Sunday, November 8, 2009

Out of Shape and Interesting E-Mails

My husband and I went to practice on Saturday.  He had his first lesson with our new coach, and much like me, he was completely thrilled and exhilarated when it was over.  It will interesting watching him progress through his lessons in comparison to my lessons.  I have much more of a foundation to work with, but I have far more muscle memory to unlearn or tweak than he does.

One thing that has become very, very clear is that I need to be in MUCH better shape to get to the point I'd like to be at.  My legs crapped out after about an hour of fencing/practicing. I'm afraid to start running to help get there, as the greater intensity of my footwork and lunging may be all my knees can take.  I don't think I need to be doing any more high impact stuff.  I think we are going to look into picking up an exercise bike on Craigslist or something as an alternative.  What I would *really* love is a pool. It's a total body work out and no impact.

Finally, I got an interesting e-mail today.  When my husband and I left our old club (the OC), we just...stopped going there.  We went to the new club one night to try it out and we easily decided after that one practice that we were switching.  We haven't been to a tournament since our switch, so we haven't run into anyone from the OC yet.  Now, us not going to practice for a few weeks isn't that unusual.  There have been times when neither of us were able to go to practice because work got busy or something.  And let's face it, if we loved going, we would have made the time to go regardless of how busy we were.  But during those absences, we never heard from anyone from the OC to see if everything was ok or whatever.

Now, however, we get an e-mail saying "we've missed you at OC practice.  I hope that all is well."  I find this odd.  My guess is that the coach knows we left OC, because when we recently registered for a tournament at ASKFred, we changed our club designation to the new club (and this coach checks ASKFred pretty regularly).  The thing that I find odd is that other people have left OC before (a good number of whom left to join our new club!!), and the coach never once even acknowledged that they left.

I am wondering if this is the extent of the communication that will come from OC now, or if I should expect some questions next time I attend a meet hosted by OC (which will be in December, most likely).  I don't feel the need to volunteer information to OC, but if the coach asks me why we left, I will have no issue telling them that we felt seriously neglected, that the lack of structure at practices is a disservice to ALL fencers, and that the coaches need to be far more diligent and proactive in coaching, both in ensuring that people who schedule lessons actually get them and providing attention and assistance during bouting in practice.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, as I think the coaches there looked at me as a valuable resource for the club.  It seemed OC coaches treated me as such, and they had even been told that by another coach (A guest coach came to run a weekend clinic. The coach remembered me from the college club circuit, and at the end of the clinic, he pretty much told OC coaches that!) I have a good amount of experience due to collegiate fencing and I do enjoy helping other fencers learn.  In fact, during some practices, I felt like I coached some of the younger and/or inexperienced fencers more than the coaches did!  So I really am wondering if they will say anything to me or not.  I am doubtful that anything I say to them, whether they ask me for an explanation or not, will make any difference whatsoever.

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