Latest Articles by Sarah Canice Funke
Huzzah! The games have begun. We watched the opening ceremonies on HD last night, courtesy of some neighbors of the Dorians. Armed with some beer, chips and a very friendly cat, we oo-ed and ah-ed at the sheer massiveness of the choreography. Evan wants an olympic-size LED screen now. The detailed synchronization of the undulating boxes, which happened to be manned by people rather than hydraulics, was amazing. And I wished I could have been an olympian just so I could have walked across the giant inkpad and been a human stamp.
Unfortunately, if I want to watch coverage of fencing, I will need to get up at 2am on Thursday morning, even though the women's individual sabre is in the gold medal round as I type. And America is going to sweep gold, silver and bronze for that event. Grr. What's with America's priorities here? Phelps, schmelps.
UPDATE: If I lived in Canada, I could be streaming live video coverage on CBC's website, instead of refreshing the results page every few minutes. Here's cheering for some friendly Canadians as well.
...so Mac just took gold in men's epee individuals. There will be much rejoicing tonight. This afternoon? Team competitions. RMC is going down.
Update: So RMC won team competitions in epee after all. But Mac came in with the bronze. We are happy. My feet are sore from standing all day keeping score. I admired the female judge who wore heels. I hope she has her feet in a hot bath right now.
Plans include going to bed early for once. I fell asleep in the armory over the lunch break. I had no idea what was going on till someone came and poked me awake.
Going for Gold: Ken (left) vs. RMC (right)
Kap
Epee Team with the McMaster Mascot: the rubber chicken with chain mail handmade by Brian (far left)
Bronze Medalists
Alicia took this picture of me at OUAs. I didn't realize she had done so till the photo wound up on Facebook with the caption: My Favorite Cheerleader!
You can see how enthusiastic I am. But watching these bouts takes immense concentration. :)
And this brings me great hope and joy.
And this is amazing. Almost inspires me to haul out my ukelele that I left in Colorado and practice it more often.
All the Mac women's teams went on to qualify for finals in the OUA competition. No one broke a leg, so I just took pictures instead.
One of the saberists has a mascot pet, "Kitty." Alicia was modeling Kitty.
Saber Team!
Epee
Foil
And there is someone on the team who insists on calling me Sarah Fyoon-kay. Gotta love how popular Arrested Development is making me.
So I am the "floating alternate" for the team going to OUA (Ontario University Athletics). Which means that I won't fence unless legs are broken or illnesses caught, but at least I get to go with the team and cheer them on to their rivals.
"Cause [McMaster] can and [McMaster] can't say no."
And the beauty of this competition is that it is in Toronto, so it will be a daytrip. And I won't have to miss church. I hate missing church.
It's also 0 degrees here (and that's Farenheit for all of you South-of-the-Border). I may or may not have gotten frostbite on my fingers.
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As the floating alternate, I could be called upon to fence any weapon, depending on who breaks their legs. I have fenced both foil and saber in competition and have some familiarity with epee (but would hardly claim superiority in any of them). I love how each weapon has its own personality....
Saber: The fast and aggressive fencers gravitate towards this weapon. Saber is loud, with much yelling, shouting, and general "hu-yah!!"-ing. It is my firm conviction that really, at heart, all saberists want to be pirates. Even the weapons look like pirate cutlasses and all the saberists do is try to be the first to slap someone with the flat of their blade. Speed is the key, because if you are first, it does not matter if the other person hits you. This is called priority.
Foil: The weapon that most beginners use, because of its similarities to both saber (use of priority) and epee (poking rather than slashing method of attack). The more deliberate fencers who can keep track of who has "right of way" gravitate here.
Epee: The most "realistic" weapon, or so the epee-ists say. There is no priority, so you can score double hits (if the opponent is quick enough to land his point on his attacker before the attacker jumps away). This makes the action very slow sometimes, because it is in the best interest of the attacker to come at his opponent in such a way as to escape unhit. The tallest fencers are usually put on the epee team. Those long arms are an advantage.
