The Icicle Classic
It's that time again where I regale you all with yarns about my excursions into the glamorous life of competitive fencing. This event takes us to exotic Lincoln, NE where Omaha is suitably mutual and the corn is decidedly husked.
I cut out of work early to meet up with Chris for the ride down. It was a pretty nice day, but we wanted to get moving in order to beat some of the rush hour traffic out of the cities. I cannot help but recall the excursion we made last year where the weather was pretty much the antithesis of the sunny day we were enjoying. Hell, I even had to break out my sunglasses for a good hour.
Not until we made our approach on Des Moines did we realize that the weather was not so grand. The skies became more and more grey and though the roads were clear, there was a heavy presence of DOT plows on the road dumping enough salt to recreate salinity of the Dead Seas in the area.
Further still, in the darkness of the night, we saw the occasional husk of a car or truck silhouetted in the gloom on the side of the road or in the middle divider. I think the topper was the tractor trailer overturned off the side of an entrance ramp where we stopped to fill up for gas. It was almost entirely wheels up and looked bad enough for me to consider stopping to make sure the accident wasn’t recent.
In any case there was certainly some weather akin to last year’s mess that had passed through. I was more than happy to miss the shank end of it this time around.
We got the hotel in and about 10:30 and the desk was unattended when we tried to check in. After a couple of minutes, the night manager showed up from employee areas unknown and ended up having to hurdle the desk because she had locked herself out. Her grace, were it to be characterized in music, would have been composed by Philip Glass, counter pointed by the sound of the metal sign she knocked over twice in the ordeal.
Once checked in, I was pretty much through for the day and tucked myself in for the night.
They were doing mixed foil on Saturday and my love/hate relationship with it continued as I could not get two functional weapons ready in preparation for the event. So I spent the day watching other people fence as well as catch up any number of the regulars I meet at these regional gatherings. It was a pretty good turnout and the weather was equally lovely to boot. It was almost a shame to spend it inside.
Since I skipped a decent breakfast on the account of not having to fence that day, I ducked out with one of my friends from Des Moines in search for some lunch after the mixed foil pools wrapped up.
Nebraska does not really have a high population density, not even near its capital. However, what they lack in people, they make up for in roadway. Our foraging attempts took us in a rough semicircle around the perimeter of Lincoln and failing to find anywhere viable to eat, we drove right into the heart of downtown and the restaurant district known as the Haymarket.
As with any metropolis, we had difficulty finding adequate parking ending up a few blocks off the main strip. On the plus side, the meters were very generous for the coinage. A short walk later found us at one of several sandwich joints and though a gyro sounded tasty, I went with a nice Italian hoagie.
We got back to the venue and I resumed my bout watching activities. In addition to the mixed foil, they fit in women’s foil and women’s saber on the same day. This meant there was always something going on in addition to the general people watching was doing.
The events wrapped up around 5:00 and the organizers had reserved an area at a bar in the Haymarket for those who wanted to gather together for dinner. This sounded right up our alley and after we retired back to our room so that Chris could get himself showered and changed, I set back out to downtown Lincoln.
This time I just found a parking deck instead of trying to find an empty spot on the street. Brewsky’s was just down the street in what looked to be a row of renovated warehouses. The party was downstairs and we met up with them in short order. I grabbed a drink and started chatting up with the folks at the table.
Sarah is a lady from the Lincoln club that I’ve run into in epee competitions on occasion. At about my height with curly black hair, she is pretty unmistakable… also in the fact that she is one of the more aggressive female fencers I know. Last time I bumped into her, she was just enrolled into an equestrian college down in Missouri. She was up, along with her roommate Holly so I got to learn a little bit about horsemanship as well as dressage.
I also learned that with the relatively large party going on down here, our server was running the show on separate checks. Egads. I can only imagine the night she was going through taking orders, running them separately and… at times… tracking down the person who put the order in because they were milling about.
Anyway, after I was fed, I decided to shoot a couple of games of pool. There were a couple of tables and though I wasn’t on my A-game, my shots improved as I got warmed up. I was also invited to play some foosball by a friend, Dan. Now my experience with the game was very limited but didn’t think I was out of my depth.
