The last tournament of the qualification was the Budapest Grand Prix. Everyone was bringing their A game to get their Olympic ticket. I've succeeded to distract myself until the very morning of the tournament. I had a decent group of fencer in the preliminary round (the pools) but three of the six opponent I had were strong fencer that already have beaten me this season. I needed to up my game a notch to make it out alive.

Day one of the tournament: 280 fencers, 38 poules. Only 64 spots for the real tournament Sunday where the tableau of 64 starts. Woke up early, had breakfast and took off for the venue. After my warm-up, I went to my strip relaxed but ready to fight. First news: one of the weakest guy in the pool did not show up. We were at this point only 6 in the poule and finishing in the first 16 of the 38 poules was at that point very difficult. Not only I had to win every bout but I would need a really good indicator (hit given minus hit received). I tried to focus on the job to do and just fence. The pressure was to a point that I had difficulties breathing when I was waiting my turn. My jacket felt like it was 20 kilos and my lungs were not able to get air in enough. Once on the strip, everything shuts down and only my opponent is taking my attention.

So after one victory, two victories, three victories and then my fourth victory, I thought: one tiny more five hit bout victory and I will get one step closer of my dream while putting a ton of pressure on the other Pan Americans in the race for an Olympic ticket. I won the bout 5-2. I had an indicator of +14 which is pretty good even with someone in a pool of seven.

Since I was in the second of three flight of poules, I went back to the apartment that we rented to eat, relax, take a shower and come back later. Depending of what to other guys in the third flight would do, I might have to fence 2 bouts in the afternoon or go directly in the top 64 Sunday. A little bit before the end of the third flight, I went back to the venue to prepare in case that +14 was not enough to go through. As I was slowly warming-up, I saw the final results of the first round: I finished 9th overall! I stopped warming-up and stayed in the gym to cheer my teammates who were still fencing. At this point, I was the only one from our zone without an Olympic ticket that was in 64s. I saw my friend but opponent Jason Pryor from USA win his first bout 15-7 then John Edison Rodriguez from Colombia win his first bout in overtime. They both had another bout to win to have access to the tableau of 64. I thought I would die of a heart attack if I stayed another round so I left for the apartment with my equipment.

After an hour of pressing F5 (refresh) like a maniac on my computer, I saw that Pryor (USA) won his second bout and was in the 64s of Sunday. But then I saw at some point that the Colombian did not win his bout and the only Pan American that were in the 64s were Ruben Limardo (Venezuela) who already qualified by team, Jason Pryor (USA) and myself. I was qualified as of this moment no matter what happened Sunday.

That precise moment when I realized that everything I've sacrificed and worked for actually happened was such a huge relief. The pressure and stress piled up every month since my silver medal in Pan Am Championships in Chile in April 2015 and everything disappeared instantly. I actually, on the spot, started to celebrate: I could because I was only fencing 2 days later. Even today I don't really realize what happened. My bet is that I will once I will land in Rio this summer.

​After a night of quick celebration and a day off, I was fencing Silvio Fernandez from Venezuela in 64s. The bout started and he took a lead of a point from the start. I tied many times and he retook the lead every time. The scores were never more than a hit or two apart. I was in control of the bout until the very last minute where I could not catch up. I finally lost the bout 13-10 but I was satisfied of the bout anyway. And on the plus side, I could always get my revenge at the Olympics!

Next week will be the Grand Prix in Budapest, last tournament for the Olympic Games Selection. Everyone in the world who wants to go to the Games will attend that tournament with everything they've got! Fencers will be hungry and thirsty. As of right now, I am ranked second in the Pan American zone and only the top two fencers in our zone will be directly qualified for the Olympics. If a fellow Canadian makes a podium or John Edison Rodriguez from Colombia finishes in the top 16, I will have to make some points to take come back in the top 2 in the zone. The pressure is at a level that when I think about where I am and what I have done to get there, I have trouble breathing and feels like a bear is hugging me... Not the greatest preparation for the final event towards the realization of my dream.

I try to distract myself to not think about something that I can't really change: movies, video games, books, etc. So until the start of the tournament, I will try to forget what I've been focused on at 100% for the past 5 years. It's ironic to focus on something every day for 5 years and then when it counts at the end: you have to think about something else. At least the irony makes me smile.

I am not in my final training period before the last two tournaments: Sofia (Bulgaria) and Budapest (Hungary). My hip problem gone and the arrival of Xiao Jian in Toronto make the environment the best it could for those last couple of weeks. A lot of lessons, a lot of footwork and a lot of conditionning. Instead of being always in pain from my hip, I am always in pain from soreness. Major improvement if you ask me. At least I am taking a step towards my dream everyday.

Lessons with Xiao Jian are very difficult physically and mentally. He is always making me work in situations, distances, rhytms or positions in which I am not comfortable which makes my game complete in a way that I am mostly always ready or at least even when I'm not, I still have couple of ways out of it. Footworks sessions are focussed on intervals simulating a higher rhytm when you need to go get a point without a lot of time left then couple of second of normal intensity that I am still ready in case that my opponent decide to put pressure or attack. Then the conditioning is there to reinforce everything to make sure that every part of my body can take the charge of the training. So a lot of lunges with charges in different angles to give mostly the knees and ankles power in all possible angles. Fencing is very hard on a body because we, as fencers, are always in weird positions before asking the impossible to our body to continue forward or run for our lives.