I was told that community service was a mandatory part of being on the fencing team. And one really doesn't argue with helping the homeless. So I found myself with three other members of the McMaster Fencing Team at Hamilton's Neighbour to Neighbour Centre this morning, schlepping boxes of peanut butter jars and apple juice cans into the storage room. The supervisors were all in their prime 60s or so.
"Are you sure you gals can handle it? Maybe the guys should move those boxes?"
"No. We're fencers. We've got sufficient muscles."
And by the end of the morning, they stopped asking us if we needed help.
We also repackaged bags of rice and bread loaves. One particularly delectable cheese loaf was too squished to rebag, so we shared it amongst ourselves communally. But instead of ripping off chunks the civilized way, we simply all bit into the loaf with our bare teeth. Fortunately no one slobbered.
"It's like church," observed one fencer.
"We don't stuff bread in people's faces at my church," objected another, and imitated a priest stuffing bread into congregants' mouths..."Here...take it!"
"Hey, how could you refuse Jesus?" I laughed. But then realized that maybe one or more were actually Catholic and my theological joke might not have been a propos.
But really? How can anyone refuse Jesus? We ought to celebrate the Lord's Supper with eagerness. Maybe not by stuffing our faces with bread. But I always feel as if Communion is such a sombre affair when what we are remembering is Life and that abundantly.
Me, looking oh so not sexy this early in the morning, but this picture is for my family, anyway. :)
I always wear my hyphen shirt underneath the jacket, because it's honestly my favorite t-shirt I've ever owned. Me and my weapon, a foil:
Alecia
Funke-Donald, in our "oven suits," the metal lamés that signal an electronic box when hit with a weapon. The lucky epee-ists don't need oven suits. Everything is target with them.
Alecia in action, Sabre
Brian, with men's epee gold (first on left)
Wikipedia is so useful. You can read all about my recreational sport at these handy sites:
These sites pretty much say it all.
Having completely forgotten my camera last weekend, I'd like to share a few photos Other People took:
Women's Sabre B Team (2/3s of it anyway): resting from Saturday's fencing. Alecia is my best friend on the entire fencing team.
Kena's socks: she wore these with her whites. So amazing!
En Garde with a Darth Vader choke grip
Rob the Men's Epee A Team captain doing a fleiche for Men's Sabre B Team...he didn't get carded but the judge was like..."What?....was that?" Our sabre team is hurting so bad right now: they stuck epee-ists on the B team and they ended up fencing the Canadian Olympic Team and getting slaughtered. Rob made it "the rule" that if they made it to 10 points we would "win" (for Mac's own self-esteem purposes). So Rob didn't particularly care about losing points risking epee moves in sabre at this point. They ended up getting 22 points off the Canadian Olympic Team, so I think that is a good day's work for epee-turned-sabre-ists.
Actually, upon more careful examination, I realized the picture was not Rob. So you will just have to imagine this scenario I just described...
Fear the Sabre...
Women's Epee A Team: Blade the A
Ryan the Assistant Coach (foilist), looking Ryan-esque
Men's Foil B Team. The 3rd from the left makes an awesome Yuker partner.
Weighting the Epee (making sure the electronic box will go off if enough pressure is applied to the tip...all the points are calculated electronically in epee because everything is target and there is no priority).
Men's Foil A Team (Alecia's boyfriend)
And one funny story: I was eating dinner with Shandra (African-Canadian), Vivian (Chinese), Richard (Chinese, who learned English watching Walker, Texas Ranger and speaks perfectly), and Christina (Indian-Canadian...I think). Shandra was trying to describe a recent-ish film to Richard (who was in one of the pop music classes I TA-ed last year): "You know that film about the pimp who gets into hip-hop?"
And I piped up: "Oh, you mean Hustle and Flow?"
