As ever there is good news and bad news and I'll start with the bad news as it usually seems to be the most popular choice:
The team for the World Championships has been selected and to my huge disappointment, I'm not in it. Infact, two out of the four fencers of the previous Senior Team over the past two years have been deselected for this competition, which is a suprising decision for the Worlds before an Olympic Games, but one which I can't dwell on. And so, must focus on the good news...
My move back to Manchester has been a brilliant decision for my fencing and my wellbeing overall.Thoroughly enjoying training again has motivated me to get back into an effective routine and and to pursue all the support that's here in Manchester and Chesterfield. I am back to fencing at Stockport Sword Club in the week, and getting lessons from my coach at Wingerworth Fencing Club at weekends. I have returned to DNA Sports Performance in the Power Room for strength and conditioning (You should have a look at the aptly named Power Room )and I continue to be sponsored by Steria Ltd. and Brampton Manor of Chesterfield and supported by o2's athlete development scheme.
Importantly, all of these have contributed to my feeling positive about fencing, and I believe this has been the cause of my improvement in performance and ultimately, competitions. Over the past few weeks I competed at Bristol Open coming 2nd (improvement of twenty places from last year)and Essex Open coming 3rd (an improvement of more places than I care to count from before).
Now my main focus is to stick to all of the sports psychologist's cliches (which honestly do help) ...control the controllables...focus on performance... results will take care of themselves etc etc.and these will make sure I train hard enough, and right enough to make it back on to the travelling team, and be there, at the Olympics.
Sunday 18 September 2011
Saturday 10 September 2011
How o2 is helping me to pursue the best sport of them all.
Below is an article I wrote for an internal magazine at o2. It's a little bit about why Fencing is great and how my work placement with o2 has helped me stay motivated. I've edited it a bit for this blog to avoid too much repitition and it was also written specifically for o2 colleagues and so sings o2's praises, but everything I've written is genuine:
I started fencing at a small local club in Derbyshire when a friend asked if I would go with them. At the time I was competing in athletics and netball for my county and when I tried fencing, my first impressions were that it was a bit of an odd activity which, in my view, was hard pushed to call itself a “sport”. As I continued to go (partly for the social side and partly because I am competitive and there were people there I hadn’t yet beaten) I gradually realised that it is the most endearing sport of them all. The more you discover of fencing, the more fascinating it becomes. In running, and even netball, there is a limit to the creativity involved. Your aim is to be faster, more accurate, more powerful, but the creativity is restricted. In fencing, your power, strength and speed are important, but they can only get you so far. If someone can predict what you’re going to do, it doesn’t matter how fast your attack is, you’re doomed. For this reason the progression in fencing is infinite-a challenging feat for someone who likes to reach goals, but luckily I also like a challenge...
So this is my sport, and this is why I chose to pursue it as a full time occupation. When I moved to london in order to do this, I also applied for the o2 scheme to gain some extra work experience along with working towards London 2012. So far my fencing had gone from strength to strength and the transition from a 14 year old girl going to a small club of beginners to full-time athlete had been smoother than I thought possible. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to last as I didn’t enjoy living in London and although I was training hard, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to compete, which resulted in a poor season in the international individual events.
Although the team event was looking more positive for us with regards to going to the Olympics, this wasn’t to go smoothly either. Soon after gaining our highest ever world ranking following reaching the quarter finals in Rio, British Fencing went through some changes resulting in our national coach ending his time with us and a new Performance Manager being appointed. Due to the uncertainty of the team and my feelings towards living in London, I moved back up to Manchester to find steadier and more familiar ground.
This would have a been pretty tough if it hadn’t been for another aspect of my life which was becoming increasingly more positive and exciting, and here I am referring, of course, to my work placement with o2. This new opportunity was providing me with the perfect antidote towards feelings that I’d wasted my time and efforts training so hard for the past 4 years. I had been given the chance to learn and work for a stimulating business who wanted me, as an athlete, to become involved in their journey through HR. With o2’s flexibility, I was able to very easily transfer from the Slough Office to a Bury site and over the past few months, the stability I‘ve gained from working with the Policy Team has allowed me to build up a training regime here, in Manchester. I’m now training hard and positively again and started the domestic season well, coming 3rd at Essex Open at the weekend, despite driving down at 4am and feeling sick with nerves after “bouncing back” from my time in London. Any day now I will hear the team selection for the World Championships and as a squad, we are all working hard to qualify for the Olympics over this coming season.
I started fencing at a small local club in Derbyshire when a friend asked if I would go with them. At the time I was competing in athletics and netball for my county and when I tried fencing, my first impressions were that it was a bit of an odd activity which, in my view, was hard pushed to call itself a “sport”. As I continued to go (partly for the social side and partly because I am competitive and there were people there I hadn’t yet beaten) I gradually realised that it is the most endearing sport of them all. The more you discover of fencing, the more fascinating it becomes. In running, and even netball, there is a limit to the creativity involved. Your aim is to be faster, more accurate, more powerful, but the creativity is restricted. In fencing, your power, strength and speed are important, but they can only get you so far. If someone can predict what you’re going to do, it doesn’t matter how fast your attack is, you’re doomed. For this reason the progression in fencing is infinite-a challenging feat for someone who likes to reach goals, but luckily I also like a challenge...
So this is my sport, and this is why I chose to pursue it as a full time occupation. When I moved to london in order to do this, I also applied for the o2 scheme to gain some extra work experience along with working towards London 2012. So far my fencing had gone from strength to strength and the transition from a 14 year old girl going to a small club of beginners to full-time athlete had been smoother than I thought possible. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to last as I didn’t enjoy living in London and although I was training hard, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to compete, which resulted in a poor season in the international individual events.
Although the team event was looking more positive for us with regards to going to the Olympics, this wasn’t to go smoothly either. Soon after gaining our highest ever world ranking following reaching the quarter finals in Rio, British Fencing went through some changes resulting in our national coach ending his time with us and a new Performance Manager being appointed. Due to the uncertainty of the team and my feelings towards living in London, I moved back up to Manchester to find steadier and more familiar ground.
This would have a been pretty tough if it hadn’t been for another aspect of my life which was becoming increasingly more positive and exciting, and here I am referring, of course, to my work placement with o2. This new opportunity was providing me with the perfect antidote towards feelings that I’d wasted my time and efforts training so hard for the past 4 years. I had been given the chance to learn and work for a stimulating business who wanted me, as an athlete, to become involved in their journey through HR. With o2’s flexibility, I was able to very easily transfer from the Slough Office to a Bury site and over the past few months, the stability I‘ve gained from working with the Policy Team has allowed me to build up a training regime here, in Manchester. I’m now training hard and positively again and started the domestic season well, coming 3rd at Essex Open at the weekend, despite driving down at 4am and feeling sick with nerves after “bouncing back” from my time in London. Any day now I will hear the team selection for the World Championships and as a squad, we are all working hard to qualify for the Olympics over this coming season.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)