Mixed 'U' Foil competition at Baltimore Fencing Center, Maryland.

There were 28 entries (I think, correct me if I'm wrong,) making the
competition a D1. Some people were from the 'C' competition earlier
that day in which Chris participated in. Roger and I both entered
this one, but I don't know much about the 'C' competition, except
that there was a serious injury involving a BDF fencer and a trip to
the hospital.

There were four pools of seven (not exactly sure on that though).
My pool contained a good friend of mine from BFC, Josh Smolensky.
He was my first opponent, and said that this would be my toughest
bout in the pool. He wasn't kidding. We were pretty close
throughout the bout, but he pulled through 5-3 when the director
didn't see one of my parries and I missed the other.

My next bout was against a lefty youth fencer who was about 12 years
old. He made direct attacks and committed to them. A parry with
riposte and a change into low-line on the retreat got me a win 5-0.

I can't really remember a few of the bouts in my pool. More
important things pushed those out of my mind that day. I ended up 4-
2 in my pool, which got me 5th place overall. I heard that Roger
had a pretty good record as well.

I got the bye on my first DE bout, and was up against Blaunstein who
had just beat a very inexperienced fencer 15-0. The bout was
incredibly close. He would circle parry twice and cover both high-
line targets. I would sometimes sneak in an attack into his low-
line after his first circle parry. However, sometimes I would try
to attack when he beat my blade, and that would get me out of
position. Then he would cut his attack short, landing the tip. It
was back and forth: sometimes I would wait until he finished his
attack to parry-riposte, and sometimes I would be impatient and go
for it.

Blaunstein was winning by a few touches going into the last 3
minutes. I then got patient (which was against everything I WANTED
to do) and waited for him to finish his attacks, or I successfully
attacked while was in preparation. The score was tied 13-13 at the
end. I won priority, but I knew that I could not hold off a touch
for a minute. I managed to land an attack in his priority at just
the right time to get the touch.

My next DE bout was to get into the top 4 and for my 'E'. I had to
face Sumner from Out Of Nowhere, who had just beat my friend Josh 15-
6 in ONE MINUTE. Of course, that was the complete opposite in my
match. We were 1-1 after the first 3 minutes. He had a quick
attack that I could parry, but he was way out of range for me to
directly riposte. There was no touches landed in the second
period. With one minute left, he scored a touch on parry-riposte,
and it was now 2-1. I ended up starting a sequence of attacks that
would put both of us out of position, but I ended up recovering
faster and landing a touch to make it 2-2 with 19 seconds
remaining. After an engagement of blades, I had a riposte that was
sitting right in front of his target as he was retreating. I made a
running attack forward to insist on my point-in-line and managed to
get the touch just as Josh announced that time ran out. I think a 3-
2 was the lowest scoring DE bout anyone there has ever seen. I
realized at the end that everyone was watching our bouts and there
was no one else fencing at the time.

In the semi-finals, I lost to a BFC fencer who would end up winning
his 'D'. What was embarrassing was that I had a 10-5 lead going
into the last period. He got a lot of advice from Bin Lu, who was
the head coach of BFC. I got one touch that period and he got 10 to
win it 15-11. I swear my foil spring was tough, because I was told
that I made dents in his Lamé several times and the light did not
register. I also broke the wire in one of my foils, and managed to
kill my body cord as well.

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me. I really appreciate it. :)


-Eric Sher