Completing the circle

It is quoted in Isaiah, "the race is not to the strong, nor to the swift, but they who endures to the end . "

One thing, I can say about fencing saber is that "speed kills" but good skills kill faster. Many saberists try to use speed to disguise their lack of physical control and lack of basic skills. Speed will come but without skills you be very sloppy and unbalanced . If it is one thing that I am grateful to Maestro Stawicki is his focus on the basics. Because of that focus, I was able to escape many a tight spot I was able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat .

Remember the old joke about " How do you get to Carnegie hall?" The answer was practice, practice, practice. Practice will get you the perfect combination of speed and skill that will be required to advance to nationals. I have only been fencing since 2004 and I made my first nationals last year. How did I do ? On that Friday of nationals, I pulled "a Tiger Woods " failing to make the cut in DIV 2 after going in to my pool bout ranked well. It was a crushing experience. The combination of poor diet and nerves was enough to do me in. Fortunately, I was able to recover on Saturday winning 3 bouts in the DIV 3 pools and advancing to Direct Eliminations. In my first DE, I won 15-14 but I lost my 2nd DE 15-8. As a results I finished the day in DIV 3 ranked 53 out of 107 competitors. That is a good showing and I learned a lot.

What I learned was how to pace myself and play my game, not someone else's. Last August, I put this to good use as I participated in the 2006 Summer Bluegrass State Games in Fencing. Due to my experience at Nationals, I was able to win 4 bouts, losing only 3 to higher rated fencers. The Gold medal for Women's Saber was decided in the quarterfinals after I defeated my fellow team member 15-5.

This Saturday, I will be back at it again. It is the divisionals and I will be applying the lessons of the past . As I said before, the race is not given to the swift or the strong, but to she who endures til the end. And in the end nothing else will matter.