[Personal] Disappointment

I had a very good time on Saturday at K&Q Rapier Champions.. that is, until my old nemesis the decided that it wanted to play. Pop! That’s a wonderful sound and feeling. You have a rush of pain, and then its followed by a rush of disappointment as you know the rest of your day is over. I looked straight at Thomas, asked him for his sword, and drew it across my neck twice, symbolizing the end of my day. It’s a shame too, because I really felt on. I had beaten Tom the first fight, and wound up beating myself the second one.

Meaning, I let my adreneline and greed get the better of me. I’ve had to purposely retrain myself after the original injury(s) to not overextend and redouble (Redouble: To attack an opponent a second time after the opponent fails to counterattack.). When I do that, my knee cannot support the weight shift and collapses.

Here, take a look at this picture . Notice the nice lunge. Now, imagine her opponent being just out of her reach, or taking a half step back. Rather than fully resetting yourself, you take an additional lunge, from the lunge position. It means there is a brief instance (in *one* interration of the move) where your front foot moves forward again, and your back foot stays in place, allowing you to gain just “a little extra”. Usually done when your first lunge comes up short, but you aren’t at your maximum lunge distance. This is what I cannot ever do again. Tom and I play the distance game very well. We’ve done it for years. We dance around, feeling each other out, and comitting only when there is an opening.

I should have reset. I should have reset. I should have reset.

Instead, for that brief instance, my mind tells me “It’s only a half step. You’ve got him. There’s the opening.”. Step. Snap. Done.

So now I’m limping around on decent size doses of Ibuprofen (for swelling). The good news is that the pain is only a 1 or 2. It’s midly uncomfortable. As of this post, I can support my weight on it enough to walk (albeit very slowly). Slow going trying to bend it to. Same thing happened the last time. Hopefully in about 5 or 6 days, it’ll be back to normal enough that I can start strengthening it again. I might followup with my orthopedic surgeon too. Last few times he couldn’t do an operation, because “not enough damage was done”. Blech. I had two options. Quit fencing, or fence until I hurt myself enough for an operation. Guess you know which decision I took. Maybe this is the one to cause enough damage.