Wildest dreams

Re my post yesterday; my inner doubting voices could not have been more wrong.

It takes a while to get by public transport from where I live in Chiswick all the way out to Brunel University.  It was raining when I got on my first bus, and I sat looking out at Ealing, Southal, Hayes and so on and feeling a kind of resigned calm with just a tinge of excitement.  But by the time I got off the second bus and walked up the road, the sun had come out.  I bumped into Alan, our club armourer (very nice older gent), who showed me where to go, and in no time I was registering with the judges and heading into the women's changing room to get my kit on.

I took longer than I should have done to get changed because I got right the way to putting on the last item, the metalised over-vest called a lame, before I realised I'd forgotten to change my bra.  Fond though I am of my favourite Wedgwood-blue embroidered net push-up bra, I do know it's not suitable for sporting activities (at least, not the kind carried out in a sports hall).  So I had to set-to and strip off again, to exchange it for the comfortable solidity of a Shock Absorber.

By the time I got down into the hall we were ready to begin; and I promptly won my first bout.

Altogether I fenced nine bouts in the first round, which is handled in groups called poules; we fought, then swapped round the groups, so that every fencer fights every other contestent in their poule.  Then a ranking is created from that.  I won two and lost seven, but I scored hits in all but two of the bouts I lost, and twice I only lost by one point.  I was immensely satisfied with this; it was far more than I had hoped to achieve.  That brought us to lunchtime.

Then after lunch the rankings were posted, and to my astonishment I had been ranked sixth out of the women.  I was through to the quarter finals.  Me.  This was beyond my wildest dreams; to quote a favourite movie line, inconceivable...

Yes, it was just an inter-club friendly match.  But it was a competition, and for everyone taking part it felt pretty serious.  Including me, astonished beyond belief as I was.

Quarter finals onwards are played as direct elimination, and I lost to the ladies' third seed; but I managed to land a few hits even on her, so my honour is more than satisfied.

Heck, my honour is in a delighted state of shock. 

I am now home.  I'm completely shattered.  I'm aching all over.  I have interesting new bruises.

And I am ludicrously happy.

I must be mad, the voices say...

I can't remember if I've mentioned this here before - since I've been having a bad fit of laxity and not blogging much lately, probably not.  Back in January, I took up fencing.

I'm not very good, I've only won three bouts so far and every week I come home from the club with a new set of bruises.  But I'm loving it.  So a few weeks ago, in a fit of I-know-not-what kind of insanity, I put my name down for a Novices' Foil competition.  It's just a friendly, between London Saxons, the club I've joined, and Brunel University.  It's tomorrow.

I'm now neck-deep in nerves.  I have literally never done any kind of sporting contest in my life before.  Back in my schooldays I was always one of the last people to be picked for anything - team captains would choose almost anyone else before me.  I was overweight and short-sighted and clumsy, I couldn't run and I couldn't throw, hit or catch a ball.  I let the side down in PE every single week.  When I was finally able to stop doing Games at the age of fifteen, I cut up my PE shirt ceremonially for cleaning rags.

I realised back in the autumn that I needed to find some way of getting more exercise, and began looking for something I would actually enjoy enough to be motivated to keep it up.  Since all the problems with running, throwing etc still persist, and I still cringe at the memory of my competitive streak being crushed by Miss Goldsmith yelling "You're not trying!" at me week after week while I tried my bloody damnedest, I looked for something where I wouldn't be part of a team, and would be able to measure against myself.  And where I wouldn't need to hit, throw, run, etc.

Managed most of it.  I do have to hit; but a person, not a ball.

The other club members are friendly, and by taking my shyness firmly in hand each week I have managed to start getting to know some of them a bit.  Most of them are much sportier types than me, but they are all very pleasant people, and although I'm not the rugby-going or rugby-playing sort I feel welcomed by those who are, which is a first.  And the fencing itself, I love.

