Nottingham Open
Mar. 5th, 2012 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99Went to the Nottingham Open at the weekend, which is another of those competitions I like because you get two rounds of pools. I could have done with there being more referees (rather than just poor Mr. S, and young A who was pinched by the wheelchair fencers) but the two rounds of pools balanced out the worst of the lack of refs.
I'd also like to make a humble suggestion to sort this problem: if you're wearing stripes at a non-international competition (i.e. a competition where you aren't required to wear them and thus you're just showing off) you will ref. Now I'm willing to relax this for the under-17s, but if you earned your stripes at under-15 level and are still wearing them at the age of 20, then yeah, ref some damn matches without complaining.
Anyway, I arrived early with S, one of the uni fencers (who was kindly letting me sleep on his sofa), and M (and his girlfriend), a Leicester City fencer. After checking in and testing my weapons, I also ran in to J, ex-Leicester Uni, who I haven't seen in about 5 years, so we had a bit of a talk. He's happy where he's at now.
Mr. N., now Dr. N., was also there, and wanted to know who was in charge of the Excalibur team this year. I pointed out to him that I hadn't the foggiest because I'm in Brum now, and I thought that he was the Excalibur captain. D and AL were also there, who I know less well, but I'm on mildly insulting terms with both of them.
Much socialising later, the first pool got called. I got drawn against A, very good with stripes who didn't want to ref, but hey, she was busy vomiting between matches, so I can understand that, E, a tiny terror who I have fenced far too often, S, who, I'm guessing, is a newbie left hander, T, who is a Lancaster Uni bod, and B, who last time I saw her was nine and half my height. Neither of those attributes applies any more. I only won one match, against S. Not a brilliant performance by me.
Second round of pools I get A again, the Louth beginner from the Merseyside, a veteran newbie, a good veteran, and a German left-hander. Needless to say, I lost to A, again (which is mildly demoralising, especially as she was going green) and to the good veteran, both of them being cases of doing the right thing at the wrong time, and to the German, who was deeply amused by my shouts of 'she's a left-hander'. I beat the Louth fencer and the other beginner, but that was a difficult match. I feel I should apologise to anyone I fenced when I was a beginner because I fenced like her and it's scary.
After the two rounds, I was ranked 25th which meant I was high enough that I didn't have to fight into the 32, and, even if I lost my DE, I couldn't be lower than 25th so I would get points (entry of 37, points down to 27th). My DE match was against the 8th ranked fencer, and I got 7 hits against her. I was immensely happy with that anyway, even before I looked her up today and found out she is ranked 18th in the country. Seven hits on someone who is ~ 119 places above me in the ranks!
Basically, I think I'm finally getting the hand of the new rule interpretation (the dreaded 34.1 that I mentioned in the Merseyside post). It's still a work in progress, and I've got to accept that retreating that little bit further is acceptable, but I do believe I have a plan at least.
S went out to W, the DMU captain in the 64, and J got an unexpected (by him, I wouldn't dare comment) top 32 place. So all in all, a good day.
I'd also like to make a humble suggestion to sort this problem: if you're wearing stripes at a non-international competition (i.e. a competition where you aren't required to wear them and thus you're just showing off) you will ref. Now I'm willing to relax this for the under-17s, but if you earned your stripes at under-15 level and are still wearing them at the age of 20, then yeah, ref some damn matches without complaining.
Anyway, I arrived early with S, one of the uni fencers (who was kindly letting me sleep on his sofa), and M (and his girlfriend), a Leicester City fencer. After checking in and testing my weapons, I also ran in to J, ex-Leicester Uni, who I haven't seen in about 5 years, so we had a bit of a talk. He's happy where he's at now.
Mr. N., now Dr. N., was also there, and wanted to know who was in charge of the Excalibur team this year. I pointed out to him that I hadn't the foggiest because I'm in Brum now, and I thought that he was the Excalibur captain. D and AL were also there, who I know less well, but I'm on mildly insulting terms with both of them.
Much socialising later, the first pool got called. I got drawn against A, very good with stripes who didn't want to ref, but hey, she was busy vomiting between matches, so I can understand that, E, a tiny terror who I have fenced far too often, S, who, I'm guessing, is a newbie left hander, T, who is a Lancaster Uni bod, and B, who last time I saw her was nine and half my height. Neither of those attributes applies any more. I only won one match, against S. Not a brilliant performance by me.
Second round of pools I get A again, the Louth beginner from the Merseyside, a veteran newbie, a good veteran, and a German left-hander. Needless to say, I lost to A, again (which is mildly demoralising, especially as she was going green) and to the good veteran, both of them being cases of doing the right thing at the wrong time, and to the German, who was deeply amused by my shouts of 'she's a left-hander'. I beat the Louth fencer and the other beginner, but that was a difficult match. I feel I should apologise to anyone I fenced when I was a beginner because I fenced like her and it's scary.
After the two rounds, I was ranked 25th which meant I was high enough that I didn't have to fight into the 32, and, even if I lost my DE, I couldn't be lower than 25th so I would get points (entry of 37, points down to 27th). My DE match was against the 8th ranked fencer, and I got 7 hits against her. I was immensely happy with that anyway, even before I looked her up today and found out she is ranked 18th in the country. Seven hits on someone who is ~ 119 places above me in the ranks!
Basically, I think I'm finally getting the hand of the new rule interpretation (the dreaded 34.1 that I mentioned in the Merseyside post). It's still a work in progress, and I've got to accept that retreating that little bit further is acceptable, but I do believe I have a plan at least.
S went out to W, the DMU captain in the 64, and J got an unexpected (by him, I wouldn't dare comment) top 32 place. So all in all, a good day.
