Long Time No See

Not a Vatican pun about absent popes, although that would be a good one...

Back onto the road of Stand up, and fencing, I am slowly beginning to draw parallels.

Both require a swiftness of mind that you don't normally need to use, albeit from different parts of the brain (as a scientist I am qualified to label them 'Funny-making-bit' and 'Fencing-blade-foot-coordinaty-bit') and both can go right or wrong, depending on your attitude.

Fencing requires a mindset (at least in my case) whereby I think about each point as it comes, rather than what happened in previous points. This has an upside and a down (a double edged sword, if you will...) as you don't get frustrated for longer than it takes to walk back to the En Guarde lines, but you find yourself constantly being caught out by old tricks and repetetive moves as you focus more on what you're about to do rather than amending what you have just failed to do... If you catch my drift.

Stand Up requires a similar mindset- if you don't think you're funny, then the jokes seem a little thin and you end up in a right state. It is best to try and guage the reaction of one joke (and maybe indulge in a little smile at your own ingenuity that you just made twenty or so people laugh) and then work out the best way to approach the next.

I've just realised, saying that, that my stand up style isn't particularly jokey, and more of a relatively amusing rant about animals...

Hmm... More to work on, I feel...

Wandering

I have been quiet for a long time, waiting for something deep and insightful to say. In the end I suppose that whatever I say now, as a forced effort to make up for the prolonged silence, will not be as profound as I am hoping.

But, regardless of this, I have something to say:

I will return to the NFC this week, for the last time before going back up to Nottingham, and I make it my foremost intention to fence both Chris and Dave, who have had it far too easy in my absence... I jest.

I also wish to talk about the Three Jewels- a Taoist philosophy translated from a notoriously untranslatable language into English with a degree of success.

The first Jewel is Peace, or Love. This is one that I put into a sort of category with the Christian concepts of 'Love thy Neighbour', the sort of general being nice to people that puts you in slightly better stead with people.

But conflict of interest- I fence, which has little to do with being outwardly peaceful. In fact, the more aggressive you seem, the less likely the opponent is to try and attack you (needless to say this is why I've spent the last eight years darting backwards down a piste playing counter-attacks and parries!). Peace in fencing is much more about the inside, what your head is up to. If I am calm, even tranquil, on the inside then I find it much easier to match the opponent. Not necessarily beat them, but certainly match them better; always a good thing for experience's sake.

The second Jewel is Frugality, or Carefulness. I feel that being energetically frugal (codeword for lazy...?) is an important part of not tiring yourself out just for the sake of one fight- you are subsequently useless! When an opponent is aggressive, make them work for any points, whilst barely working yourself!

The third Jewel is Modesty (although it is also translated as 'not wanting to be the best'). It's all very well winning a bout and rubbing it in people's faces, but it's not exactly fair game to be a sore winner. Know, in a round-about way, how good you are, and play to your strengths. If you win a competition then you are viewed as a benchmark, and if you are rubbish (maybe because it's a bad day, maybe because you are injured) then you have suddenly given rise to the theory that your win was a fluke. There are two ways round this- be consistently very good (difficult for even the best fencers) or don't. But that's not to say don't try.

Happy New Year, 2009 already!