Sunday, April 08, 2007

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! It's a fine Sunday morning at State College, PA with two inches of snow on the ground. I'm hoping for a quick turn around of the weather so I can make the 4 hour drive back to Rochester without an issue.

Quick story about the weekend. On Friday afternoon I drove down to Penn State to fence and visit with some of my friends. The fencing has been great and seeing my good friends after so long has been good for the soul. But there is one moment in particular on Friday that made me realize how far I've come with my fencing.

Friday's practice was a practice like any other. There was fencing, there was fun, there was learning, etc. Then, at the end of practice four of the guys decided that I needed a little challenge, a team of four of them would fence against team Iris Zimmermann. Yup, four against one and I am not sure at the moment they asked that I believed that I could actually make it to twenty touches.

The first fencer got up to fence me, I beat him 5-3.
The second fencer got up to fence me, I beat him 5-2 and the score is now team Iris 10 and the four man team 5.
The third fencer got up to fence me, I score only 1 to his 2 points but then time ran out. The score was now 11-6.
Then the final fencer, the anchor of their team, starts to fence me. And for some reason something clicked and I scored 9 points to make the win 20-7.

I couldn't believe it. When I walked off the strip I was in awe-how did I beat four guys at the end of practice? Granted-the guys that I fenced were not in their best shape and haven't been training like I have, but still. You would think that they would at least make it to 10.

Needless to say, I had my own Billie Jean King moment and loved every minute of it. Take that, boys.
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3 comments:

spamchang said...

would it be fair to say that a more egalitarian mind would have thought, "all in a day's work?" =P i mean, you're you, and they're...not at your level, apparently =)

rowing is quite different. sheer physiology takes over there. but here? shoot, you wiped the floor with them, it looks like!

1:52 AM
Iris said...

Haha. Yes, perhaps I should have been more humble about this experience but I couldn't help it. These guys were such good sports about the whole situation and to be honest, they went into the situation thinking that they were going to win hands down. I mean, the odds were stacked against me.

It's taken me a lot to get to this point where I can actually pat myself on the back for something. I am okay with a little celebration from time to time because some overachievers suffer from what I like to call, "I am never enough" mentality.

Thanks for the comment!

8:11 AM
spamchang said...

lol my apologies then. i get the asian modesty overdrive syndrome all the time, although these days there's less to be modest about and more to work on...

p.s. i finally started bookmarking everyone's blog so i can read these things regularly and read responses to the comments! :P it's definitely more fun.

7:20 AM

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