dwelt on the fact that I should have beaten this kid. Anyway, my performance pretty much keep in the top 10, which wasn't bad considering how little I've competed this year... still... I should have beaten that kid.
Hobbling home
After the loss, I didn't waste a lot of time packing up and getting on the road. It was mid afternoon and I wanted some daylight to burn for the final packing session. So I said my goodbyes and beat a hasty retreat home. The drive back was interesting around the Iowa border due to some severe weather. About every five or ten minutes, the radio program would be interrupted with updates on the local tornado warnings. I was grateful that I seemed to be ahead of the main cell, but found it quite entertaining to see it roll in.
I did have to make a stop for gas and a few other things. By this time, not only had the adrenaline of bouting worn off, but I had basically been sitting for a couple of hours. Needless to say the ankle was a might tender. I bet I looked like some sort of idiot, limping around. When I got home, I spent about an hour icing it down before hobbling around to gather things for the camping trip.
Then I doped up with a couple of painkillers before I went to bed, hoping for the best in the morning.