That is, until the first drop. Dan, apparently, was an expert… enough to go on competition circuits it would seem. That first play basically consisted of a drop and an immediate shot for a goal. It then became a series of attempts on my part to just keep him from scoring, each of which required a few goals on his part for me to catch on. Whenever I got possession, it was brief and uncontrolled. I was, to put simply, schooled.
The second game, we get two more and played doubles. Play was a little better because Dan had limited access to the ball, but it was still a rout to his team’s favor. I didn’t mind this so much because I was his teammate.
The night drew on and Chris and I decided that it would be smart to turn in. Epee was at 9:00 the next morning and didn’t see the reason to fence tired if we had a choice in the matter.
The next morning, I get up and grab some breakfast at the Perkins next to the hotel. I get my usual, eggs benedict. It remains the right blend of food groups for me to see it at the ideal dish prior to a tournament. I then meet back up with Chris and we grab out gear together, check out, and head back to the venue.
In addition to testing the mask for safety, they also required us to test our body cords as well. It’s nice in the sense that you know that they work. It sucks in the fact that it forces you to fix them should there be a problem. One of the two I had with me was on the shaky side of operational, but I soon fixed it into submission enough to pass inspection.
This being a Heartland Circuit event, the turnout was pretty solid. There were 48 of us there along with a deep bench of talent to trade metal. Coming into the tournament, though I was seeded near the middle because of my classification, I was standing at first place in the Heartland Circuit points because I was one of the few who has gone to all the events so far.
When we got started, I soon realized how this tournament would play out because my pool contained a laundry list of nemeses and unknowns.
First up was Lisa. I have spoken about her before. In fact, I think I’ve fenced her in every single Heartland event this year. Don’t get me wrong. I love to fence her, but I cannot help but wonder if these are chance encounters or staged… the bout itself played out much like the others where I come out to a strong lead and then flag to the point that we end up tied 4-4. I came out on top this time around, but this skin-of-the-teeth stuff isn’t going to pay off for very long.
Katie was next up. She fences at the Lincoln club and has really come into her own over the last couple of years. Even I was surprised that she had earned her B recently. This led me to approach the bout with a lot of caution. I was right to do so because I quickly identified her strategy for me. Though she was searching for my blade and making some small attacks, these were all preparations to draw me into a counterattack. Had I been aggressive from the outset, I would have probably been working from a deficit. However, the extra time I took allowed me to catch her blade in motion so that I could put it out of harm’s way when I attacked. 5-2.
Another favorite from the hit parade is Chris. Not the guy from my club, but the teen at the Des Moines clubs. I seem to cross swords with him as much as Lisa these days. One of those tall, lanky types, Chris likes to put on moderate pressure and then surprise his opponent with a strong defense. He managed to work out a 1-4 advantage on me using this strategy, hinged on the fact that his jacket is deceptively loose on his body. I finally switched up some things to tie it up at 4-4, but could not pull off the last touch and lost.
Samantha was next on my dance card. Again, I’ve had a lot of experience with this fencer so I was smart enough not to blindly charge in. She is very weak in footwork but makes up for it with unerring point control. Cheat too close and she’ll pick off your hand. Attack to quickly and she’ll hit you with a counterattack. Not falling for the trap, I found some mid-range stuff to put me over the top 5-3.
Last up was Brandt. Had I not heard the name the night before I would have seen him as any other unrated fencer. However, the stories told to me by Steve, the coach at his fencing club in Des Moines, Brandt had been a strong competitor in the 70s and 80s. Now just getting back to the sport, his club mates talked him into coming out to the tournament.
Brandt’s my height and a lefty to boot. Aggressive too. In fact, I had watched him press the others in my pool to understand that he likes to try to intimidate his opponent. I responded by keeping the distance open. It worked to a fashion allowing me the time to respond with some quick bladework. I had eked out a 1-3 lead when he started to turn the tables on me. Again, I found myself in a 4-4 situation and failed to pull out a victory.
With a 3-2 record in a tournament like this, I had a day of fighting my way upwards ahead of me. Yep, 23rd… Rats.
