Well everyone keeps saying I need to update my blog (strange/good to know that people actually read this) so here goes...
Unfortunately we didn't qualify for the Olympics for the team event. Surprisingly I don't feel the way I predicted. I thought I'd be hiding from all the Olympic torch media and from the world in general. I also thought I might get bored and feel at a loss at what to do and very quickly get very fat. Strangely enough this hasn't been the case. Instead I got straight into a full time job - recruitment in the Oil and Gas Sector - and found that this takes up my time, almost completely. I've tried to do some longer distance running and am discovering that when you're no longer an athlete you can survive off half the food and sleep you used to be able to.
I also thought I'd never want to pick up a sword again and, although I don't have time to train in the evenings, I am keen to keep up the competitions and maintain my national ranking.
I thought I would never want to hear the word 'fencing' again and forget it happened, but I actually look back on the whole of my fencing life often and only feel pleased and what I took on. I was also captain of the British team for the final two Olympic qualifiers which I loved and allowed me to take the lead, rather than be scared stiff to let others down. Now I'm actually excited for the Olympics to come to Great Britain and can't wait to cheer the rest of the team in all the sports on. I hope you'll join me!
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Sanity Recommended
Wow, can't belive this much time has passed since I last posted anything. For a really quick update, I've been to two Olympic Qualifiers so far. In Doha I worked on the psychological side of my game concentrating on staying relaxed and enjoying it - maybe a little too relaxed and I forgot to get away from my opponents attacks. Budapest was much better and I worked really hard. Unfortunately though I am not near qualfying yet and so with two qualifyers to go I'm completely ready to put my all in.
The good news is that I've been reselected for the team event for these final competitions so I have even more opportunity to show these foreigners what I'm made of.
I've also been blogging for the o2careers website and given the odd talk letting my colleagues experience a bit of the passion and excitement I feel towards the Olympics and to spread the Olympic fever round o2. And the main parallel I find between working life at o2 and aiming to compete at the Olympics is to make sure that everything you do helps you to come out the other side 100% sane. This is fully recommended. As soon as this starts to sway and your perspective gets distorted you're heading for trouble...
The good news is that I've been reselected for the team event for these final competitions so I have even more opportunity to show these foreigners what I'm made of.
I've also been blogging for the o2careers website and given the odd talk letting my colleagues experience a bit of the passion and excitement I feel towards the Olympics and to spread the Olympic fever round o2. And the main parallel I find between working life at o2 and aiming to compete at the Olympics is to make sure that everything you do helps you to come out the other side 100% sane. This is fully recommended. As soon as this starts to sway and your perspective gets distorted you're heading for trouble...
Monday, 2 January 2012
A year on
As the title of this blog suggests, it's been a year on from when I first started this blog and as it predicted, there have been plenty of ups and downs. The ups have allowed me to taste what its all about and the downs have given me a hunger to give it everything I have.
This Christmas I trained hard up to Christmas Day, then went straight to the TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme) camp usually in Grantham Barracks, this year in Rome Barracks - a small difference. After a relaxing New Year I'm ready to start my training again and after just finding out I've been selected for the first two Grand Prixs of the season, it's a good start to 2012.
This Christmas I trained hard up to Christmas Day, then went straight to the TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme) camp usually in Grantham Barracks, this year in Rome Barracks - a small difference. After a relaxing New Year I'm ready to start my training again and after just finding out I've been selected for the first two Grand Prixs of the season, it's a good start to 2012.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
Angle of Approach follow on
Just a quick add on from my previous blog - I came 7th in the Nationals.
Although this was my worst result within the past five years of me entering the nationals, it was actually the best I'd fenced.
Despite getting a bi into the last 32 and winning 15-2 and 15-6 on the way to the quarter finals, I ended up getting knocked out by the overall winner, Mary Cohen, 15-11. I fought hard throughout the competition, and have no big regrets in risk taking during the fights.
I enjoyed it from beginning to end. And although I snapped at my boyfriend -a bit - the day after, my overall pleasure of performing well outbalanced my disappointment of getting knocked out in the quarterfinals.
So, you could say - result!
Although this was my worst result within the past five years of me entering the nationals, it was actually the best I'd fenced.
Despite getting a bi into the last 32 and winning 15-2 and 15-6 on the way to the quarter finals, I ended up getting knocked out by the overall winner, Mary Cohen, 15-11. I fought hard throughout the competition, and have no big regrets in risk taking during the fights.
I enjoyed it from beginning to end. And although I snapped at my boyfriend -a bit - the day after, my overall pleasure of performing well outbalanced my disappointment of getting knocked out in the quarterfinals.
