My problem was a common one. The further I progressed, the more resistance I felt towards working on the fundamentals. Why was that?

The fundamentals are tedious

I would find it extremely difficult to give one simple action my full attention for a substantial period of time. It just wasn’t as mentally stimulating for me to focus on the optimal angle of a head cut compared to the challenge of more advanced maneuvers. However, knowing that fundamentals are key to improvement helped me to grit my teeth and find a way to be able to do the difficult, repetitive work.

Novelty is addictive

Midway through my career, my mind began craving novel ways of doing things, and I loved dreaming up new footwork patterns and tactics. But most of the time, I’d spent a few days trying them out, then get bored and move on to something else. I soon realized how easy it was to be sidetracked by this addiction to novelty and complexity when what I really needed was to be consistent with the fundamentals.

Complexity is often for show

I’ll be honest, sometimes I could be a little bit of a show off (I think most of us can relate to that, even if only a little bit). If there were new fencers or spectators at the club, I wanted to demonstrate the full spectrum of my abilities. I observed this, too, in other fencers during their lessons when they would do complex blade drills, which look really cool (blades flying all over the place), but involved actions they rarely used in competition. One of the most important lessons I learned was that I really didn’t need to prove anything to anyone at practice, and that practice was simply that: practice.

Failing at the basics is embarrassing

Quite frankly, I had to get over being embarrassed when I made a mistake executing one of the basics. I’m supposed to be an expert, right? What would people at the club think if I fumbled the rudimentary footwork for a close distance parry riposte? I found it was much easier to fail at something that others around me couldn’t do and so, sometimes I, too, was guilty of not paying enough attention to the fundamentals of great fencing.