Hello all!

We had tons of fencers out fencing in tournaments again this past
weekend, as mentioned, both here in the Bay Area and in . . .
Colorado Springs, Colorado!

Of course, I cannot find the results for the Nationals tournament in
Colorado to save my life - but that may be because they aren't posted
yet. I'll keep looking.

But!

We also had Youth and Senior epee tournaments at our own gym this
weekend and EBFGers were out in force!

Catherine Gougeon, Julien Sat-Vollhardt, and Jahi Abimbola were all
in their first tournament. This is Olivia Davis' second tournament
and, while this is all "old hat" to Matthias and Thibault Philippine,
they still had a great time, and were in two tournaments that day.
Our Senior fencers were Patrick Wang, Justin Munson, Cameron Parker,
and Catherine Kuzmeski (some of these names may not be familiar to
you, as Justin and Catherine are UC Berkeley fencers).

We started the day with the Youth 12 event, and I have to say, I was
very impressed with the youth fencers who showed up. This is a really
nice bunch of Youth. We had fencers from Central California all the
way out to Chico and Fresno! Our own fencers, though faced with many
trials (weapons that didn't work, jitters from first-tournament
nerves, although, you guys should know, every Youth there was
nervous), persevered and did really well. In a field of 13, Thibault
came in first, Matt came in third, Catherine cracked the top 8 by
coming in eighth, Julien came in 12th (one whole bout can be given up
to three weapons that failed), and Olivia came in 13th.
Congratulations, you guys, on a great tournament!

For those of you saying Thibault should have gotten an E2008 out of
the deal, I thought he would, too. According to the Ratings list, it
looked like he should have. But when I talked to the Secretary for
the Northern California branch of the USFA, she said that in Youth
tournaments, in order to get a rating, the criteria for C1 have to be
met. In other words, you have to have 2 Cs, 2 Ds, and 2 Es and they
have to finish . . . blah, blah. Bunk, I say. :)

Next was the Youth 14 event, and, again, it was a great bunch of
Youth. Matt and Thibault were in this event also, joined by Jahi.
Matt and Thibault were fencing in two tournaments at once at this
point, which means you're in the middle of a direct elimination bout
for the first tournament when your name is called for the pools in
the second tournament. No! Well, yes. But that's OK. They are
amenable to waiting so you can be assured of being as exhausted as
you can possiby be when you head into the DE bouts for the second
tournament. :) Jahi got at least one touch in each of his pool bouts
and, as someone once told me and I have told every fencer I know who
goes to a first (or second, or, heck, third . . .) tournament, that
should be your goal. Great work, you guys!

Last but not least, our Senior D and Lower tournament! This was an
amazing tournament, as Todd can attest, and I really enjoyed watching
the fencing. There were several bouts which everyone who wasn't
fencing crowded around to watch - one of which was the DE bout
between Cameron Parker and Christopher Whitmore (DFA). It was a
blistering battle from start to finish - at one point, Cameron was
down five or six touches, but he rallied (rallyed?) and came back,
only to end up 14-15. But, man, it was an amazing bout.

I want to congratulate Ian Eblovi, who ended coming in second in this
tournament - this is only his second tournament, his first one also
having taken place here at EBFG, and this time he earned his E2008.
It was great watching him fence in tense bout after tense bout - and
watching the sheer joy on his face after each one, even the one he
eventually lost (whioh went the entire first period at 1-0!)
Congratulations, Ian!

And a huge thank you to Jim Liebich, Todd Russell, Billy Carson, and
Mike Slater for directing all day long with hardly a break and no
sitting down. You guys were great about taking the thousands of
little slips of paper I managed to generate over the course of the
day with a smile and at least no outwardly-spoken swear words. :) :)
And extra thanks to Todd for being there to the bitter end, and Jim
for coming even though he was coming down with The Cold.

That's the latest installment of As The Fencer Fences . . . stay
tuned!