So, you could say - result!
Saturday, 10 December 2011
The angle of approach
This blog is a reflection on my approach to competitions and training. Right now I'm training hard, enjoying training and improving in training. They say that a competition is just a marker of how your training is going. If you relax and let your training come out, the result takes care of itself. Lance Armstrong said that his confidence came from approaching the start line knowing he'd had trained harder than everyone else there.
I've had a strange approach to competitions through my time in fencing. The first angle was when I first started competitions. I liked not knowing what round I was in, who I was about to fence or where I was ranked. I then enjoyed surprising myself when I was told where I'd come (or easily forgetting my result when I didn't like the answer). I just enjoyed beating the person in front of me. And it was with this light hearted approach that I climbed up the junior, then senior and finally world rankings. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't light hearted towards training and fighting, but the results and rankings were less important to me.
This is a fine attitude to have as you're making progress and improving all the time. It had been enjoyable exceeding expectations and the pressure was minimal. My motivation to continue to train was almost entirely intrinsic. But once reaching high up into the rankings the approach took a very different angle. Suddenly the results were everything to me. They were so much to me that I didn't dare take any risks, and I never let my training come out. As you'd expect my results stopped improving and instead, worsened. Training and competitions were fuelled by extrinsic motivation. And I slowly built up an almost phobia of competitions, international and domestic.
Then, last weekend, something interesting happened; I'd applied to a relatively local, relatively small open in Hereford and Worcester. But, very unprofessionally of me, I got the days mixed up and missed it. I would have almost expected a sense of relief that I didn't have to put myself through the harrowing experience that I find competitions, but instead I felt a definite sense of disappointment. Thus, perhaps my self image of someone terrified of competitions is incorrect. And instead, I hope I have managed to grasp a more relaxed but excited approach to competitions once more. More perceptive than I originally was, but more relaxed than my recent approach. Somewhere in between my two previous angles.
I have the national championships tomorrow. There would have been times throughout this year, that I'd have made myself ill with worry. But now, instead I have nerves of anticipation and excitement. And I feel confident in myself that I'll let my training come out and, more importantly, enjoy the challenge.
I've had a strange approach to competitions through my time in fencing. The first angle was when I first started competitions. I liked not knowing what round I was in, who I was about to fence or where I was ranked. I then enjoyed surprising myself when I was told where I'd come (or easily forgetting my result when I didn't like the answer). I just enjoyed beating the person in front of me. And it was with this light hearted approach that I climbed up the junior, then senior and finally world rankings. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't light hearted towards training and fighting, but the results and rankings were less important to me.
This is a fine attitude to have as you're making progress and improving all the time. It had been enjoyable exceeding expectations and the pressure was minimal. My motivation to continue to train was almost entirely intrinsic. But once reaching high up into the rankings the approach took a very different angle. Suddenly the results were everything to me. They were so much to me that I didn't dare take any risks, and I never let my training come out. As you'd expect my results stopped improving and instead, worsened. Training and competitions were fuelled by extrinsic motivation. And I slowly built up an almost phobia of competitions, international and domestic.
Then, last weekend, something interesting happened; I'd applied to a relatively local, relatively small open in Hereford and Worcester. But, very unprofessionally of me, I got the days mixed up and missed it. I would have almost expected a sense of relief that I didn't have to put myself through the harrowing experience that I find competitions, but instead I felt a definite sense of disappointment. Thus, perhaps my self image of someone terrified of competitions is incorrect. And instead, I hope I have managed to grasp a more relaxed but excited approach to competitions once more. More perceptive than I originally was, but more relaxed than my recent approach. Somewhere in between my two previous angles.
I have the national championships tomorrow. There would have been times throughout this year, that I'd have made myself ill with worry. But now, instead I have nerves of anticipation and excitement. And I feel confident in myself that I'll let my training come out and, more importantly, enjoy the challenge.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Further Fencing Fun
I have been taking my plastic swords to unsuspecting victims in the name of o2 again this week. This time, instead of call centres and head offices, it was primary school children from Oldham that got the opportunity to test their swordsman skills and their musketeer career potential.
The primary school children who swapped football and basketball dribbling for fencing lunging yesterday, usually have 3StyleSports running their PE classes but yesterday had the opportunity to fence their classmates in the playground as part of Coppice Primary School’s preparation for the Olympics. 3 StyleSports (@3stylesports) is a youth project that is supported by Think Big and ran by Andy Williams who I met at a Think Big residential I attended a few months ago. He uses the financial and business support Think Big give, to increase sports participation amongst youngsters in the Oldham area, who are given little opportunities to go to after school clubs and other sports clubs because of their financial restrictions.
