3rdragon: (Default)
You know what?
It's hard to go back to fencing.
I'm not just talking about the ache in my legs whenever I stand in en garde, which I expected, but the simple fact that I'm not as good at it as I used to be. I expected that too, but didn't realize how difficult it would be.
I don't need to win to enjoy fencing. I have spent many years of my life not playing on the winning side. But I do need some feeling of - I don't know - basic-level competence. I feel like I'm fencing badly. And worse, I know that I'm fencing badly. The individual skills aren't completely gone; I did surprisingly well in my preliminary lesson with Scott. But when I fence people - I can't complete actions, actions that I do make just don't work, and I can't hit people. My tip control is still there, but it falls to pieces if I put it in a bout situation. Not to mention this really fun thing where I'm close enough to hitting that I can see the lame indent but don't actually make the light go off. Although now that I think about it, I had similar trouble last year, so maybe I can't blame that on Spain.
And it's really not fair to be grumpy at the random UMass fencers just because I'm displeased with my performance.
Interestingly enough, I'm mostly still chipper and cheerful during the day, despite the fact that it hurts to sit down. And to stand up. Or to go from stationary to moving. I've had worse soreness, but this is plenty bad, thanks. I guess I just have a higher pain tolerance than I do a tolerance to feelings of failure.
I have one last swing dancing lesson this afternoon, and then fencing practice tonight, and then we depart bright and early tomorrow morning to fence in Rhode Island. This is going to be all sorts of interesting, in the Miriam-why-do-you-do-this-to-yourself kind of way. At least I get to sleep in until 5:30.

In other news, my room is amazing. I'm even almost unpacked, although there is still stuff strewn all over everything.
Also, it's excellent to see everyone (almost everyone) again.

I should stop sitting in my windowseat wasting time on my computer, since preparation for tomorrow morning should probably be done by 3:00 this afternoon.
Also, I need to write that letter to Renfe. In spanish.

ETA: And I forgot to mention that there's a dead spot in the center of my lame (for those of you who don't fence, the lame is the metallic shirt I wear on top of everything else that is wired up so that the ref knows when people get hit on target. A dead spot means that it isn't working properly, and a dead spot in the middle means that it's likely that my first opponent of the day will make it very obvious that it doesn't work before we even start bouting). And that's the only foil lame that fits me. If we can't find another by tomorrow, I think that badly malfunctioning equipment that you can't fix/replace disqualifies you from competing. And it would really stink to go the competition and sit on the sideline the whole day.
3rdragon: (Default)
No, to be perfectly frank, I couldn't've. I'm also quite glad that the band called it at 11:00, because while I felt, when we stopped dancing, that I could have danced a little more, I was bone-tired exhausted by the time we finished putting everything away and the band collected all of their stuff and left.

Really, it was a very successful dance.
Considering that there was almost no advertising, either on campus or in the broader Swing community. (We had lovely posters which we mostly only put up within the past three days, and not terribly well at that.)
Considering that the timing was possibly the worst it could have been - Senior Ball was last night, and a thousand theater performances, and a bunch of other things that I don't even remember. On the plus side, I could go, which wouldn't necessarily have been guaranteed by a better-chosen date, given the number of Saturdays this semester that were occupied by fencing tournaments.
Considering that three out of five of the Smith Hooked on Swing Society board members couldn't actually go, and we didn't draw in many of the people who came to our lessons last semester, either.

The band was excellent, and at a guess I'd say that we had 15 people for the first hour or so of the dance, and perhaps 20 attendees overall. One of the advantages of poor advertising and not bringing in many beginners is that there aren't many beginners. While everyone I've met in the Swing Community is really happy to teach people things, and very understanding if you aren't very good yet, it's also really nice to dance with people who are as good as or better than you are. I learned two new moves last night, and saw another that I'll probably be able to figure out with Emily. I was showed several new moves that I don't have a dream of reproducing.
Cmoore and Toby were there, which is always fun, since they're both excellent dancers. I reminded them of several moves they had forgotten they knew, and they reminded me how to do them, which I figure is a pretty good trade-off. I became a lot better in triple-stepping over the course of the night, although I need to get cmoore to tell me what move it is that I can't remember that only works when triple-stepping.

