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[Arx]

someone who I think is the current national champion

This guy? He sort-of at random decided that since he's a nice guy and he reckons the current batch of new fencers have potential, he'll coach us for free. Which is pretty great because I'm pretty sure it's what he does for a living, and he's a very good coach.

[Arx]

Not training until next Wednesday or Thursday. Partly because I don't have an opportunity, partly because I strained my hip at the tournament on the weekend and rolled my ankle at training last night. Every now and then I absent-mindedly plant my leading foot square, and though I don't do it often apparently it's enough.

On the plus side, I'm improving rapidly. I'm increasingly confident in bouts, and last night I was managing to identify openings in my opponents fairly confidently. On the minus side, I'm still not sure how to take them without getting countered.

Edit: Further inspection reveals that I did not roll my ankle. Rather, one of the foot shots I took hit rather harder than I thought at the time. There's a bruise the size of a hen's egg, and it broke the skin slightly through my sock. Phew.

[inteuniso]

On the minus side, I'm still not sure how to take them without getting countered.

Well, they probably know their openings as well, right? I've always learned in strategy games that the ideal move is a feint to draw a counter which you parry and follow with your attack. Again, same problem as before: how do you get them to do that?

Keep practicing, keep learning positions you find yourself in and how to move through them, focus on endurance training? If you can still be sharp after a few hours of intensive exercise you're more prepared than 9 out of 10 people.

[Arx]

I should have clarified, I can often accurately call something that will allow me to land a hit. I just can't always stop my opponent hitting me at the same time.

[inteuniso]

I can give you no other advice besides practice and develop your body to last longer so you can just counter them until they're more tired than you then they can't hit you at the same time.

EDIT: Every strategy/tactic is designed to counter strategies/tactics in some way or another, and the development of the art through millenia of business/conflict/sex/war has led to 12+ orders/steps of counters. Refer to DoTA 2, Go, and sex.

Source: 22-year old virgin that's never had a girlfriend. Had plenty of time for the other stuff. Still recognize that well-developed intimate relationships are basically the pinnacle of living.

EDIT 2: Everything else (hiking across a volcanic island in a desperate race to make your flight on time, inventing new production method for space-age materials, sculpting a masterpiece work of art, writing a nice letter) is really cool to experience too, but a well-developed intimate relationship (hypothetically) wouldn't interfere, and can even reinforce, with all of those things happening.

[Arx]

I can give you no other advice besides practice and develop your body to last longer so you can just counter them until they're more tired than you then they can't hit you at the same time.

Mate, bouts can last nine minutes at the absolute maximum (barring timing shenanigans). In some formats, if it goes more than a minute with no points scored, the round is ended right there. Endurance is good, but not because you can expect to fatigue out your opponent.

I have no idea what the relevance of your post is.

[birdy51]

Encouragement! Keep doing the stabbing thing! If it helps, try visualizing your forms on your downtime. Your body needs rest, but your brain can still work on speeding up the connections between it and your muscles.

[Arx]

I haven't posted in a while, because I haven't been able to fence. Today, though, I competed in a ranking tournament. Placed top 8 in the junior section (literally missed making the semifinals by one point, I lost a match I was at 13-14 in), and actually had the highest-ranked fencer present nervous (took him to 15-11, which isn't bad considering the circumstances), although I didn't make it out of the first elimination round in seniors.

Tomorrow is foil, where I expect I will do even worse. We'll see what happens. I've got my eye back in to some extent, I suppose.

[NRDL]

Best of luck!

[Arx]

Epeeist medals in foil tournament, what.

I won the junior bronze, knocked out of the senior bracket by the senior silver medallist. I'm somewhat bemused, considering I've fenced very, very little foil compared to epee. Well, not complaining I guess.

[Arx]

Just finished an internal ranking tournament, making me the second highest ranked epeeist in the club. Two points off from winning the finals and being the highest-ranked, too. Progress!