Let me first thank God for all His blessings, for what happened this Novices took me completely by surprise. I never expected myself to do this well. It�s not my medal, it�s ours and it�s God�s. All glory be to God!
I came early for my event to watch the sabre boys fence and for myself to have a long warm up because I take longer than others to warm up, and the physiotherapist instructed me to warm myself up well, more than what I usually do. I arrived to find the sabre boys warming up, so I was still early enough to help them take some pics. De Jun came down too so I volunteered him to take over my photographer role so I could focus on other things, since I would be competing. There were 10 poules for the men�s sabre individuals event and it took quite a while for our fencers in the later poules to finally have their turn to fence for they were using only 4 pistes at most. The epee men�s individual event was worse though with 18 poules. They were still fencing poules when I arrived. O.O

The sabre boys didn�t do that well. Nearly all were making their debut (Justin, Junwei, Dominique Lin the French Chinese exchange student who apparently has 1 year of sabre experience) except Alan who was playing sabre today for fun. Dominique pulled his muscle during his poules and so couldn�t lunge for the rest of the day. Junwei lost all his poule bouts and was eliminated. Alan also was eliminated. Justin and Dominique managed to make it into D.E. but Justin was eliminated at the first D.E. and Dom in the 2nd. Jasper fenced under AOF (Academy of Fencing), his new club, and did quite well. I didn�t know it till the awards day that he got silver for the indivs. Congratulations!

Our girl�s foil event was slated to report at 3pm, so we met up early at 12nn to have lunch together, and then do serious warm ups including blade work foot work partner work. Some of the foil guys were around and gave us pointers. Alan was still hanging around, Wei Choon came to support/do don�t know what, Kengster came to preside. Later Chewy and Jason Low also came down and left before quarter-finals.

I was in the earlier poules. There were supposed to be 5 people but one didn�t show up so it became 4, so I only needed to fence 3 people. Melanie Huang from BLD was in my poule. I dreaded it for she was one who could trash me/used to trash me. There was also Li Fang, a girl from NTU Fencing who I kept seeing around but only found out her name that day, also 3rd year in Novices, and a fresh first timer from SMSS who whilst is a left-hander, never trained hard, and so as expected I trashed her. I particularly like fencing left-handers because their target area is closer to me amongst other things. When I was fencing, my wire had a problem and had to be changed, so I changed to the one where the clip was tied on. Olga stepped in and told me that my body wire could not be used because it was not welded. She asked for me to be yellow carded for the second wire change, which would mean that I would get two yellow cards for changing wire twice which would evolve into a red card, which would give her student Melanie one point. I obviously wasn�t happy but was more stunned on what was going on. The referee, the small girl with the very strict attitude proceeded to give Olga a yellow card for interfering. Dennis Leong, the head referee, saw the commotion going on in my piste and enquired into what was going on. Olga asked him (a bit sharply), �are you her coach?� He calmly replied �no�, and proceeded to ask her to leave the field of play and asked the referee if she had recorded that Olga received yellow card. Ok� I had never expected to see a referee being carded in person in my life for I thought they would be more watchful of their behavior than that. Thanks for saving me!

I managed to catch Melanie�s favourite move. After experimenting with her and observing what she did (which was not usual of me, despite the many naggings of Yan Li lao jiao which finally today I heeded) I realized she would wait for me to lunge then catch me in her parry-riposte. Her distancing was also good. From the beginning I had to keep far from her already for I knew she was a better fencer than me. I had to be on my guard. I had to use my length, circular parry 6, and keep my movements small and quick especially for the disengages. Chewy observed me and told me that by the 2nd point he thought I had realized that my movements were too big and made them smaller thereafter. When I equalized at 3-3, I couldn�t believe it and was jumping for joy on the piste. Come to think of it, could I have been carded for jumping on the piste? When I won, I couldn�t believe it, I did the impossible! Melanie was unhappy to have lost to someone weaker than her, as expected, but she accepted her defeat graciously. I won all my poules and for the first time ever had a V/M of 1.00

Celeste and Aerene did quite well too for poules, and so did the freshies. Celeste won all her bouts in poules and Aerene won 4/5. All the freshies won at least once too except Sarah who lost all. However, when the results came out we were stunned. Celeste was ranked near the middle with a V/M of 0.677. The scorekeeper had recorded her score wrongly and she didn�t realize that when she signed the score sheet. Hence, nothing could be done to revoke the mistake. Celeste was angry with herself, as what most people would be. She would have to fence up. Fencing down is a lot easier than fencing up, so getting a high poule placing is key to getting a smooth path to a medal, or in our case MAC to all make it to the round of 8. The good news was that all our foil girls made it into D.E, except Sarah who made quite a few mistakes.