Everyone kind of stops and looks at me. "Well," exclaims Shandra, "Of all the people who would have remembered that, who'd have thought it'd have been Sarah Funke??!!"
Richard: "Never underestimate the power of the music major!!!"
And so I continue to surprise people. :)
PS Going to Brock (near Niagra) this weekend for another fencing tournament. Get to fence foil this time. Now I am actually nervous. When I fenced sabre I was one cool hep-cat because I had nothing to lose. Now that I will be fencing my weapon, the stakes are higher and the nerves come back.
But my excuse is that no computers were available to me over the weekend. I did call my dad on Sunday morning and gave him all my email passwords, which he used to hack into my accounts to read time sensitive materials to me, after which I dictated replies. And then I had him read new blog comments to me, but decided to stop short at dictating replies there because I had seen an article on Yahoo News entited "Do you or one of your loved ones suffer from internet addiction?" and wasn't ready to admit I was that desperate yet.
My lack of internet accessibility was due to the fact that I was in Kingston at the RMC (Royal Military College) Fencing Invitational. Those military colleges produce top quality fencers. Westpoint was there. They all went by their last names and said "yes, sir" to the judge. I fenced sabre, a weapon that I have never touched, being a foil-ist myself. Sabre involves charging and slashing (the motion of slashing, no blood is actually drawn), so I could get a couple of points by poking the midriff of my opponent with the tip of the blade. Sabre-ists are not used to poking. My downside was an attempt to dance rather than charge. I also got a yellow card for crossing over. Silly footwork differences!
I realize this all sounds like insider talk. And it is. I will return later to be more explanatory. I just want to say that I should go into Yuker professionally.
Oh, and I gave the BEST presentation ever. (Well, after the Existentialist presentation done in conjunction with the Five Points, but that was so off the charts, I had to remove it and start over again). The presentation was on Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Since a lot of the book discusses audience-celebrity relations as game-playing (rather than typical audience-celebrity relation theories of role model or fantasy fulfillment), I simulated a TV game show program. I opened the presentation by walking to the front of class dressed to the nines (with my beret, some black suede high heeled boots, and some very snazzy tortoiseshell shades), popped Rubber Soul in the CD player and hit track 1. As I waited for the Beatles to reach the refrain ("Baby you can drive my car, yes, you're gonna be a star") I suddenly realized how awkward it was standing in front of class doing nothing. So I started to jitterbug, swishing my skirt around. I thought that I was doing it rather down-played (it was something to sort of keep everyone from getting bored, and besides how can you listen to Beatles without dancing??) but got comments later ("Great dancing!!!") so maybe I was getting into it a little more than I thought. But then I hit pause and opened dramatically, "Welcome to The Celebrity Name Game!!! Are you the person who arrives at the cinema 20 minutes early so you can read all the trivia bits? Then this game is for you!" And so I proceeded to read cards with celebrity trivia questions and the class had to guess the celebrity and then got to keep the card as a "celebrity trophy." It was rather fun, if I do say so myself, and the competition stayed civil but lively. Then I was able to segue nicely into the discussion of trivia as knowledge and community-building uses of celebrity that depended more on distribution of information rather than on "authenticity" or finding the "true" celebrity (although coding information as the "real scoop" can definitely up the ante when people sit around sharing information).
My killer outfit (taken in my room before leaving for class. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the suede boots or the funky hem line on the skirt. In retrospect, I should have brought the camera to class. Ah, how clearly we see in hindsight.):
And now I have to get as much work done on my thesis as I can before heading up to Toronto to kneel at Colin Meloy's feet (and see, that sentence is just part of the game, because I really don't worship Colin, but for those of my friends who appreciate Decemberists, it will make sense. We know. We connect. We can joke about these things. It's all about the community-building function of celebrity and celebrity knowledge....).
I have Todd Rundgren stuck in my head, even though to my dismay I couldn't find my copy of his Ballad CD...I have a feeling this means it is time to organize the piles of music lying around my desk and shelf. It was probably fortuitous that such was the soundtrack of my mind this evening as unfolding events shall reveal...