With the run up to the Olympics, Andy’s aim is to get children involved in lots of Olympic sports so, to fire up their anticipation of the games, I brought some fencing kit for them to try the alternative sport of fencing. One of the great things I saw from the fencing session was the lifting of normal sporting stereotypes. Because there aren’t strong gender associations attached to fencing, unlike dance and football (also covered by 3StyleSport,) all of the kids took it on with a fervour that Andy said he rarely sees from both girls and boys in the same session.
This picture shows some of the children who took part, along with their very own, home-made, paper-mache London 2012 Mascot.
The primary school children who swapped football and basketball dribbling for fencing lunging yesterday, usually have 3StyleSports running their PE classes but yesterday had the opportunity to fence their classmates in the playground as part of Coppice Primary School’s preparation for the Olympics. 3 StyleSports (@3stylesports) is a youth project that is supported by Think Big and ran by Andy Williams who I met at a Think Big residential I attended a few months ago. He uses the financial and business support Think Big give, to increase sports participation amongst youngsters in the Oldham area, who are given little opportunities to go to after school clubs and other sports clubs because of their financial restrictions.
With the run up to the Olympics, Andy’s aim is to get children involved in lots of Olympic sports so, to fire up their anticipation of the games, I brought some fencing kit for them to try the alternative sport of fencing. One of the great things I saw from the fencing session was the lifting of normal sporting stereotypes. Because there aren’t strong gender associations attached to fencing, unlike dance and football (also covered by 3StyleSport,) all of the kids took it on with a fervour that Andy said he rarely sees from both girls and boys in the same session.
This picture shows some of the children who took part, along with their very own, home-made, paper-mache London 2012 Mascot.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Fencing in Call Centres
Last week saw a day which I approached with both tension and anticipation. As an athlete, I am used to controlling feelings of apprehension when a competition nears and I need to perform at my highest. All athletes have their own way of preparing for competitions, from training themselves into the ground to taking a relaxing holiday. I think I am somewhere in the middle. I like to feel like I’ve done the best training and then make sure I do something completely unrelated to fencing the day before. As an athlete, you spend as much time as possible keeping control of the controllable to gain confidence in your performance and ultimately, the outcome.
Last Friday, however, I had to deal with a new nervousness I had not yet felt. This came from a situation whereby I was so in control of the outcome that I completely lost confidence in my ability to perform. I am building this day into something quite significant, however, for many people it is something they do on a very regular basis: organising a day of fencing sessions - I did this at Bury Call Centre to raise money for charity. The week leading up to the event, I ‘encouraged’ people to sign up for sessions, but couldn’t shake the feeling that because I was in control of the event going well, it would go wrong. As it was, all the sessions filled up and were a great success. Over £200 was raised for the charities, enthusiastic feedback given and even a couple of emails asking for the nearest fencing club were received.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day, but I think it raised an interesting question – why spend all my time trying to gain control to perform at my best, when I panicked once all the control was in my hands? I think it’s important for anybody performing under pressure regularly, to be able to remain steady when under pressures out of their comfort zone (i.e. under different types of pressure). I think I need a bit of practice at this as I discovered the other day when I tried to reverse out of the (narrow!) drive in front of my family. One of my biggest learning points from the event was to embrace discomfort to build confidence.
Last Friday, however, I had to deal with a new nervousness I had not yet felt. This came from a situation whereby I was so in control of the outcome that I completely lost confidence in my ability to perform. I am building this day into something quite significant, however, for many people it is something they do on a very regular basis: organising a day of fencing sessions - I did this at Bury Call Centre to raise money for charity. The week leading up to the event, I ‘encouraged’ people to sign up for sessions, but couldn’t shake the feeling that because I was in control of the event going well, it would go wrong. As it was, all the sessions filled up and were a great success. Over £200 was raised for the charities, enthusiastic feedback given and even a couple of emails asking for the nearest fencing club were received.
I thoroughly enjoyed the day, but I think it raised an interesting question – why spend all my time trying to gain control to perform at my best, when I panicked once all the control was in my hands? I think it’s important for anybody performing under pressure regularly, to be able to remain steady when under pressures out of their comfort zone (i.e. under different types of pressure). I think I need a bit of practice at this as I discovered the other day when I tried to reverse out of the (narrow!) drive in front of my family. One of my biggest learning points from the event was to embrace discomfort to build confidence.
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