The rocky road to uncertainty...
When you have no clue what you're doing, you tend to believe everything and nothing.
That's where I was a year and a half ago when I first started trying to learn how to fence. Of course, that's not to say I'm all that much better now, but at least I'm getting an idea of what does and does not work for me.
When people "baby" me, I don't learn. When the guys at Steel Therapy would fence me, they would take it super easy on me. I know they wanted to build my confidence, but when someone goes that easy on me, it feels wrong to use that "advantage" so I'd end up dying even when they moved like molasses.
I figured that out after the first time I fenced Fergus. He didn't steamroll me, but he made me work for any hits I got. It felt good. Because by NOT babying me, he made me feel like maybe I could really learn to fence and maybe someone else actually believed it too.
That's what I like about working with Ian. He breaks things down into basic terms when explaining them, but he doesn't baby me. When we fence, he hits hard and I have to work hard to get a hit in. And yes, I know he's holding back. I know that if he fenced me full out, I'd barely blink before I'd be dead. But even when I'm dying, I feel like I'm learning.
That's why this past Saturday at the demo was such a great day. Yeah, if I'd gone to the War Practice, people would not have gone easy on me, but I'd have lost early on in the tournament and then just stood there watching other people fence and suffering through melees. At the demo, I got to learn and feel like there's hope for improvement.
At the demo, I was given advice by three very good fencers on how to approach the off hand problems I've been having - three fencers for whom I have a great deal of respect. And yet, tonight, when Andreas stood there telling me all the reasons why I SHOULDN'T be doing what I told to do, I felt uncertain. Not in the advice that I was given....that I believe it. But I worried (am still worried) that I'm doing something wrong in the execution and THAT is why it seemed so wrong to him.
Well, I guess it's just a matter of Vladimir Lenin's frog in a well....and patience, miles and miles of patience.
That's where I was a year and a half ago when I first started trying to learn how to fence. Of course, that's not to say I'm all that much better now, but at least I'm getting an idea of what does and does not work for me.
When people "baby" me, I don't learn. When the guys at Steel Therapy would fence me, they would take it super easy on me. I know they wanted to build my confidence, but when someone goes that easy on me, it feels wrong to use that "advantage" so I'd end up dying even when they moved like molasses.
I figured that out after the first time I fenced Fergus. He didn't steamroll me, but he made me work for any hits I got. It felt good. Because by NOT babying me, he made me feel like maybe I could really learn to fence and maybe someone else actually believed it too.
That's what I like about working with Ian. He breaks things down into basic terms when explaining them, but he doesn't baby me. When we fence, he hits hard and I have to work hard to get a hit in. And yes, I know he's holding back. I know that if he fenced me full out, I'd barely blink before I'd be dead. But even when I'm dying, I feel like I'm learning.
That's why this past Saturday at the demo was such a great day. Yeah, if I'd gone to the War Practice, people would not have gone easy on me, but I'd have lost early on in the tournament and then just stood there watching other people fence and suffering through melees. At the demo, I got to learn and feel like there's hope for improvement.
At the demo, I was given advice by three very good fencers on how to approach the off hand problems I've been having - three fencers for whom I have a great deal of respect. And yet, tonight, when Andreas stood there telling me all the reasons why I SHOULDN'T be doing what I told to do, I felt uncertain. Not in the advice that I was given....that I believe it. But I worried (am still worried) that I'm doing something wrong in the execution and THAT is why it seemed so wrong to him.
Well, I guess it's just a matter of Vladimir Lenin's frog in a well....and patience, miles and miles of patience.