Lessons in Fencing

I took fencing during fall quarter of my sophomore year in college. Sounded like fun and I had a friend who wanted to take it together. The first class periods were interesting... we leapt around the room thrusting our imaginary foils, as our teacher was probably too wise to let us use the real ones yet. I was baffled. Here was a sport I was actually enjoying! How could this be?

Soon we graduated up to the foils. Our teacher called out, "Parry-four!" and "Advance! Advance! Advance!" and we obediently followed. "Mr. Conrad," he would say, "would you please come up here? Bring your foil."

The tall, dark Will Conrad would casually walk up to meet the instructor. His almost-black hair was pulled back into a ponytail under his helmet. "En garde!" ordered Mr. Waterbrook. "Now you see, when I bring the foil over the top and jab here," he said, jabbing Will, "the opponent is left defenseless. What would you do, Mr. Conrad?"

"I'd parry it."

"En garde!" again. They started in slow motion and Will parried as the rest of us looked on. I was impressed at Will's ability.

Eventually we started free playing with each other. Fighting with some people was really ego boosting, and I looked forward to opposing most of the girls in my class. The guys, though... There was Jakob, who had to have been 6'5" and at least 200 pounds, he was a giant. A left-hander, whose name I didn't know, always managing to throw me off with his backward thrusts. And of course, Will.

Will was, by far, the best fencer in the class. There was definitely a reason he was called up to help demonstrate. I looked at him almost in awe, and positively dreaded meeting him in rotation. All my grade school fears came back to me. He had what I would call a dancer's body, thin, graceful, and fast. He made me think of a black dancing cat. Even through the masks we wore, I could see his eyes boring into me until the command was given to "play."

I have this habit of apologizing for all of my mistakes, no matter how small, whenever I'm involved in a sport. To my teammates, my opponent, anyone nearby, really. It's not a great mystery. I'm not generally very good at sports, and my embarrassment is almost inevitable. I apologize to my team because I know they'd do better without me, and to my opponents... well, just because it's got to be painful to watch me.

About 14 times out of 15, Will would get the hit. At first, an "oh, sorry" would slip from my mouth every time I lunged prematurely, or tripped over my feet. But then I began to get the impression that Will didn't care. Don't get me wrong, it's not that he was disdainful or anything like that, just that he didn't consider my mistakes, or my apologies, to be important. Every once in a while, he'd give me a pointer. "Watch my shoulder." Never anything I was doing wrong, merely reminders to not miss the important things while I was busy concentrating on my failures.

Somehow that made an impact on me. I'm sure that Will never intended to be a guru or inspiration to anyone, and I'd seriously doubt that he even remembers me. But still, after time has gone by, I remember the lessons I took from my experiences with him. Far too often, I'm missing what really matters because I can't stop thinking about my imperfections. Success doesn't come from apologizing, it comes from realizing that mistakes happen sometimes, and they don't need to determine the future. Much better to watch the shoulder and learn something.