A very good weekend for New Brunswick and our club in particular. Apparently our province pulled in 23 medals from the tournament overall (out of a possible 48 I think), so kudos to all the fencers. I did pretty well - gold in women's foil and 10th in the Open Foil event (out of 32). Battered and bruised now and just a tiny bit sore, this is the last event until February I think. Lots of time to reflect and lots of stuff to work on.

Ok so after an uneventful road trip from Saint John, here we are in Halifax already. Well, technically we're in Dartmouth (across the bridge from Halifax). Can I just say that complimentary high speed internet access totally rocks. It's also complimentary high speed wireless access in the rooms but I'm glad I didn't bother bringing the laptop - I'll be fencing (or refereeing) all day this weekend anyway so it would've been a waste to lug it around. Now the room is just a tad on the cozy side (4 people + 2 double beds = not as much personal space as one would like), but they're clean. We've done the weapons checks, explored the hotel - and boredom is slowly setting in. I guess we'll just have to channel surf until we find something interesting to watch. Well, we should probably get an early night in anyway so we'll be well rested for tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be writing a positive update tomorrow evening.

Well, I'll be shortly on my way to Halifax to compete at the TriSword fencing competition. This event is kind of fun as there is a trophy for the top fencer in each category (Open Men, Open Women, U17 Men, U17 Women) in all 3 weapons. It's calculated based on your placing in each of the three weapons fenced. I won the TriSword trophy two years in a row - but that was years ago when I was competing in all 3 weapons regularly. Since then I've only been training in foil but I might give it another try this year anyway - if my knee holds up and I can summon the energy to fence all 3 weapons - we'll see. At the very least I'm there to compete in Foil and hope to gather as many points as possible and have fun doing so. Points and standings - my new goals ;-) Wish me luck!

Back from Halifax, somewhat battered and sore from the competition, but feeling very very good about my performance there. After the first round of pools I was ranked 5th/31 which meant I had to win one direct elimination bout to get into the Super 8 pool. With that behind me the Super 8 was an amazing round (even though I lost every match). The top eight is always my goal at any fencing competition (well in Foil anyway) and I'm slowly clawing my way up in points against the guys. There was at least 1 that I could have won (lost that one 5-4) and a second against a tough competitor that I came very close to winning (lost that one 5-4 as well). The final results for me were Gold in the Women's Foil event and 8th out of 31 in the Open Mixed Foil event. Now that's a much better placing than at the AQV tournament. This time, the big difference was that I let go of any niggling doubts or uncertainties; let go of second-guessing my actions and did not hold back at all. I just got into each match letting the action flow as it would. This helped enormously in terms of letting your body perform the reflex actions you've trained it to do as well as setting up the opponent to position yourself for the opportunity to perform those reflex actions. Letting go of all the mind chatter also helped in focusing on reading the opponent more clearly, doing some on-strip analysis and setting the direction of the bout.
Over all I learned a lot this weekend and am eager now to put it to use at the training hall tomorrow night.

So ends day 1 of the Aux Quatre Vents fencing tournament. Surprisingly for being the first tournament of the season for the Atlantic Fencing League, it wasn't that well attended - neither Nova Scotia or PEI came up to Dalhousie NB for this tournament, but it was still pretty fun. I was a bit disappointed in my showing for the Open Foil event (5 out of 17 I guess) but redeemed my standing in the Womens Foil Event (1 out of 6). Still - it's one of my goals to increase my Open Ranking so I'll just have to buckle down and do better in the mixed events. I'm not sure what the problem was today - I'll have to sit down and do some analysis with my coach, Rick Gosselin (hi Rick!!). Lack of focus perhaps, not enough intensity, heh - not very good point control obviously. All things to work on.

Tomorrow it'll be a day of refereeing the Under 17 Foil and then the long (5 hour) drive home. And who knows - perhaps I'll fence in the Open Sabre event tomorrow. I haven't decided on that yet.

What an amazing time I had at the Canadian Fencing Nationals in Montreal this weekend. I haven't competed at the Nat's since 2002 so I'd forgotten how big it was and how much fun. (and how much money I end up spending at the vendor tables *sigh* ) It's also some pretty tough competition. I figure, the general pools at the Nat's are like our Super Pools here in the Maritime League (yikes!). And I was lucky enough to get into a pool that contained both a National Team member and a former Olympian. My only regret was that one more point I failed to get to qualify for the Direct Elimination rounds. That would've been sweet - but, maybe next year. I will be satisfied with the high points of scoring 3 points on the olympian, winning a pool match, and selling the other ones not too cheaply. I only lost two matches 5-0 (which is not so good) but one of those was to the girl who would eventually win the gold medal in Women's Foil. So the results of my 6 pool comrades, one took gold, one took bronze, one was in the top 16 (and I got three points on her too), one came in 20th (she beat me 5-0), one came in 36th (I beat her) and one came in 38th (she beat me 5-4), and I came in 37th.

Now I'm really looking forward to the summer so I can work on some stuff for the next season.

Back from the provincials and it was a pretty fun weekend. This is a slightly better time of year for driving up to Bathurst as it's around a 4 hour drive or so and the days are fairly long now. It's also warmer up there so we're not going from springlike temps into snow on the ground (that's not fun at all). We had a really good turnout and the fencing was pretty intense. The whole event turned out to be enjoyable overall. It was just a little disappointing, though, to come in 2nd in the Open Women's Foil event. Technology unfortunately did me in as the scoring box wasn't reset so did not record my valid hit in the overtime tie breaker - grrrr. Really, it's only disappointing because so may people have a certain expectation of your performance and when you don't deliver, well, it's kind of a letdown. I didn't manage to get into the Open mixed Super 8 pool (which I've gotten used to making) either but I was pleased with a 9/33 placing in the overall mixed event. Anyway, no big deal. I know my abilities and am quite satisfied with how I've been fencing over this season. There's always room for improvement though so I'll have to put a plan together for next year. Right now, I'm focussing on Nationals which will be taking place in a couple of weeks and hopefully it'll be just as good a time.

Well, I'll be off soon to drive back up to Bathurst for our Provincial Championships this weekend. Should be a fairly well attended event and I'm just hoping I'll do well. It's always the same before every road trip - a mad rush to get everything organised and packed (yes, I still have to pack). But once I'm on the road it all seems to settle down. This'll be the final prep event for most of us before the Nationals in Montreal in 2 weeks - now that's something to get a little nerved up about.

So, wish me luck folks! I'll update you as soon as I'm back.

Well, thought I should catch up on the weekend event. The tournament is over and I'm happy about the results. I guess the good luck wishes helped :) For the open foil I finished 3rd out of 20 and in the women's event took the gold medal. As well, managing 5 out of 7 victories in the Super Pool is something of a major triumph for me, even if it was a weaker pool than usual. Being mentally prepared to fence as best you can is the biggest hurdle I've faced when in the Super 8 but this might just signal a corner about to be turned. We'll see at the next event.

Well, I'm in Bathurst this weekend for the Challenge Chaleur fencing tournament and yay the hotel we're staying at has free internet access :) I thought I'd be internet free this weekend but, well, I guess I just got lucky. Now, I hope I can get lucky on the piste and come away with at least an open foil medal too...I guess it'll depend on how tough the competition is. All in all it should be fun.

Coming up to Bathurst was more fun than I thought it would be. It reminded me of the going on trips with a van-load of kids from the good old days when I was team manager and we were dragging the kids to away trips around the Maritimes and in Quebec. So much fun. And always adventerous.

Tomorrow I'll be referreeing the age category Foil events and then Sunday I'll be competing in Open Foil. Wish me luck :)