So I have what is known in the WordPress parlance as a “category”, called Fencing. It’s right up there, last in the list of “Topics” (my word). Last update, before today: September, 2011.

That was a while ago.

The category exists because fencing spent a long time as a big part of my life. I fenced at least three times a week, almost every week, for over fifteen consecutive years. I’m a trained coach and referee, though I haven’t been active at either of those things for years. Ten years ago, during the competitive season, it would not be uncommon for me to be involved in fencing seven days a week for several weeks straight. Evenings spent either training or training others. Weekends spent in gyms, competing or refereeing or coaching.

All this bled over into my non-fencing time. I would read about fencing, or watch video of fencing in my spare time. Many of my friends were fencers, and conversation would often, naturally, turn to our common pastime. And, of course, quiet moments would often be spent thinking about fencing.

Times change. Evenings and weekends are difficult to give up to the sport with a two-year-old daughter. Coaching would require too many of my evenings, and a proper competitive schedule too many of my weekends. The treatment of referees in British Fencing is lousy (in comparison to Canada), and drove me away from refereeing.

And then there’s work, which sends me away from my fencing club for days or weeks at a time.

Fencing drops from the mind under these circumstance, and the relative frequency of my posts about fencing reflect that — with the turning of the year, I have been considering dropping the category from the blog altogether. It may still happen.

But we have this one post left.

The knee

I still fence, of course. But less frequently.

In theory, my schedule is to practice at the club one night a week, and attend a competition once a month. In reality, I rarely practice more than once a month, and have not attended a competition since July.

At the start of the month, I attended the first practice after the Christmas break. It was exhuasting. And near the end of it, I felt a very sharp pain in my knee. This pain — now a dull throb — has kept me out of fencing for the past few weeks, while forcing me to visit a physiotherapist with the regularity I fail to manage normally.

Conversations with my physiotherapist unerringly circle around getting me back into fencing. Which embarrasses me, due to my recent history of failure to fence according to my planned schedule. The trouble, I think, is that I no longer have goals in terms of fencing.

Truth be told, I have never had a conscious goal with my fencing, but they have always been there. Winning my first medal. Winning my first tournament. Qualifying for the University championships. Qualifying for the National championships. Winning the University championships. Not all goals are achieved, but they don’t have to be.

There were always tournaments in the calendar that had meaning. There were rankings lists — provincial or national — that I cared about. For me. For the people I coached. Unspoken targets. Unclear targets. But I was trying to achieve something; each practice, each tournament, worked towards those goals.

After my first year or so in London, this ceased to be the case. I continued to fence, because it was fun. And I preferred to win. But my participation in the sport became aimless.

National ranking? It hardly matters – I’m not British, and it means so little. I cannot qualify for anything through the rankings, nor can I get sufficiently ranked to be too good for any tournaments. It simply does not matter.

Performance at a particular tournament? None of them have any history to me. There is no special meaning or connection. I’m not allowed to compete at a championship. There’s nothing to qualify for. It’s simply meaningless.

The Future

Rehab has convinced me that I need to get back to fencing a bit more seriously, albeit perhaps not with the same all-time-consuming manner as I did ten years ago.

And reflection has convinced me that I need a target, if I am to be successful. It does not have to be well-defined, but it must be there.

So here are my goals. Stated publicly, so I cannot shirk them:

• Compete at the 2014 Commonwealth Championships, in Scotland.
• Win something, in the Veteran’s category, at the 2018 Commonwealth Championships.

The first gives me a not-too-far-away thing to train towards.

I’m not sure what I need to do to qualify — possibly nothing, truth be told — but I might need to have a sufficiently high Canadian ranking. Which would require that I fence an event or two in Canada. And do sufficiently well at them that one or two results will suffice.

Or I might need to show sufficiently good comparative results at British tournaments. Or Satellite FIE tournaments.

At the very least, I’d like my fencing not to be embarrassing.

Realistically, there will be some strong British fencers in attendance, and then-38-year-old-me has little chance of winning a medal. But it will be the first time I’ve had a chance to fence in a Championship since leaving Canada, and I look forward to it.

There might be qualifying criteria. I may fall short of these. But not all goals are reached.

The real target is the one four years later.

I’ll be over 40, and will qualify for the Veteran category. As one of the younger people in that category, I might stand a real chance of winning something. I won’t be someone pushing 40, trying to compete with people working towards Olympic qualification. There are no real excuses.

If I train. If I’m in good shape. If I’m able to read situations, and fence intelligently. If I have gotten back into the habit of training and fencing to win, instead of just for fun. If, if, if and if … I could win something. All factors within my control.

And now it’s been said publicly.

We will see if this fencing “category” continues to gather dust.

On Monday night I fenced.

Towards the end of practice, two mistakes were made. My opponent made a somewhat violent action that really had no chance of landing. I responded not by scoring a hit and getting a bruise, but by instead trying to cover up my body with my limbs, to “avoid” getting hit.

Both actions were the result of fatigue-fueled bad judgement. In combination, they produced a badly bashed index finger.

