One of the many memorable incidents in Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” is the is the camel charge of the Arab army into Aqaba during WWI. Freddie Young’s cinematography is spectacular; the young Peter O’Toole is dashing and passionate. Nevertheless, glorious as it is, T.E.’s description of the actual event in 7 Pillars of Wisdom is much better dramatically and has the signal virtue of being true. As Lawrence was riding pell-mell down a dune waving and firing his service revolver, his camel was abruptly shot out from beneath him and he was sent tumbling over the poor creature’s head. It was only after he’d stumbled to his senses and the tumult had passed that he realized that in the confusion he, himself, had shot his own mount by mistake. Lawrence’s self-effacing style is sometimes dismissed as disingenuous. I perceive his voice as a lens offering safety and strength through which he was able and willing to see the truth about the violence, chaos and weird, horrific humor of battle. In its own way it’s as immediate and visceral as the Wilfred Owen’s poetry or Hemingway’s early stories.
The incident came to mind Saturday at the USI Epee Circuit Tournament #4 at the University of Utah. Unlike the Weber State venue last month, the gymnasium was spare: just a large room with dirty white walls and, fortunately, a decent wood floor. The venue had been changed at the last minute requiring re-taping and setting all of the strips. Nevertheless, we started on time and the pools and DEs I saw were conducted efficiently and expeditiously. That may sound like a small thing but if you’ve ever participated in a competition where pool bouts were delayed because, for example, over-lapping events ran long, you know how dreary it is and how it can take a terrible toll on performance. If you don’t know when you’re going to fence it’s impossible to be ready.
We arrived a half hour early for the event, as had most of the other fencers. The room was cold. The pale faces and distract conversations suggested a higher level of stress than at the previous circuit tournaments, possibly because it was the last of the year. I stretched, warmed up and bouted with my cousin Robert in preparation, but it wasn’t clearly enough as I realized later. A critical mistake.
My first pool bout was against a newer member of our club. He’s capable, intelligent, athletic and he’s beat me in practice. It was a difficult and exhausting bout but I won with hand touches, one attack into his preparation and counter attacks that closed the line after his attack was short. The key was managing distance and that’s probably the most important thing I’ve been able to put into practice this year. Afterwards, I was confident, a bit exhilarated and totally exhausted. My warm up had been far from sufficient. Lynn suggested I eat a banana and I stupidly refused.
And so after that I promptly lost my remaining 4 pool bouts. Some were against better fencers, but some were not. And though I had a few good touches (a nice bind on a fencer with a rigid arm), my focus and attentiveness were far from where they should have been. Our pools finished early; many of the other strips were still busy. As I looked around, slightly dazed and embarrassed, Lawrence’s experience of shooting his own camel came to mind.
By the time DE’s started I was settled, nourished, warmed up and ready to battle back. I won my first DE, ironically against the clubmate I’d faced in my pool but then lost the second. He was a better fencer by multiple measures but I felt I should have taken more points in the encounter. The one positive point and most important aspect was that my coach came by during the bout and gave me some direction, which I then successfully applied to win a point. It may sound trivial, even to some fencers, but because of the speed and complexity of the sport it can be extremely difficult to do. But it can also be critical: at the last tournament the top fencer in our club won the final match in the tournament in part because he was able to do just that. To my mind, it’s a skill as important as knowing how to advance, lunge or parry.
My favorite bout of the day, however, turned out to be one that I had the pleasure to direct. It was a semifinal in the mixed senior event between two clubmates, Tom Gandy and Dakota Nollner. Both have improved during the last year and I suspect that improvement has not come easily for either, albeit for different reasons. From the very beginning it was clear it would be fierce. Almost every point was careful, demanding and draining. My favorite was the last: they were tied at 14 all. After a little blade play, Dakota suddenly and unexpectedly went for a low percentage shot, a toe touch. And got it. It was both elegant and clever. When he took off his mask and yelled I thought it was one of the few overt displays of passion that day that was merited.
The thing that stood out about the veterans event that followed was that everyone had improved. By now, I was fencing consistently, and doing consistently better. I was where I should have been in the morning when we’d first started.
Two regrets: the first, which I’ve already mentioned, is that in spite of my age and experience I persist in learning things the hard way. The second is that because I spent so much time watching the people I was competing against, I saw little of the other bouts, particularly, Lynn’s and Robert’s.
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