When I was younger (teen / twenties), I wasn't a confident person. I was pretty insecure. There was a break when I was in the Army. I was a pretty good soldier and in that environment I was pretty confident. As I've gotten older (thirties), I feel a lot more confident in myself, more secure, more comfortable with who I am.
Then there is the fencing piste. I have had discussions before with my fencing instructor on people's personalities and how it translates to their fencing style blah, blah, blah. While I have improved in a lot of ways, I don't think that I'm where I should be at. I think that I fence insecure. I notice it especially at competitions. I just flat out don't fence as well and a lot of it is the anxiety created by the competition how many bouts will I win, where will I place, will someone beat me that hasn't been at the club as long, etc. There other things I could add, but take my word for it, I fence insecure or as my fencing instructor likes to phrase it, "You fence like you're afraid of getting hit / losing."
Initially, I started thinking this is some kind of Freudian thing. Maybe, I'm not as confident overall as I think. But, no I don't think so. People can master certain areas of their life but not others and feel confident in those areas they've mastered while insecure in others. How do I fence more confidently and not take half a life to build up that confidence?
The Zen answer would probably be ego. And I think there is something to it. Some of my confidence as I've grown older is because I don't worry as much what other people think.
I have thought of this in context of Zen. I thought of using mindfulness ... try to focus on breath at competitions and not letting my thoughts run wild. But there's another part of me that says a lot of this is ego and expectation. And I need to deal with that ... accept that and mindfulness isn't really dealing with the problem. There is more. I'm just having trouble getting my arms around it.
As a side note: I haven't done any competition this year. We've had our house on the market and between a million house projects to get the house ready to sell and then trying to keep it clean with two small children for showings, I decided I was going to forgo competitions for a while. Anyway, a big competition is coming up that a lot of people in my club will be going to and it got me thinking.
Then there is the fencing piste. I have had discussions before with my fencing instructor on people's personalities and how it translates to their fencing style blah, blah, blah. While I have improved in a lot of ways, I don't think that I'm where I should be at. I think that I fence insecure. I notice it especially at competitions. I just flat out don't fence as well and a lot of it is the anxiety created by the competition how many bouts will I win, where will I place, will someone beat me that hasn't been at the club as long, etc. There other things I could add, but take my word for it, I fence insecure or as my fencing instructor likes to phrase it, "You fence like you're afraid of getting hit / losing."
Initially, I started thinking this is some kind of Freudian thing. Maybe, I'm not as confident overall as I think. But, no I don't think so. People can master certain areas of their life but not others and feel confident in those areas they've mastered while insecure in others. How do I fence more confidently and not take half a life to build up that confidence?
The Zen answer would probably be ego. And I think there is something to it. Some of my confidence as I've grown older is because I don't worry as much what other people think.
I have thought of this in context of Zen. I thought of using mindfulness ... try to focus on breath at competitions and not letting my thoughts run wild. But there's another part of me that says a lot of this is ego and expectation. And I need to deal with that ... accept that and mindfulness isn't really dealing with the problem. There is more. I'm just having trouble getting my arms around it.
As a side note: I haven't done any competition this year. We've had our house on the market and between a million house projects to get the house ready to sell and then trying to keep it clean with two small children for showings, I decided I was going to forgo competitions for a while. Anyway, a big competition is coming up that a lot of people in my club will be going to and it got me thinking.
ninadelamorte:
When I fenced in college, I kinda had the same problem so I started imagining it was more of a true life or death situation. That I was fighting for my life. And of course I was always thinking of my self as a sexy musketeer even though they didn't use an epee. 