My first DE was against a guy named Matt. I’d seen him at a couple of tournaments before but haven’t had the pleasure of fencing him. I almost didn’t because I got to a quick lead in the first period. Sitting on an 8-2 advantage it really seemed liked I was cowing the guy a bit. Nothing wrong with that particularly, but I did open up my game a bit to see if I could get him to come out of his shell. It made for a fun bout and I eventually won 15-8.
And wouldn’t you know whom my next bout was against but my foosball adversary, Dan. It was if the tides of karma washed him right onto my shores. He was seeded tenth however so there were no guarantees on the outcome. I had fenced him before and knew that he is pretty stiff competition.
He came at me too and in the beginning I was able to keep the distance open and take an early lead in the bout. By the end of the first period I was ahead 8-4. He started to find a distance that worked for him better and while still pushing me back, took the lead 10-12 at the end of the second period.
Since my tactic no longer worked as well as conditioned him to expect me to retreat from his pressure, I decided to attack into him for the third period. Needless to say, it took him completely off guard. Before he had time to adjust and think things through I had not only caught up, but completely turned the tables on him with four points in a row. He did manage a nice touch when he stopped his forward motion to make it 14-13 but I got the next touch to win 15-13. It was a tough bout and certainly a gamble had my tactic in the third period not panned out.
The next bout was against another Dan. He’s one of those teenagers… eight-foot twelve and still growing with a frame of frenetic sinew the thickness of paper. His style was unconventional, almost uncoordinated, but controlled. I get the impression that he has just found out how to put everything together but doesn’t quite know why it works. Of course what’s to question when something is working, right?
I tried any number of things but couldn’t find a hole, opening or weakness. Part of me felt like I used up all my mojo with the last Dan. It felt disappointing losing to him 7-15 because I knew I could have done better. I do have ideas, but we’ll just have to see how it pans out next time I face him.
I ended up placing 16th. Not my usual tied for third, but respectable from where I was starting. That, and the tournament actually felt fun to me. You can’t go wrong there.
The trip back was uneventful and I got home shortly after 11:30, eager for bed and what the week lay ahead.
I cut out of work early to meet up with Chris for the ride down. It was a pretty nice day, but we wanted to get moving in order to beat some of the rush hour traffic out of the cities. I cannot help but recall the excursion we made last year where the weather was pretty much the antithesis of the sunny day we were enjoying. Hell, I even had to break out my sunglasses for a good hour.
Not until we made our approach on Des Moines did we realize that the weather was not so grand. The skies became more and more grey and though the roads were clear, there was a heavy presence of DOT plows on the road dumping enough salt to recreate salinity of the Dead Seas in the area.
Further still, in the darkness of the night, we saw the occasional husk of a car or truck silhouetted in the gloom on the side of the road or in the middle divider. I think the topper was the tractor trailer overturned off the side of an entrance ramp where we stopped to fill up for gas. It was almost entirely wheels up and looked bad enough for me to consider stopping to make sure the accident wasn’t recent.
In any case there was certainly some weather akin to last year’s mess that had passed through. I was more than happy to miss the shank end of it this time around.
We got the hotel in and about 10:30 and the desk was unattended when we tried to check in. After a couple of minutes, the night manager showed up from employee areas unknown and ended up having to hurdle the desk because she had locked herself out. Her grace, were it to be characterized in music, would have been composed by Philip Glass, counter pointed by the sound of the metal sign she knocked over twice in the ordeal.
Once checked in, I was pretty much through for the day and tucked myself in for the night.
They were doing mixed foil on Saturday and my love/hate relationship with it continued as I could not get two functional weapons ready in preparation for the event. So I spent the day watching other people fence as well as catch up any number of the regulars I meet at these regional gatherings. It was a pretty good turnout and the weather was equally lovely to boot. It was almost a shame to spend it inside.
Since I skipped a decent breakfast on the account of not having to fence that day, I ducked out with one of my friends from Des Moines in search for some lunch after the mixed foil pools wrapped up.