It's hard to explain.  It's a whole-body, whole-mind sport.  I have to be completely focussed on the moment; I have to be working on technique, posture, balance, speed, strength and agility, and also thinking tactically, and trying to second-guess my opponent's tactics, and respond to what is happening when I have just a split second to see and analyse their moves.  Mostly I get it wrong.  But every failure teaches me something, and I come away each week totally exhilerated.  Exhausted, yes; running in sweat and aching all over.  But so happy I'm walking on air.

So, this contest.  All my inner voices are telling me I must have lost my marbles, whatever was I thinking of, etc.  I never compete.  I never sign-up for anything like this.  What on earth possessed me?

I know they are the voices of nervousness, because I'm doing something new.  I know that letting that kind of formless, past-experience-exaggerating anxiety get the better of me is self-defeating and dangerous.  I know it isn't madness to have done this.  But I'm still terribly tense about it.

My last bout on Thursday was with a fencer with over a year's more experience than me, and I came within a couple of hits of beating her.  She congratulated me at the end of the bout on how much I've improved.  It was the best possible encouragement before this contest, and I came away feeling full of light and ready for anything.  That is the feeling I need to remember tomorrow.

I am just a beginner still;  I will be knocked out in the first round.  But if I can score a few hits and learn something from the experience of competing than I will have achieved more than I've ever done in any sport; I will have taken part in an actual honest-to-god competition.  Me, taking part.  And that is a victory in itself.

Wish me luck!

Quick catch-up...

It hasn't been a particuarly easy few months, since I got back from Greece.  I began serious job-hunting in October, but without success as yet.  I've been depressed at how little there is out there that is both interesting and worthwhile, that would also still pay me enough.  I've found jobs that pay okay, but are either dire, or involving skills or experience I don't have; and I've found jobs that sounded great, but were only part-time or temporary, or only paid peanuts.  But the intersection of "This sounds like a good job" with "I can do all those things" and "I could live on that salary" has proved dismally elusive.

And I'm not looking for a large salary, by the way!  My core skill set, after all, is in customer service, a field we undervalue badly, and given that, I know it's unrealistic to set my hopes high.  But I'd like to earn enough to live on. 

I finally have an interview on Monday, anyway, so that's a start.  It's a job at Richmond Theatre, which would be great - and getting it would mean I was joining ATG, which could also be great.  So cross fingers for me.  It'll be good interview experience, anyway.

Meanwhile, my back-up plan was to do lots of writing while I was out of work.  But I've been struggling with that; indeed, a lot of the time I've been completely blocked.  It's nightmarish when that happens, but I've been there before and I know that all I can do is soldier on and get through it; it always does end, eventually, so it's the soldiering-on that I have to focus on.  Just recently, the last couple of weeks, there've been signs of a breakthrough on that front, which is fantastic.  I've been re-reading some of the stuff I've written in the last few years and have been pleased to find much of it is better than I remembered.  I'm working on some re-writes and using that to coax the Muse into coming back for a longer stay.

What other news?  I turned fifty in December, shock horror.  Luckily the birthday itself was fine, but the number is a bit shocking just the same. 

I've lost 25% of my body weight since last March, though, and have now stabilised at just over 12 stone (12 stone 1lb - I can't seem to shift that last little scrap!), and I feel healthier physically than I have done in years.  The doctor has even taken me off the diabetes medication for a trial period, to see how I get on with managing the condition just through diet and exercise. 

I took a touch-typing course, and am working rather slowly at trying to improve my speed and accuracy.  I'm not great yet, but I'm getting there.  Slowly slowly, as my Nana used to say. 

I've also taken up fencing.  The sport, not the garden skill.  I just finished a beginners' foil course and tonight is my first-ever time with the main club practice session.  The idea of walking in this evening and just looking for someone who'll fence a few hits with me is frankly bloody intimidating.  But I've started buying the kit, so I really can't back out now.  It's tremendous fun, anyway; I'd hate to stop.  I never thought I'd find a sport I enjoyed this much - never been a sporty type at all...

Otherwise, not much is going on.  Need to get on with the writing and find a new job.  End of update.  Ciao!