so. the second thing i saw upon stepping off the plane in reno was the coolest thing i’ve ever seen in my life. the first thing i saw upon stepping off the plane in reno was this:
that’s not a casino. that’s the freaking airport.
anyway, the second thing i saw was this!
this was the first of many, many signs throughout the city celebrating fencing. it really gave me some warm fuzzies to see an entire city decked out in love for my obscure sport. when you’re used to blank stares when you try to describe your hobby to people, it’s a nice change to walk around a city that has an irish pub with a sandwich board advertising free drinks for fencers and drugstores with signs blinking “WELCOME FENCERS” and advertising half-price gatorade.
HerrKommandant, former president of the UI fencing club and now the des moines junior coach, later pointed out that the “fencer” posing for the 12-foot banners all over the airport was wearing an epee jacket and a saber mask. but hey, points for trying!
the coolest mask-check stamp my mask has collected so far!
6000 athletes! such a big tournament, yet such a small world. i ran into fencers i had met from Chicago, Portland, and St. Louis. Our coach, who has been fencing for over 30 years, seemed to know about half the people in the convention center.
She also had 10 fencers in 20 events over the 10-day tournament. at one point, she had three of us in three separate events at the same time. between coaching, repairs, chatting with a few thousand people, and pre-event lessons and warm-ups, She. Was. Busy. actually, about the only times she got to sit still were on the rare occasions that she had only one fencer to coach, and she could just sit and watch the fencing and coach during breaks. here she is coaching SonicBoom during her second epee DE in the Div III event:
SonicBoom couldn't fence in Div II epee, not because she didn't qualify, but because it conflicted with her two saber events:
the other saberist from our club who went to nationals, MadLib, did some damned fine fencing, too (he’s on the left):
SonicBoom and MadLib are also a couple. because iowa needs more 7-1/2 foot tall children.
This is AbsolutZen (on the right), who consistently delivers the calmest, most gentle ass-kickings you'll ever get:
and finally, this is Capo95 (on the right.) His favorite thing to do is force you to infight. apparently, this was also his opponent's favorite thing to do, because the entire bout consisted of mirror-image infighting moves:
so, the fencing was awesome. one of the best parts of the whole experience was that the Pan-American games were being held at the same time, so i got front-row seats to several events where i got to watch the olympic teams of north and south america fence. holy shit, was that inspiring. and sexy as fuck!
As for my events: as expected, i took a pretty good ass-pounding in Div I epee. i only had one 5-0 defeat, and the rest were 5-1 or even 5-2. Div II went really well – i won a bout, and came damn close on two others at 5-4 and 4-4. Div III, i didn't do nearly as well as i would have liked, and not quite as well as i did in Div II. some of it was nerves ("this is my last event! i have to do better! it's now or never! this is an easier event, so it's more embarrassing if i don't do well!") but hey, for only training in epee for a few months, i was pretty damned pleased with myself. i'm pretty sure i'm sticking with epee. SonicBoom and AbsolutZen and I are planning on forming a women's epee team and qualifying for the team event at nationals next summer in Houston. Now we just need a good team name. of course, we could be "The Iowa City Fencing Center Women's Epee Team," but that's just too station-wagon. we need a lamborghini name. something fun. something iowa. something memorable. like "The Cornholes!" SonicBoom and i figure we just might get that one approved by Coach, on the off-chance that she doesn't know why it's tasteless!
