How I stopped taking fencing seriously or I blame Bencb
I started fencing in 2001 and I am in love with it ever since.
Fencing is for a reason unpopular sport (it's hard to understand if you haven't done it yourself) which like any other combat sport is a blend beetween technics, strategy and physicality but much more forgiving.
I mean you don't get hit in the head, choked or your ears broken. There is no not that many things that compare to outworking someone who is smarter than you or outsmarter an more technical opponent and actually winning a tough tournament. (you see where I'm heading?)
Like probably any other combat sport there are people who call it physical chess or smthg in the lines which is corny but not that far from true.
First time I made national team in 2006 and since then always have been on international circuit. Looking back my results were very solid. I have multiple medals from world cups and one of each continental and world championships.
My highest world rank was 15th. and everyhing was going great before I got injured and missed the whole season. I came back and had some success but never became what I used to be.
I went through something like winners tilt where everybody was waiting for me to bee good again and telling me how really talented and great I was of a fencer but I felt something was wrong.
That's when I got the Bencb's mtt course. It was eyeopening.
Not because of his monotone german accent that made me fall a sleep everytime nor because I started binking mtts left and right
It was much more than that. It was suddenly realizing how proffesional work can look like. The whole scheme was very clear and transparent.
On the other side of a spectrum I was still training and competing and it was so clear how in a field were I suppose to be professional I wasn't doing any of this. We as a national team were just banging against a wall with no minor changes from one competition to another, from one season to the next one.
This is a part were I really want to blame others in what is initailly my personal failure. To make things short I was just fed up and with doing things that (at least imo) had little to zero EV. Pretending to work towards some goals while wathcing how everyone around is getting better and you are not.
To clear things up. I was still good on national level and enough to make team for probably few more years to come.
This weekend the first world cup of the season took place in Germany. It's funny feeling knowing that I could have went and make few bucks (you get paid some food money often more than you actually need to eat for a day) but instead I was grinding and dropped like -400$ or smthng.
But i know it's my decision and there noone to blame for my results now.