Because of MLK day, it’s another short week of fencing practice. Even with the short week, we were missing a few people on Wednesday night that we had expected to show, but it’s not that unusual for people to blow off a practice right after a tournament. Especially with yet another and bigger tournament this coming weekend. (Is one extra practice really going to make a difference?)

Still, we had plenty of people to get fencing done. In some ways having these lightly attended nights is good because we’re able to do extended bouting instead of rotating through five touch bouts to give every one a chance on the strip. And extended bouting is exactly what I did. J. and I mixed it up until I was tired enough that I was having trouble focusing my eyes on anything other than the wire mesh of my mask. After a break to cool down, D. and I got up on the strip and did pretty much the same thing. After another break I got a repeat of a drill I seem to have been working on for over a month now and still don’t quite have the end action down, Touch to the arm, disengage, lunge to the chest, retreat with take six, hit, fast double retreat with take eight and lunge. My problem is getting the last retreat fast enough and big enough to open enough distance to be able to lunge at the end. It’s even tougher when you’ve already fenced your way to tired, but that’s also a great time to get a lesson. After another break, H. and I got on the strip and fenced like tired poopyheads. I had enough brain cells working to know that I just wasn’t making it happen, but not enough to realize at the time that it as because I didn’t have enough brain cells working.

I expected Friday night to be a lightly attended practice as several people were planning on driving to Lincoln in order to fence early on Saturday morning. But we had more than I expected show up. It would have been enough for a decent practice anyhow, but this way we kept both strips busy with epee most of the evening. So, not a bad workout. I was feeling a little soreness from the upper body stuff I did at the gym Thursday night, but it wasn’t enough to interfere with my fencing.

And now to hit the road for Lincoln to fence epee at the Icicle Tournament tomorrow.