Good job, QC, and as others have said, do watch your ankle!


(Congratulations to the winners of the draws!)

Congrats to the winners and congrats for a well fought tournament you have to work on your lower defence for next time and you'll prob do better;)

Happy actual Birthday!

I'd have to say you're a real fighter! Good for you that you stayed in the game despite the injury...

Might I suggest that if you have access to a physical therapist that you avail yourself of their help to strengthen your ankles? Once you've sprained it once, it is extremely likely that it will happen again - as you now well know - due to favoring it and weakening of the tendons in the initial injury. But some simple exercises can help increase the strength - and reduce the likelihood of recurrence!

Anyway, I hope your birthday is wonderful!

I've found Web MD to be very reliable - here's a link for specific exercises;

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/rehabilitation-exercises-for-an-ankle-sprain#

If you read the whole article, it explains how important it is to rehabilitate sprains. I had my first when I was 10 or so and suffered repeated sprains for years. The worst was being dropped from a lift onto the tip of my pointe shoe! My fault, really - I should have been smarter about doing my exercises. After that, just stepping off a curb could cause a fresh sprain.

Anyway, best of luck - hope this helps and that your ankle gets better soon!

My beard thanks you, QC! I've had a few fencing-related injuries of my own, so my sympathies, and congrats on finishing. I'll PM you with my pick.

Congrats to the winners and a very happy birthday to you, but you clearly fight like a cow ;-)

Congrats to the winners, and thanks again, QC!

A personal question for you (please feel free to disregard it if you feel so):

What led you to fencing?
A) Dark Ages films.
B) Pirate films.
C) Monkey Island series. ;)
D) Bad companions. :P
E) ???

Kudos on your fighting spirit and take care of that ankle, mate!

Awesome round-up of your weekend QC. Enjoyed reading that.
I assume you tape your ankles?
If not, you should definitely look into it.

Good luck in the next tournament and practice =)

Congrats to the winners and thanks for the giveaway QC!

About that ankle... what Momo1991 said. Also, practice is all well and good, but get some proper rest first.

Thx for this giveaway. Hope you had a nice bday. Happy future fencing!

A little of everything I suppose. I loved playing video games when I was little, and that led me to three genre's specifically that I loved more than any other.

Real Time Strategy
Role Playing
Action Adventure

Being a console gamer growing up (I played since I was 1 apparently) that brought be to two series early on and one later in life:

Age of Empires
The Legend of Zelda
Final Fantasy

The one thing joining Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda is intricacy in sword and metal design. Far enough in the series and you can spend a lot of time just playing and looking at the different sword designs. And frankly I think the Master Sword is a very interesting sword, given that the blade is wider away from the hilt instead of thinning towards the tip. Age of Empires needs a touch more explanation.

I played that game a ton, introduced by my father's friend who ran a computer shop. When I was older, the sequel came out, and I must have played at least 300 hours of my life to that game. That provided my interest in Medieval weapons and armors. There's a few books back home still full of designs, weapons, explanations, so forth, I don't remember the name of the series yet.

When I was 10 I think, on one visit to my grandmother's home in Texas, the Renaissance festival was happening, and we went. I had a really good time (I was still an awkward and clumsy 10 year old though, I accidentally threw a hammer across the room during a coin smithing demonstration that I joined in.) As we were leaving, there was a sword shop, and we all went in. I had some money and purchased a steel short sword for $15, that I still have with me.Apparently these festivals are my past, as my parents have a picture of me being held by a belly dancer when I was too little to possibly remember.

So, take these three things with age, a love of swords was built, made more interesting with new games, new designs, new complexity. I paid attention. Some more festivals start to arrive close to home, which I joined in, and around this time I started up at my new school. One of these visits, I brought $200, and bought a rapier, and this was while I was living with my aunt (I'll explain horror stories with that later, short version is it was bad enough that for the sake of sanity and life I had to move out). On my visits home, I always wanted to take that sword, learn to use it for the sake of using it, it seemed so interesting to me, a 4&1/2 long sword from hilt to tip, and me 6'4, it was amazing how far it reached. But I never found the time or the chance.

So, when I moved into the city where my school is located, away from my aunt, I made a promise to get out and look around and make the most of the campus, all that I couldn't do or hadn't done simply because I was restricted to my aunt's home when I wasn't studying. There was one afternoon where our student center had about 100 tables laid out in front of it, all belonging to clubs, teams, events, organizations, fraternities. There was the BBQ club, Skydiving, Crochet, Football, Soccer, Glassblowing, frat houses dedicated to all the engineering fields, anime club, film club, Student Union Board. And I came across the Fencing Club.

This one was so interesting to me. I took it up. I joined immediately. They tired me out. And I fought how I could. I got thinner. I got quicker. I met a lot of people that I never would have met otherwise. And it's one of the greatest things in the world to fight your heart out for the sake of the battle, to forget everything else in the world except sticking your sword into your foe, like I did this weekend, forgetting my ankle for the sake of the fight and still managing to give some surprises against some of the best fighters that were there that day.

Thanks again and congrats to the winners. Ditto on what others have said about the ankle, master fencer. :)

Alright, I've not heard yet from the second winner, so if he does not get back to me by Saturday Morning to acknowledge winning (so that I know he's actually coming back) I may select a new person to receive a game.

I'm not sure how far along you are in college, but I've heard that some give scholarships to fencers. Just a weird tidbit of info I picked up somewhere that may have no practical use for you...

Legend of Zelda encouraged my son to try a fencing class one summer but he didn't seem to enjoy it as much IRL as he thought he would - just not naturally competitive.

Anyway, my favorite fencing scene is in The Princess Bride - the one at the top of the cliff;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6dgtBU6Gs

It always makes me smile!