change comes slowly

I know that a lot of you are looking forward to hearing about the progress that I am making on the Olympic campaign.

The truth is that things are going slowly and progress is made in steps (as they should be). It's kind of like the presidential race. Things are sort of about fundraising, getting your name out there, trial and error because the big race comes months before the election. Things will begin to pick up but it's best not to spin your wheels too much before the big push. And in my case the big push is the Olympics.

These past four world cups have been a lot about self-discovery and finding my own groove again. I think everyone, including myself, wanted me to jump into things and win everything right away. I have learned that first of all, that isn't realistic and secondly, there are some things I have had to work through to come this far.

This is not to say that I am not doing well or working towards my goals. The reality is that I have been steadily climbing up the world ranking ladder and making some very key changes in my mental and physical game. I have become much stronger in both areas since this adventure started.

The bottomline is that I am truly happy at this moment with my progress. I am really thankful for this opportunity and consider it successful in learning more about myself and my reactions to stressful situations. I think we don't truly know who we are unless we test ourself and it is what we do with this information and the change we can produce that is a true measure of our inner strength. It's sometimes hard to describe to people what is going on internally and to reassure everyone that I am right on track.

I have learned a lot of the lessons in the past few weeks and I want to share some of them with you.

1. You must have unwaivering faith in yourself. There will always be onlookers, backseat drivers, and nay sayers but if you become your best advocate you are more powerful than the negative energy thrown your way.

2. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and get rid of the people who doubt you or try to sabbotage you. The trick is figuring out who these people are but if you have number one down then you should be able to make a strong decision.

3. You are your most powerful ally and most powerful enemy. If you constantly fight yourself then you cannot progress.

4. Working from a space of happiness and positive energy is much more effective than driving yourself through negative feedback. Your physical and mental self reacts differently to

"You have to practice more because you can't do anything right."

than it does to

"You should work on this specific thing because it will make you even better, stronger, and faster than you already are."

If you work from the positive you can only make your progress more positive.

It's amazing how many times I try to force myself to get better through fear or negative self talk and in the end the progress has no real foundation.

5. Trust the decisions that you make for yourself. Everyone works differently and it is inevitable that everyone has varying opinions of what you should do. If you trust your decision then it becomes the "right" decision.

6. If you want to succeed at life you have to see failure as a temporary state of being and success as a permanent state. How can you possibly win if you cannot see yourself as a winner?

7. Dwelling on positive factors of life and turning bad situations into positive situations will help to attract more positive energy your way. In the beginning I would focus on the things I didn't have and what wasn't going right for me but once I turned my thinking around and started dwelling on all of my strong and positive attributes it increased my fencing ability ten fold. Once you believe in yourself and become your own best advocate, there won't be a limit to what you are capable of doing.

Alright, seven things. I think they all have some of the same themes but I think you get the point.

Hopefully I will learn more this weekend in France for the next blog.

I leave Budapest tomorrow morning for a world cup and team event in Marseille. From Marseille I am going to Spain. I am actually taking a few days to visit a friend in Salamanca before going back home on the 30th.

Budapest and some photos

Yes folks, I am in Hungary. I'm staying in an apartment in Budapest for a few days before we leave for France.

A photo of the apartment below. Hanna and I are sitting on one of the couches in the living room.



Yeah, that's what we look like after two weeks of traveling and fencing in Europe. Don't laugh.

Emily took some photos of us on our European tour and I wanted to share some with you.

Here's one of Hanna and I with two German fencers. Anja, on the right is currently one of the top ranked fencers in the world.



The next photo is of me on the train from St. Petersburg to Moscow.



And last but not least is a photo of me standing in front of our family store in Germany. Just kidding. Zimmermann is a popular German name, kind of like Smith in the States, and there are a chain of stores named Zimmermann. I am not really sure what the store is or what they sell, but it's pretty neat.



I hope you enjoyed the photos. I promise that my blog will be less superficial soon. I have just been a little busy fencing, packing, and shlepping my fencing bag around Eastern Europe.