It’s the WHY that gets you up in the morning. It’s the WHY that keeps you going when you struggle. It’s the WHY that can unlock the best fencer within you.

My own personal reason was that I loved the feeling that came from making small improvements every day. There was something magical to me about seeing seeing my skills directly improve as I practiced them.

Of course I loved other elements of fencing as well such as my fencing friends and travelling to new places, but this was the primary driver for me to spend hours (often alone) at practice working on my skills and competing with, first and foremost, with myself.

You will notice that competition is notably left off on that list. I always had a love / hate relationship with competing. Competing was extremely important to understand how much I was improving and to qualify for the opportunities that are necessary to progress, such as the junior national, senior national and Olympic teams. But it also brings a great deal of pressure which can be difficult to manage. We'll talk more about how other fencers have dealt with the same issue in future articles, but it's worth noting that when that pressure starts to mount, having a very clear vision of why you're doing this can keep you going.

What's your why?