So between those training, I mostly rest, eat properly, laundry, cleaning, etc. I think, as of this moment, that I am getting ready for two things: fencing at the Olympics Games and being a stay at home dad! It makes me laugh when I write this but it is what I do these days. Because I cannot be training 8 hours a day nor start a real job that will take all my focus away from my dream when I am so close of reaching it. So I give all my energy and my focus towards fencing and fill the rest of my days with activities that does not require a lot of focus and energy: grocery, laundry, cleaning, eating, video games, reading, etc.

​That being said, I feel like I am still doing everything that I can towards my dream and it does not matter if I have my qualification or not: at 80 years old (if I get there...), I won't have any regrets or haunting memories about things that I should've done in the past that might have done a difference. No regrets is my ultimate goal basically. But I still would very appreciate the memory of Olympic Games! Now back to training to finish the last sprint!

During my quest on exploring different avenue to dodge the cortisone shot and to actually improve my situation instead of just stopping the problem, I started to talk a lot with Nader Abdelkader (my friend and sponsor) and show all the results that I have regarding my hip; X-Rays, MRI results, etc.. He then came to my house one night with his physio table and asked me a bunch of questions and folded me couple of times asking me if it was painful when I was doing that or that movement. He explained to me what he thought was the problem, how to approach it and all the science behind it. It was very interesting actually to hear a vulgarization of the really intense and deep science of our body and how it really works, or at least how it is suppose to work. Then he told me to do two exercises.

The first one is basically to bend over with your back straight, very easy (a little bit too easy, actually) and in my head, it was not very promising. But I will do everything that he tells me and then judge of the results afterwards. Keep an open mind, I told myself. What do I have to lose anyway, right? The second exercise is a squat with both of my arms between my knees in praying positions and I have to slowly rotate pushing my knees out with my elbows and pushing my elbows in with my knees. I call this one the Monk-squat. Again, another weird exercise that does not seam to be very scientific but OK, I can play along. He is helping me and trying to make me pain-free and I should at least have the benefit of the doubt and go with it specially because he actually knows what he is doing. While I was monk-squatting, I really felt like an adept praying to a shaman (Shaman Nader in fact). I laughed a little bit and explained how I felt to Nader and he just told me to get up and to tell him how I felt.

After bending over couple of times (I know how it sounds...) and "monking" a bit, I got up and I felt like I was 28 years old again. Only a year younger you'll tell me but it's a huge year for my hip! The 28 years old Max without hip problems! With those two simple/stupid/genius/scientific/shamanic exercises, my hip problem took five major steps back! Only within 5 minutes of weird movement, I felt like I could train again!

​From that day, I started to call Nader "Shaman". I told him that he should stop his "physio thing" and invest all his energy into his Shaman very promising career. I keep working with him on regular basis but he single handed stoped the problem from growing and started the healing process. It is too soon to say now but the surgery in september changed from "defenitive" status to "we have to wait and see" status! Thank you so much Nader for giving me back my weird fencer hip-problem-free body! You are a great physio (and a great Shaman also) that gave me tools to attack my problem by myself. I could never thank you enough!

What is: "Xiao Jian immigrating to Toronto" + "World Cup in Germany one week and one in Vancouver three weeks after so it's pretty useless for the Chinese team to go back to China for a week or so then fly back to Vancouver" + "I live in Toronto"? Yeah... The answer is quite obvious right? "Training camp in Vango Toronto with the Chinese Team!".

Five fencers and one coach came to Vango for two and a half weeks. At that time my hip was still a problem for the first two weeks. Then when it got better the training was a bit more relax moving towards the world cup in Vancouver. I did not do all the conditioning with them but all fencing practices and group lessons were a must. Very painful but still necessary because I needed the training. It was at that point that I started to look into the cortisone shot avenue. Then, Shaman
Nader happened (see next blog) and everything was back to normal.

We had a local tournament in Vango Toronto when Team China was there and they all participated to the tournaments. It was a great opportunity for the local fencers and the members of the club to see and fence the national team of China. I approach the tournament only with the intention to finish on the podium to have access to the cash prizes they gave for medalist. I did need the money and only the registration was 50$. At the end, the gold medal was worth 500$, the silver 250$, and bronze medals 125$ each. So my plan was to do extremely well in pool to avoid any Chinese until semi-finals. I won everything and only received 2 hits. I was ranked second and did not have any Chinese in my way until the podium. Once in semi-final, I was fencing one of the Chinese (Shi Gao Feng) and lost 12-10 in the last minute of passivity. It was a pretty good bout and both of us fenced well.

​After the tournament, we had a couple of days of training before leaving for the world cup in Vancouver. The hip was better and I was very happy that I could sleep well again. It was very nice to see some of my old friends from China and train with them like old times. Old times being two years ago maximum but it feels like it's been an eternity and a half.