Fencing: it's mental!

Last night was the first week of our Easter competition so it was the poule round of the epee for me. I found myself in a quite daunting group and my first thought was "I'm going to have to do well to break even here!" I usually set myself a target of being in the top half of the final tableau so I felt I had some work to do to get there. Not only that I had arrived with a splitting headache and was having problems concentrating on anything, let alone fencing. However, whether I had sub-consciously rid myself of expectations by thinking this I don't know but I arrived at my last match with 3 victories and 2 defeats. I SO wanted that last match to make it 4-2! Trouble was I was fencing Abi, one of my regular sparring partners and she has had the hoo-doo on me in our last few fights. Still, I felt good about things and soon found myself leading 3-1 at which point I thought "OK now just don't do anything daft, just run down the clock" which I managed to do for 20-30 seconds then conceded two hits to make it 3-3. At that point my instinct was to just attack blindly, in fact it was almost an imperative screaming at me "DO SOMETHING!!" However I reigned this in because my past experience has taught me when I do this I open myself to a counter, normally because the adrenalin excess overcomes my point control. What I didn't want to do right now was attack to the body wildly, I needed to control myself and pick off the arm. It was actually really difficult to keep calm at this point but I did and went 4-3 up. Then Abi pulled a point back to make it 4-4! I thought I had nailed it but her hit had been quicker than mine. Now all my instincts were in over-drive, demanding a headlong attack response but this time I could control it better and remain calm (I wasn't tense I was just very very alert!) And lo and behold I got that final hit and boy, did it feel good. I was obviously pleased to have made it 4-2 in terms of victories but I was also more pleased with the way I'd approached it mentally.
I've always maintained that fencing is 50% a mental activity and I certainly saw and heard things that backed that up last night. However, it's very easy to realise this intellectually; it's a lot harder to restrain the physicality in the midst of sporting combat. It's something I am determined to get better at. I am reminded of two of Musashi's tenets for sword mastery... "Forge yourself in the Way" and "Learn to see everything accurately"......