Today, it changed colours. I have dubbed it the fucked up finger:

I am not sure that this does it justice. It looks more severe in real life.

The NHS kindly provides us with the following information about the fucked up finger:

• The fucked up finger is not broken.
• The fucked up finger is not infected.
• The fucked up finger suffers from internal bleeding, a non-fatal diagnosis.
• I must watch the fucked up finger for finger fever, which would signal danger

The more you know?

… that is the question.

Is it nobler to spend the long hours of one’s day at a thankless and exhausting chore? Or better to avoid refereeing where and when possible?

This is the question that was posed to me – more or less – by the entry form to this year’s Norfolk Open. It is a surprising question, in that it is normally not asked on the form. It is also an unsurprising question, in that there is not a tournament (for adults) in the UK in which the fencers do not have to referee themselves.

Even the national championships and Leon Paul Cup feature some self-refereed pools.

Since I have arrived in the UK — despite very much disliking the concept of the self-refereed event — I have contributed pretty much as much as I could, at almost every event I have attended. I am what you might call “not bad” at the whole refereeing thing (which is an attribute not shared by many of my fellow fencers), and figured that by pitching in I was improving things.

But I wonder if my contributions are actually improving things, or merely contributing to the status quo. The last tournament I attended featured a cadre of one referee who was not fencing — and he was one of the organisers. Between the men’s and women’s foil events, there was £2,000 in prize money and £0 spent on referees.

I refused to referee for free at this event with large cash prizes. It was the most enjoyable day I have spent at a (non-World Cup) tournament since I left Canada in 2006. Fencing. Watching my next opponent. Supporting my clubmates. I had not had a day like it in a long, long time. And I had missed being able to simply enjoy the atmosphere of a fencing tournament.

And I realized something – I don’t enjoy refereeing. Not enough to make it worthwhile.

If I’m waking up at 5 am, getting home at 10 pm, exhausting myself with exercise, spending money on trains, taxis, entry fees, fencing kit and (often) hotels, I want to enjoy that whole experience. And I enjoy it when I’m fencing, and spending time with (and supporting) my clubmates.

I do not enjoy it when every moment between bouts is spent refereeing. And if I’m spending money to attend the tournament — to spend time away from my daughter, to take a break, to have some recreation — I’m damned well going to make the most of it, and try to enjoy the experience.

So the Norfolk Open asked me if I would referee. They would cover expenses, they say. These would be mine:

• Transport: Approximately £26.
• Entry Fee: £17
• Breakfast: £5
• Dinner: £15

That’s £63. But it doesn’t take into account that it ruined my day of fencing, so they owe me another one of those, of approximately the same quality … £126. Which is probably not the amount they have in mind. And that’s assuming I’d “do it for free”.

Which is the second problem with refereeing in Britain. British Fencing policy is that referees are not paid; they are merely reimbursed their expenses. As a referee, you will always be somewhat overworked, but the amazingly small size of the British refereeing corps makes that even more so.

So I have a refereeing policy, which I will adhere to from now on:

I will not referee if I am fencing at a tournament. It is not why I’m there. I accept that some amount of refereeing is unavoidable, if the fencing tournament is to run at all, but I believe that by refereeing for free I am contributing to the problem, rather than the solution.

Hence, I will purposely avoid refereeing as a fencer. I will only referee if hired as a referee.

And in that case, my fees are 1 month of my fencing club fees (currently £90) plus expenses. The idea being that if I referee a tournament every month, it ought to cover my club fees.

What I can guarantee is that I am not paying upwards of £60 on the weekend to work my ass off so other people can enjoy their hobby while I’m not enjoying mine. I can save my money and have more enjoyable days in my garden.

Fancy hat available for sale here.

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we think that we might not have this “training” thing quite right. Those of you with a good long-term memory might remember that, back in September, we posted that the first tournament of the year did not go too well.

We spoke of an increased competition schedule, and a pared back practice schedule.

All this is true, young Padawan.

This weekend, your intrepid blogger will be in Cardiff, preparing for another early exit from another large tournament. There exist dreams of glory, of course, but the reality is that the last tournament was followed with three practices.

The last of which was in late September.

After that there was the moving, and Maggie, and certainly no fencing. Not even a jog, if we are to be completely honest with you.

As a result, once again, on Saturday morning I will be hitting the piste while out of shape and rusty. I will have a poor seed from having been in insufficient competitions. This will mean:

Two difficult-to-impossible-to-win bouts instead of one in my pool.
One I-should-have-won-but-screwed-up bout in my pool.

This will culminate in three losses — four if I am having a bad day — instead of one. I have learned that you do not win the difficult fights if you don’t train. Unless your opponent also does not train. We can always dream.

This will lead to a bad seeding, and a loss in either the 64 or 32. And an early start to the rest of the weekend, including time to enjoy Cardiff.

My training regimen isn’t all bad, you see. It still works well when teamed with fencing tourism.

Photo by Mr. Topp. See it bigger here.