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!
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!
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