Reflections upon becoming a compañero

Many months before I became a compañero (that is, a provost by another name), I had a number of goals I laid out for myself and handed to Maestro Rodrigo. I had been his student for nearly a year and I thought it was time he took me on formally. "He'll like these," I thought. 

I wanted, earnestly, to demonstrate that I was serious about fencing and that I was willing to put in the work. He took them, nodded at them, and then didn’t say much more about them. "Not yet," he said. I didn’t really understand why.

I thought they were pretty good goals. They were things like participating in wars, going to out-of-kingdom events, beating people, entering a number of tournaments, marshalling so many bouts, getting specific equipment, getting my all-important garb standards up to snuff – all very tangible and measurable. It was basically a list of all the things that I thought were the very most important things about fencing back in the early spring. 

I assumed that competitive participation was what differentiated the very serious fencers from those who just did it now and then for fun. Fighting is everything that matters, right?

Ehhhhhh. 

Fighting is one thing. I was not prepared for the two opponents I would come up against as I learned how to fight.

I glimpsed the first of these opponents for the first time back in May. Wanting to prove myself, I fought, and fought, and drilled, and drilled. I practiced cuts for hours. I used a sword that was too heavy for that kind of work – I knew it was too heavy. I was told it was too heavy. It hurt. I told myself that training harder, training longer, would fix the problem. It did not.

I have been staying an inch ahead of this opponent since then. I have a friend, Arjun, who supports me at practice and patches me up, keeping my elbow and shoulder at a level of function where I can continue to fence. He has been warning me for some time now that it isn’t enough on its own. My Maestro has been warning me that it isn’t enough on its own. There have been times where I have fought exclusively left-handed to try to stay ahead of it, taken myself out for a couple of weeks, and used braces and bandages to try to give a little bit more stability. Now I understand that if I don’t really seriously pause, reassess, and take the time to cross-train and care for my body, I won’t even make it to the eric. It won’t be a loss I can easily come back from. Much, much better fighters than me have been felled by chronic injury. My back has become a problem, too, and I know that is something I will have to face around the corner. 

After I saw the first opponent, the second opponent appeared. I had no experience being in situations with adrenaline, intensity, loss, conflict, constraint and (even limited!) physical danger which did not involve harm or the intent to harm. I was unprepared for how my brain would choose to interpret this rush of chemicals and emotions, how long they would linger with me even after fights were over, and how it would impact my ability to trust myself, my mentors, and other fencers. I was discovering things about myself and things were bubbling up that I had not been ready to examine.

The details aren’t important, but as the weeks went on, it started to lead to increasingly challenging conditions outside the eric that I was unable to properly cope with. The end result was that I was taken aside, most gently, and told that it was time to look for some help. I have been getting that help, and I’m pleased to say that it has been making a big difference. But it’s an opponent I am still fighting. It keeps coming up with new tricks to slow me down and trip me up. Sometimes, that means I need to take myself out of the action on the eric and fight bouts in my own mind and in my psychologist’s office and in the pages of my journal. I want you to know that if you have faced this opponent, it can be defeated.

I kept training as I fought these opponents. I got a lot of the things on that first list I handed in crossed off. I’m proud of that! But, like many new fencers who face similar opponents at around the 1-2 year mark, I hadn’t taken the proper time and given myself the appropriate space to prepare my mind and body for what I was increasingly requiring it to do. If I had, I think I wouldn’t have struggled so much. If you haven’t glimpsed these opponents yet, make sure you’re ready for them!

It took a bit of extra time, but I have come to understand that there is one key characteristic of a fighter (with any weapon!) who has staying power, who has lasting dedication, and who meets and exceeds goals. Maybe this is cheesy, but it’s what I believe to be true.

It’s a willingness to understand that the biggest battles are fought off the eric. It’s knowing that learning how to be a principled warrior goes way, way beyond hitting someone with something. Those battles and lessons are sometimes the least immediately rewarding and the hardest. They don’t have a lot of glory in them. They can involve a lot of cardio and thinking about your feelings, which nobody enjoys. But without those battles, victory is impossible.

A fight between two combatants is a single moment. It’s the coming together, briefly, of two people who have prepared for that moment in a thousand ways. They test that preparation against one another. Being able to see the reflection of all of that dedication and passion in the way that each combatant moves and thinks is what makes a fight beautiful.

If you’re not ready to dedicate yourself to that preparation, you’re not ready to commit to a path. I wasn’t. Now I am.