IGX Induced Panic

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

We leave today for Boston. I may not make it. On the up side, nerves had me up until 4am doing ALL THE THINGS! I baked cookies, did all the laundry, shoved all the stuffing back into the dog's bed, read a book, reorganized my DVDs, washed windows, repacked my sword gear, and jumped in the pool for a swim. On the down side, I'm still awake, the smell of cookies is making me hungry, the dog is pulling all the stuffing back out of his bed, I forgot that the temperature only got up to 64 degrees yesterday and the water had a greenish tinge to it and now I'm freezing.

Ever since I was a kid, every time I had a piano recital, an orchestra concert where I had a solo, a work in a school art exhibit, Longpoint's paired forms, even the quilt I just entered in the fair this year- every time, I have these stupid bouts of insecurity. I talk myself into forgetting things I knew, or only see the missteps in my artwork, or whatever. It's ridiculous. So I had a little panicky moment or two about IGX too. I know it'll be fun. I know I'm going to learn a ton. I know we'll have a great time. But I don't know if it was the six people today telling me not to get dead, lingering unease over my as yet un-healed bone bruise from Longpoint, or just dread of a nine-hour drive, but something got me more than a bit nervous. The poor Professor got the joy of dealing with it, but managed to allay my fears enough to get me to let him go to bed. Then the aforementioned frittering began. But my house has never been so clean!

Really though, I'm totally looking forward to trying another tournament and fencing more great fighters! At Longpoint, I got to face the others in my pool, but that was it. The squashed finger kept me from picking up any other matches, so I spent a lot of time just watching. This time, it sounds like we'll have tons of fighting to do. As last time, my main goal is not to get dead. I'm going to shoot a little higher though, and hope to at least land a couple of really good shots, and to try and be sure that I take a step with every cut- I'm really bad about that. Watching the videos we took of Deadpool's birthday gauntlet, I saw that I move with all the smoothness and grace of a robot that's short circuiting. Hopefully I can keep it together and fight the nerves off enough to put into practice some of what the Professor's been trying to get us to see. I'm going to watch for those indes moments and try to actually act on them, rather than just watching them flit by. But if you're at IGX and see a goofball in a blue coat and bunny mask waving randomly in the air, you'll know I missed one. But hey- at least I'll have recognized it :)

Wish me luck- we're shipping off to Boston!