On Jan. 28th, I competed in the E Foil event at CFC. Total of 56, in
8 pools of 7. Poor results in the pool, winning only 2 bouts. Barely
made it to the DEs (bottom 20% was eliminated without a DE). Faced
somebody I lost to in the pool, but smoked him 15-5 in the DE. Lost
my next DE (4-15), so I ended up 32nd.

Feb. 4th- C Foil at CFC- total of 34. Went 1W-5L. Only 28 of the 34
went on to a DE- I was #29. Lost getting into the DE round by only a
touch or two. Two of my losses were 4-5, so a win in either of those
would have given me a chance to go on. My one loss at 4-5 was to
Patrick Ellison, a C-rated fencer who finished in 3rd place. He had
practiced with "Z Fencing" for awhile when we met at Hempfield HS. So
I gave him a run for the money, but fell short of a victory.

I had problems with very strict scrutiny of my weapons from the
volunteer director (most pools were self-directing). He carefully
checked to make sure the alligator tubing completely covered the
wiring under the pommel- 2 of mine failed to meet this requirement, so
I will need to remedy those before the next competition. He was also
poking at the screw in an apparent attempt to make it register
off-target, although I had not been having any problems. After he
failed all 4 of my weapons that I thought were fine, he offered me the
use of one of his (after another person in my pool offered me a spare,
but the body cords were not the same). The foil I used was not a
French handle, but it worked. Chris did offer me another spare with a
French handle, so I finished my last 2 bouts with weapons that were
like what I am accustomed to.

I need to work on my tempo, and strategy, and not only ATTACK, ATTACK,
ATTACK. I was also apparently moving forward to attack in
preparation, rather with my arm extended, because I was hit several
times "in preparation".

Did not finish very well in either competition, but had some good
bouts in each. Each bout can be a learning experience, and these
events were no exception.

Roger Martin