Nebraska does not really have a high population density, not even near its capital. However, what they lack in people, they make up for in roadway. Our foraging attempts took us in a rough semicircle around the perimeter of Lincoln and failing to find anywhere viable to eat, we drove right into the heart of downtown and the restaurant district known as the Haymarket.
As with any metropolis, we had difficulty finding adequate parking ending up a few blocks off the main strip. On the plus side, the meters were very generous for the coinage. A short walk later found us at one of several sandwich joints and though a gyro sounded tasty, I went with a nice Italian hoagie.
We got back to the venue and I resumed my bout watching activities. In addition to the mixed foil, they fit in women’s foil and women’s saber on the same day. This meant there was always something going on in addition to the general people watching was doing.
The events wrapped up around 5:00 and the organizers had reserved an area at a bar in the Haymarket for those who wanted to gather together for dinner. This sounded right up our alley and after we retired back to our room so that Chris could get himself showered and changed, I set back out to downtown Lincoln.
This time I just found a parking deck instead of trying to find an empty spot on the street. Brewsky’s was just down the street in what looked to be a row of renovated warehouses. The party was downstairs and we met up with them in short order. I grabbed a drink and started chatting up with the folks at the table.
Sarah is a lady from the Lincoln club that I’ve run into in epee competitions on occasion. At about my height with curly black hair, she is pretty unmistakable… also in the fact that she is one of the more aggressive female fencers I know. Last time I bumped into her, she was just enrolled into an equestrian college down in Missouri. She was up, along with her roommate Holly so I got to learn a little bit about horsemanship as well as dressage.
I also learned that with the relatively large party going on down here, our server was running the show on separate checks. Egads. I can only imagine the night she was going through taking orders, running them separately and… at times… tracking down the person who put the order in because they were milling about.
Anyway, after I was fed, I decided to shoot a couple of games of pool. There were a couple of tables and though I wasn’t on my A-game, my shots improved as I got warmed up. I was also invited to play some foosball by a friend, Dan. Now my experience with the game was very limited but didn’t think I was out of my depth.
That is, until the first drop. Dan, apparently, was an expert… enough to go on competition circuits it would seem. That first play basically consisted of a drop and an immediate shot for a goal. It then became a series of attempts on my part to just keep him from scoring, each of which required a few goals on his part for me to catch on. Whenever I got possession, it was brief and uncontrolled. I was, to put simply, schooled.
The second game, we get two more and played doubles. Play was a little better because Dan had limited access to the ball, but it was still a rout to his team’s favor. I didn’t mind this so much because I was his teammate.
The night drew on and Chris and I decided that it would be smart to turn in. Epee was at 9:00 the next morning and didn’t see the reason to fence tired if we had a choice in the matter.
The next morning, I get up and grab some breakfast at the Perkins next to the hotel. I get my usual, eggs benedict. It remains the right blend of food groups for me to see it at the ideal dish prior to a tournament. I then meet back up with Chris and we grab out gear together, check out, and head back to the venue.
In addition to testing the mask for safety, they also required us to test our body cords as well. It’s nice in the sense that you know that they work. It sucks in the fact that it forces you to fix them should there be a problem. One of the two I had with me was on the shaky side of operational, but I soon fixed it into submission enough to pass inspection.
This being a Heartland Circuit event, the turnout was pretty solid. There were 48 of us there along with a deep bench of talent to trade metal. Coming into the tournament, though I was seeded near the middle because of my classification, I was standing at first place in the Heartland Circuit points because I was one of the few who has gone to all the events so far.
When we got started, I soon realized how this tournament would play out because my pool contained a laundry list of nemeses and unknowns.
First up was Lisa. I have spoken about her before. In fact, I think I’ve fenced her in every single Heartland event this year. Don’t get me wrong. I love to fence her, but I cannot help but wonder if these are chance encounters or staged… the bout itself played out much like the others where I come out to a strong lead and then flag to the point that we end up tied 4-4. I came out on top this time around, but this skin-of-the-teeth stuff isn’t going to pay off for very long.
