This weekend marks the event where I’ll participate in my first tournament, and my stomach is in knots. I have no grand aspirations to actually win the tournament, but I’m going to try my best and see how far I can get. The problem is, I’m terrified of making a fool of myself. I know I’ll be up against people who have years and years of experience on me (I haven’t even been practicing rapier for six months yet), so barring some miraculous stroke of luck I don’t think I’ll get very far. So why am I doing it?
Well, it’s partly because rapier fighting is fun. I enjoy it, and it gives me a feeling of satisfaction when I do well. It’s the first sport that I’ve ever come close to being good at. It’s also partly a stubbornness thing, because I don’t want to chicken out. I want to at least be able to say that I participated, that I tried.
This weekend is also our induction into a HEMA rapier group, which is another thing that has the butterflies in my stomach flitting about. It’s another big thing in my life that I never thought would happen that I don’t want to screw up. So yeah, more nerves.
Despite all this, I think I’ll survive the weekend. It should be fun, and I might even partake of some non-fighting activities like illumination or calligraphy.
Speaking of this weekend, time to go steam some wrinkles out of some garb. 😉