I got to follow! You see, I originally learned to lead, given that someone needed to, and I've done a lot more leading, and so am better at leading than following. I like following, but only if I'm dancing with someone who's better than I am, because a) I'm not a good enough follow to be able to do it if my lead doesn't know what we're doing, and b) the amount of complexity that a couple can do while swing dancing depends on how advanced the leader is, given that s/he is leading, and it's more-or-less impossible to lead a move you don't know.
But cmoore and toby left shortly after 10:00, as did the batch of beginners and several of the couples who had showed up, leaving Emily and I, an intermediate couple (but really only the woman, since the guy's knee had gone unexpectedly wonky and he stopped dancing), and two guys who were quite good. I got to follow with each of them, and was also able to lead both Emily and the other woman, which is a kind of versatility which is really quite excellent, since it meant that I could dance with whoever I wanted to and never had to sit a dance out for lack of a partner I could dance with.

When Em and I were sitting around waiting for the band to finish packing up so we could go home, she expressed a desire to learn how to lead, which is an excellent idea because of the aforementioned versatility, and I suggested that it could be a project for this summer, given that we'll both be here. Height may be an interesting issue which didn't occur to me last night; I tend to forget that Emily only comes up to my shoulder. I think it'll be manageable, though, provided that she's VERY sure to get her hands up high enough. And it's not like it won't be something that she'll have to learn to deal with, given that many of the people she dances with are taller than she is.

Last night we also established that I have NO muscle memory for Lindy Hop. I went to two of the Lindy lessons a month and a half ago, and Zeke and I spent an hour just last week in an intensive review of Lindy, and last night I could do the first half of the basic step and one of the most basic turns. And that was not because my feet remembered; my head remembered and then I could manage to pummel it into my feet. I don't know why I have so much trouble learning Lindy; I never had that much trouble learning East Coast Swing. I didn't even have quite that much trouble learning West Coast Swing, for all that I like Lindy better than West Coast.

So overall, I had fun. And so did Emily. And that's what really matters, right?
Your student activity fee at work, folks; SHOSS hosts a dance and only a few students show up, but Miriam and Emily have lots of fun.
3rdragon: (Default)
This book is a murder weapon! Honestly. It's about 8" x 10", and it has 2057 pages. Yes, 2057. Count them. Or maybe don't. Admittedly, it's the really thin kind of paper used for large books, but still.
Murder weapon or not, yay to Jax for lending it to me. It would be difficult to have a readthrough of Midsummer tomorrow without a copy of the play to read from.

In other news, I was nearly late to swing tonight because of a phone conversation with my dad. I managed to disentangle myself from him when I wanted to, but then my brother announced that he wanted to talk to me, too. You have to understand that my brother is 15 (soon to be 16; egads, I need to start looking for a birthday present.), and that he NEVER talks to me on the phone. Not willingly, anyway. And when he is coerced into it, or happens to pick up the phone, it's like pulling teeth to get him to talk. And since he was volunteering to talk to me, I figured that I ought to talk to him. His news: World of Warcraft has added some kind of mouseover effect that he apparently considers to be very cool. I don't think he understands that while I consider World of Warcraft to be a very addicting and effective incarnation of a time wasting occupation (there is a reason that my computer doesn't have any games on it), I don't actually care about it. On the other hand, it does mean that Isaac is voluntarily talking to me on the phone. And occasionally sending me e-mails. So I generate the proper responses.
Really, though, he's turning into such a teenage geek. I'm going to see him on Wednesday or Thursday, and he was so excited by a development in World of Warcraft that he couldn't wait three or four days.

If you're curious, I was slightly late to swing, but so was everyone else (and CMoore and Toby, who were teaching the lesson, were later than I was, and the only in-charge-ish person who showed up was even later than CMoore.)

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