Katie was next up. She fences at the Lincoln club and has really come into her own over the last couple of years. Even I was surprised that she had earned her B recently. This led me to approach the bout with a lot of caution. I was right to do so because I quickly identified her strategy for me. Though she was searching for my blade and making some small attacks, these were all preparations to draw me into a counterattack. Had I been aggressive from the outset, I would have probably been working from a deficit. However, the extra time I took allowed me to catch her blade in motion so that I could put it out of harm’s way when I attacked. 5-2.
Another favorite from the hit parade is Chris. Not the guy from my club, but the teen at the Des Moines clubs. I seem to cross swords with him as much as Lisa these days. One of those tall, lanky types, Chris likes to put on moderate pressure and then surprise his opponent with a strong defense. He managed to work out a 1-4 advantage on me using this strategy, hinged on the fact that his jacket is deceptively loose on his body. I finally switched up some things to tie it up at 4-4, but could not pull off the last touch and lost.
Samantha was next on my dance card. Again, I’ve had a lot of experience with this fencer so I was smart enough not to blindly charge in. She is very weak in footwork but makes up for it with unerring point control. Cheat too close and she’ll pick off your hand. Attack to quickly and she’ll hit you with a counterattack. Not falling for the trap, I found some mid-range stuff to put me over the top 5-3.
Last up was Brandt. Had I not heard the name the night before I would have seen him as any other unrated fencer. However, the stories told to me by Steve, the coach at his fencing club in Des Moines, Brandt had been a strong competitor in the 70s and 80s. Now just getting back to the sport, his club mates talked him into coming out to the tournament.
Brandt’s my height and a lefty to boot. Aggressive too. In fact, I had watched him press the others in my pool to understand that he likes to try to intimidate his opponent. I responded by keeping the distance open. It worked to a fashion allowing me the time to respond with some quick bladework. I had eked out a 1-3 lead when he started to turn the tables on me. Again, I found myself in a 4-4 situation and failed to pull out a victory.
With a 3-2 record in a tournament like this, I had a day of fighting my way upwards ahead of me. Yep, 23rd… Rats.
My first DE was against a guy named Matt. I’d seen him at a couple of tournaments before but haven’t had the pleasure of fencing him. I almost didn’t because I got to a quick lead in the first period. Sitting on an 8-2 advantage it really seemed liked I was cowing the guy a bit. Nothing wrong with that particularly, but I did open up my game a bit to see if I could get him to come out of his shell. It made for a fun bout and I eventually won 15-8.
And wouldn’t you know whom my next bout was against but my foosball adversary, Dan. It was if the tides of karma washed him right onto my shores. He was seeded tenth however so there were no guarantees on the outcome. I had fenced him before and knew that he is pretty stiff competition.
He came at me too and in the beginning I was able to keep the distance open and take an early lead in the bout. By the end of the first period I was ahead 8-4. He started to find a distance that worked for him better and while still pushing me back, took the lead 10-12 at the end of the second period.
Since my tactic no longer worked as well as conditioned him to expect me to retreat from his pressure, I decided to attack into him for the third period. Needless to say, it took him completely off guard. Before he had time to adjust and think things through I had not only caught up, but completely turned the tables on him with four points in a row. He did manage a nice touch when he stopped his forward motion to make it 14-13 but I got the next touch to win 15-13. It was a tough bout and certainly a gamble had my tactic in the third period not panned out.
The next bout was against another Dan. He’s one of those teenagers… eight-foot twelve and still growing with a frame of frenetic sinew the thickness of paper. His style was unconventional, almost uncoordinated, but controlled. I get the impression that he has just found out how to put everything together but doesn’t quite know why it works. Of course what’s to question when something is working, right?
I tried any number of things but couldn’t find a hole, opening or weakness. Part of me felt like I used up all my mojo with the last Dan. It felt disappointing losing to him 7-15 because I knew I could have done better. I do have ideas, but we’ll just have to see how it pans out next time I face him.
I ended up placing 16th. Not my usual tied for third, but respectable from where I was starting. That, and the tournament actually felt fun to me. You can’t go wrong there.
The trip back was uneventful and I got home shortly after 11:30, eager for bed and what the week lay ahead.