Rose Tourney Report

The tournament was an absolutely beautiful day. I was worried at the beginning because it seemed very disorganized, and that tends to screw with my brain space. But turns out that I could mostly just let things happen and fight whomever I was paired against, and that was that.

Presenting myself to my rose, Duchess Katherine Stanhope
Photo by Sitt al-Gharb ha-niqret Khazariyya

I won 5 of my 11 fights. I was not upset about any of them, though. I generally fought well and was able to stay focused. And I didn't get paired up against any slouches!
And one of my opponents tried to sing at me, and I didn't let it phase me. I still lost that one, but that was because he was a good fencer, not because I was distracted.

Other things that stuck out for the day:
   - JP had to do a lot of thinking about the new guard to figure out what to do with it. I was amused by this, and didn't take proper advantage at the time. I should never have let him think. Afterwards he suggested taking my sword in a little bit, because the only real hole in the guard is my belly below my left hand.
   - I had a glorious back and forth with Owen, and eventually killed him, but in doing so I thugged him. So I need to keep an eye on my calibration when things get really intense. It is rare for there to be as much constant motion as there was in this particular bout, and I think that amped me up more than I'm used to.
   - We need to be more careful in authorizations about making sure people understand that a bit down the arm or inside the leg is still a kill. There was a potential kerfuffle that occurred.
   - I need to fight LT more. He does weird things and new guard did not work at all in that fight.
  - Fighting Jean Xavier, I managed a beautiful kill right off the bat. And heard from a bystander "She was using Fabris, that's like cheating!". This amused me, and also made me happy that people were recognizing where the guard came from.

I don't know what place we ended up getting (although I would love to), but our team had a lot of good fights, and it was a pleasure to fight beside them.