Countdown...one week until lift off

The latest national/international camp at the Rochester Fencing Club finished this past Sunday. Like the Rochester airport, I am allowed to call this an international camp because there were Canadians here. Then you ask-Iris, if the camp ended on Sunday why haven't you blogged in a few days? The answer is-I feel like I haven't had a moment's rest in the past two weeks. I'm not complaining-I rather be doing this than sitting in an office cubicle everyday.

For this blog post I have a few issues to bring up:

1. The new Sesame Street character "Iris the Scary Fencing Monster".

2. Billie Jean King, take two

3. Countdown to World Championships

Issue One

During the camp I had some of the fencers videotape the women's foil team in order to evaluate strengths and weaknesses of our games. Sometimes watching videotapes can be sort of demoralizing because it shows every painful fault of your game. This time around was no different. Like every top level athlete I am a perfectionist, so I cringed with every drop of the shoulder, a lazy move, or improper judgement of timing and distance. Most of all, I was caught off guard by how scary I looked on the strip.

Yes folks, I am 5'8" and xxx lbs. (a lady never reveals her weight) of scariness. I had no idea. Rather than elegant, I thought I was elephant on the strip. Does the camera add ten pounds or am I just THAT much bigger than the rest of the USA women's foil team?

I panicked and thought to myself that this can't be good. I felt like I was probably exposing too much of my target as I come forward and try to push my opponent into making a mistake. While I take a lot of risks trying to be more aggressive, a lot of the shorter and smaller women are more patient and wait for an opportunity or opening. So what is the right answer for fencing? Is it better to be tall and big or short and small?

There are girls on other teams that are tall and athletic like myself, Russians, Chinese, and Germans (interestingly enough I am a combo of German and Chinese). The Chinese and Russian teams used to seek out the tallest girls to fence because the length was more of an advantage. The Japanese, Italian, and Romanian teams have shorter women who move very quickly and effectively.

Analysis for short women: they tend to move faster and have less target area.
Analysis for tall women: have more length and are more often stronger than their shorter opponents.

The real answer is that fencing is a neat sport because you can be any body type and fence according to your own physical and emotional strengths. The sport itself is pretty accomodating to everyone's abilities.

In the end I guess it's a good thing if I scare my opponents. Just as long as I score more touches than they do. It might not be all that pretty but I get my point across (all puns intended).

Issue Two

There have been several comments about the Billie Jean King blog. Darius, a fencer at the RFC, actually wrote a long comment with some questions. My answer to him is that women and men should not compete against each other but rather recognize that women and men play sports differently. Therefore, it's time to compare women to women rather than the traditional, "she plays like a man so of course she's good" .

Issue Three

I leave for Torino, Italy, the site of the 2006 Fencing World Championships, next Tuesday. I compete on September 30th, October 1st, and again on the 5th. Things are getting sort of hectic in Rochester and I'm getting those pre-competition jitters. Self-doubt has a great way of getting louder as you get closer to the moment of performance.