All of us who qualified byed to the round of 32. I was initially ranked 6 and almost lost it to the ranked 11 in round of 16 but managed to wake up and win the match 15/13 (referring to competition document). Heng ah. I didn�t watch Aerene vs Pauline fence, thinking that Aerene would be fine. However she lost to Pauline by one point 15/14. I was stunned. What happened? Aerene was having fever and wasn�t fencing properly, making quite a few mistakes. Celeste fenced upwards and made it to the round of 16. At the round of 16, she got eliminated, along with Pauline and Sihui. Only I made it through. While I was happy to have made it thus far, I was also saddened because Aerene and Celeste were sad. We had trained so hard for our last novices and we wanted to go as far as we could to pull up the team ranking, which would have been very helpful in D.E. Only they could console themselves. All I knew I could do was to provide a listening ear. I had to soldier on in the competition for they were staying behind for me. It was getting late, the sun was already setting.

It was the round of 8. I had to win it. If I won this I would be confirmed a medal. I had come so far, I won�t give up. I put myself into an optimistic mood (instead of a �I�m gonna die� attitude, it�s a lot better) and told myself, �I love fencing left-handers.� Truth be told, I was nervous because I was fencing up. I was to fence Clara Chow of ZFF, a leftie. Somehow that day, something was at work in me that never happened before. Usually, you feel your soul inside your core. Like how you feel when you scream cheers when your school rugby team or favourite football team wins the match, you feel your core, your heart cheering. But today, I felt �hollow�. Something was in my core, controlling me, and my conscious soul, surrounding the core, obeyed the core. My parry-riposte and disengage movements were unusually small and quick, my distancing was better than usual (it is well-known that my distancing is awful), and I was not rushing! These were the 3 biggest mistakes I had but I didn�t commit them that much today. I was also more conscious of what my opponent was doing. It wasn�t only me that was fencing, I was sure, because I would not have been able to fence like that on my own ability. I am convinced it was God in that core controlling me.

The gang that stayed behind was cheering me on from the corridor on other side of the piste. They were cheering for me! Celeste, Aerene, Florence, Alan, Liangjie, Sarah, Junwei, Jasper. At the end of the first set Alan was sent over to convey the encouragements from all of them. �What you�re doing is correct. Keep it up!� Amanda Yong also squeezed in a jia you as she walked by. Amanda had come round to give me advice during my round of 16, which was crucial or else I would have been eliminated. She told me �your defence is better than your attack.� I wasn�t able to recover fast enough after my lunge to parry-riposte quickly nor was my lunge fast enough to break through my opponent�s defensive barrier. She said a lot of ABF�s fencers� defence was better than their attack. Yuan Zi came by mid-bout of this quarter-final bout to give me advice which was helpful. Still, my fencing was ugly (I saw my videos) but it worked. I won Clara clearly 15/6.

I could not believe it, I was confirmed a medal! I screamed a high pitched one. First time in recent NUS Fencing history, someone was getting a medal! The last medal was won around 3 years ago by Maggie, and one year before that by Yianling (both gold indivs). Aerene and Celeste came over to hug me and congratulate me. We did it (well one of us did)! I thanked God for his blessings thus far.

Oh by the way, thank you to my cameramen for helping me take all the photos and videos e.g. De Jun, Justin, Yanjie, Wei Choon.
While awaiting for the semi-finals, we rested, talked, (tried consoling Aerene and Celeste who got a bit emotional again after recounting the events to coach again) and finally I COULD GO TOILET!!! I made Yuan Zi promise me that I would get a toilet break. I had been regulating my water intake and holding myself (not that urgent) because I was afraid the DT table would immediately call me up for the next bout. At times I only had 5 minutes break in between my D.E. bouts, and I recalled Yanjie�s story of his Novices experience.

