Out of the Comfort Zone

Last night I decided to put my new "Fencing for Fun" philosophy into action. One of my students asked to fence me and I agreed, but only on a non-scoring basis ("a plaisance" as they used to call it). Chris is a good fencer, with a good sense of timing and technique when he is allowed to be in his comfort zone. So I decided to take him out of it! I basically began to employ bouncy and light footwork, more similar to a boxer than my usual rhythm. In fact the more I employed this footwork rhythm the more ennervated I became. Strangely enough an image of Muhammad Ali came into my mind as he danced around the ring and whilst I wouldn't claim to have been floating like a butterfly I was able to vary my rhythm and use feints and false steps to successfully unsettle Chris. I got a few broken time attacks to work and then would vary them with a conventional lunge, which also broke the rhythm yet again and scored hits. I was having fun!
After our bout I explained what I had been doing in order for Chris to assimilate the lesson. Basically I had taken him out of his comfort zone. We all have one and it is where we operate most effectively. A fencer must be able to remove their opponent's comfort zone and also be able to widen their own to deal with all eventualities, otherwise they will get stuck in a comfortable rut and won't be able to cope with change. It also taught me that I had begun to let myself become predictable and that I was still able to effectively change my game and dominate a situation.
This settling into comfortable places tends to happen to all of us in various walks of life and there is always something which makes us unsettled, the most common things being speech making, exams or travelling abroad. We should all make efforts to gradually enlarge our comfort zone so we can grow and improve. Comfort comes at a price!