Free.

That’s how I feel this weekend. Free.

There’s no weight of expectation. No good brain/bad brain battle. No worrying about letting down myself or anyone else.

After all, how can there be? I’ve barely touched a sword in the last few months. I can’t expect anything. All I can do is try to stay on my feet. On my toes.

So I just fence.

And I am free.

*******

I love competition, but there is a point where it becomes too much.

2018 starts well enough, but quickly I am overwhelmed. Matches I should have won but I didn’t, techniques I should have pulled off but couldn’t, moments I wish I had that escaped me.

In September and October I have four events in six weeks (and a fifth I am running). In six longsword tournaments, I manage to win two fights - out of around thirty. I feel slow and lethargic, like I have lost everything I’ve learned.

The emotions, the thoughts of inadequacy, pile onward and upward. My sword breaks at IGX and it seems a perfect metaphor for my emotional state. I make it through Krump Pow in the next week, but only barely. I mention to a few, I don’t know if i can keep doing this.

When I come home, I put my SportTube with all of my longsword gear neatly under my heater.

It stays there, untouched, for the next three months.

******

Later on, after my fighting is done, I am talking to Sara when she says to me -

- “You have good footwork. You always kept moving.”

I try to explain to her that this doesn’t make any sense; after all I am not exactly known for good footwork, and you aren’t supposed to suddenly improve after going three months without training.

“Maybe you just managed to turn your brain off,” she says.

*******

Had I not committed to going to SoCal 2019 over the summer, I doubt I would have gone after last fall. But I am a firm believer that commitments once made should be seen through.

After all, I tell myself, I’m going because I want to see friends and go somewhere warm in February. The swords are just a nice bonus.

******

SoCal has a cutting qualifier for Open Steel. When I was here in 2015, I didn’t manage a single cut. The last time I tried cutting in any competitive setting, back at IGX, I couldn’t manage a left oberhau.

I don’t expect to cut with any success this time. I don’t have a great track record with competitive cutting, and I haven’t been practicing as much as I should.

…So, of course, I manage the qualifier with more ease than any other cutting I’ve done. It is a sign of the weekend to come.

******

Before I leave for SoCal, Patrick gives me two goals - stay on my toes, and try a durchswexel.

The first is much easier managed than the second, but I am able to accomplish things beyond that -

I stay mobile. No one bullies me. I do not give up on any exchange, nor do I fight scared. I mange a sword grab (sort of), and I am even comfortable enough to try a krumphau. I am fighting aggressive fighters and physically large fighters, fencers who not too long ago would have dismantled me without trying, and I don’t give in.

********

This weekend is the catharsis I’ve been yearning for. A re-set button, a draining of all the muck in my brain.

I dance and I enjoy each step, even when I stumble.

I don’t always win.

I don’t need to. Not anymore.

And I can’t wait to fight again.

<3.