Ok, this past weekend, I made my much ballyhooed competitive comeback in fencing. I competed in the Masters Open, an annual tournament at the University of Texas at Austin.

To recap, in the foil event, I was bested by a 16 year-old girl.

Ok, stop laughing.

No, seriously.

The thing is, I ended up getting off easy. I was only her appetizer in the round of 16. The poor guy that she fenced for the gold medal ended up in a wheel-chair afterwards. True! Actually, he wasn't hurt too badly, he only had a bad cramp at the end of the bout. Ms. Malynn of Dallas was described by that brave fellow as a "pit-bull." I wholeheartedly agree with his estimation; she hit me harder than anyone else that day. No one, certainly not a slew of big mean fencing boys, was stopping her from victory that day. She demolished the best that South Texas Division has to offer.

Ms. Malynn, my fencing helmet is off to you. Girl power!

In the saber event, I did much better. Fortunately, I didn't have to take on any more teenage girls, but I did survive a close scare with a 13 year old in the top four. I ended up fencing quite well despite not having trained seriously for the past three years (I credit Spectrum's elliptical trainer and that pilates class). Ultimately, I lost out in the gold-medal match to a noted saberist from Houston who really seemed to enjoy yelling WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! very loudly anytime he hit me. Pretty typical of saber, but can we bring back some decorum to the sport, gents?

I would like to thank Team Sasha for their support throughout the grueling 10 hours of the competition, much of it spent waiting for something to happen. I would also like to thank, once again, Spectrum Health Club of San Antonio for getting me back in good enough shape to get beat up in public by a 16 year-old girl!

Pics are here.

S-dawg out.