The semi-finals and finals were to take place on piste 1. Melanie Huang had hung around till the semis to see how the fencer who defeated her would fare. I was to fence Alifa Zohari from ZFF, who was a stronger fencer than me, who also won all her poules as I had observed. She was in Joy Dorcas Sim�s poule, my SMSS junior friend I had befriended at RJ invites 2010. I was fencing upwards against her. She was going to be harder than Clara. I was nervous but I took it in my stride. I just vowed to do my best, to fence point by point (fence each point properly, seriously) and see how far I would go. Yuan Zi pulled up a chair and became the advisor. The rest of the supporters began to gather on the wooden benches at the side. I prayed to God, �You have blessed me thus far, don�t leave me now. Be with me. With You everything will fall in place. Thank you. In Jesus�s name I pray, Amen.�

In the beginning I initially tied but by the end of the first set I was on the losing side. I was losing faith in myself and was also condemning myself to a defeat. Yuan Zi told me this I remembered clearly, �You have come so far, don�t give up.� Yah I have trained so hard and fenced till this point, why throw my chance at a gold medal away? My drive returned. After that I fenced as hard as I can. I was very tired and my feet were going to fall asleep concrete themselves to the piste if I didn�t resort to bouncing and jumping to wake up the muscles. (Our NUS supporters thought I had a lot of energy and stamina but really I was just using what I learned at ABF from Wenying and from Khai. If you are tired, just keep jumping because it keeps you light on your feet.) I used my length and did a lot of lunge-recover-parry-riposte (new favourite move after being advised to wait for her attack and parry riposte), focused to outsmart her with my disengages circular parries, and did a couple of lightning parry-ripostes that even I don�t know how they came about. God was with me.

I had equalized. When I scored I let out a scream to release the emotions/pressure built up. Yuan Zi had told me in the quarterfinals to psych myself up by screaming, which initially I doubted because I was afraid I would be carded for it, as I was threatened to have last time. I made sure to scream with my face away from my opponent, as I learned from that nearly-carded-incident. Each scream was accompanied by cheers from my supporters. Slowly the point gap began to open up. However during the third set Alifa began to catch up but the point gap was large enough for me to still hold my ground and I kept myself from panicking and fought point by point and when I won (15/10), I screamed and NUS Fencing cheered. Oh my gosh, I was going into the FINALS!!! I was guaranteed at least a silver medal, I can�t believe it. My fellow club members still hanging around were happy for me. It was already after dark. Hopefully they had settled their own dinner while waiting for me.

While waiting for the finals, I pulled up the wooden bench closer to piste side and watched Christabel fence her semis. I wanted to observe her fencing. The rest washed up and rested. After letting Christabel rest for 5 minutes, it was the finals. No video was taken, I don�t know why. Maybe ran out of battery. We both were very tired and were fencing it part like foil part like epee, which we both have (some) experience in. Christabel is in the national cadet team for both foil and epee. We both were really tired. Christabel was being her patient self, and I was losing patience. She would wait for me to lunge then parry-riposte me, just as what I had been advised to do and been doing for the past few bouts. So it was a waiting game. When I lost my patience and went for the attack, I was parry-riposted. I was rushing and lost 3 points because of that. I managed to catch her with a parry 6-counterparry 8 � riposte a couple of times but it wasn�t enough. I lost some of my form. Yuan Zi was presiding both of us, and so he would support no one and not get accused for bias to either of us, I figured. As the time ran out with a few seconds remaining I tried to fleche her but failed and she counterattacked. The score in my opinion was 12/6 but was recorded as 11/4 on the document. It was a worthy defeat for she was clearly a stronger fencer than I am; having won me all the times I fenced her at ABF. Congratulations to her. (: She followed her sister�s footsteps and seized the foil gold indivs.

It was already 10pm and I was very tired, hungry, and very sweaty. Apparently word travelled out to the others faster than I knew and I already received congratulatory SMS from Yan Li by the time I went for supper. My supporters were more than happy for me, and I thanked God for taking me all the way this far, for blessing me so much, and dedicated all the glory to Him. The north people followed Alan and rushed back home especially since Alan had to report early the next day for the men�s foil event. I didn�t keep anyone waiting and just unsuited, packed my stuff as quickly as I could and left in my sweaty PE attire. Flo, Jasper, Junwei and I went to the nearby macs to eat. As I walked out I wished Christabel congratulations and to rest well for both of us would be competing in epee the next day. Thankfully Mum could pick me home because I was so tired and I had barang barang to carry. I was still in a sublime stupor when I finally was ready to fall asleep at 1am.