I arrived at practice a little early to find a team member shooting some hoops in the gym. We were joined by another. It was one of those low key exercises in which we were all shown to be definitively not-players of that particular sport. But we managed to sink enough shots to be reasonably happy.
Monday night fencing practices are shared with the beginners class, so we varsity team members can't actually fence weapons (because the beginners have them all). So attendance is depressed on Mondays. I, however, have to come on Mondays because of the way my schedule works out. So I am always there. Because the coaches are busy with the beginners, the epee team captain took the few of us varsity members as were still there and trekked off to the stairs. We were supposed to train our fast twitch muscles (which are the most important in the fast lunge movements of fencing) so the team captain directed us to race up and down four flights of stairs as fast as we could, two at a time. I was the only female but was bound and determined not to be left too far behind by the supra-six foot tall guys. That was probably a mistake, as we shall see, because even though I finished the course, I suddenly did NOT feel well and trudged off to the women's washroom where I was almost privately sick, except that the other female who happened to be there (helping out with beginners) walked in right at the exact moment I was about to lose it. And now I am grateful, because then she let me finish and then came back and asked if I was okay and gave me a great big hug at the end of practice. The epee captain felt really bad, I think, since he was in charge, and gave me a toonie for the gatorade machine.
But the rest of practice was great, because I felt as if I had passed some rite of passage: "So, Sarah, just so you know, later on in the semester we will all laugh about this and say, so remember the time when you threw up way back when." And I said, "yeah, and I'll be like bring it. Give me five flights now. I'll take you." So it was all good. And after practice he showed me how to do self-defense moves, the wrist-hold break. Breaking the cross-wrist hold (right on right or left on left) was really intuitive. The same-wrist hold was not so easy to learn, because you have to twist in the other direction. But I think I am an ambi-twister, now. And I joked about making the perpetrator grab the correct wrist if I was ever attacked: "No, no, no. Wait. Hold on. This time on THIS hand...."
So the Bill Cosby jokes came out: "I used to practice self-defense on my brother. You know, tighten the arm and then swing round and get them in the jaw with the elbow. Well, I got so good at it that I would walk down dark alleys with $10 bills hanging out of my pockets. Sure enough, I felt the gun on my back. I tightened my arm and swung round. And what do you know? He was a midget."
And then I learned more about Canadian politics. I mentioned I was from the Sates and so was asked if I was Republican or Democrat. I replied that the one issue I care most about is pro-life, so that's why I vote Republican. And surprisingly, I got a positive response. But hardly anyone really likes Bush up here. And I don't know...he doesn't really even seem like the most responsible president in terms of spending to me. But what are my alternatives? The Democrats are NOT going to be better. And that is my one rather ill-informed political statement for the semester.
And I walked home, my head a little higher, daring the street lamps to shut out as I passed by, since now I know how to twist wrists...
The fencing team seems to be low on the recreational facility administrators totem pole. Often we come to practice to find our gym occupied by wrestlers, soccer players, or volleyball tournaments.
"Hm. Looks as if we'll have to practice somewhere else today."
"Why not the stairwells?" I suggest.
"Oh, I see. Film fencing."
"Hey, I totally joined this team so I could swing from the chandeliers!"
Well, I guess there are other things that make life worth living, but after all those other things, chocolate is the most important.
Michael: What have we always said is the most important thing? What comes first, before anything else?
George Michael: Breakfast.
Michael: No, family.
George Michael: Oh yeah! I forgot. I thought you meant food. You know, what's the most important food of the day....
Arrested Development, Season One.
Having chocolate brownies to come home to makes fencing practice pass pleasantly. Or perhaps the time flew because the foil assistant instructor would periodically ask "So are we having fun yet?" as we sweated through running and footwork drills. One of these days I shall come up with a reply slightly more witty than "Um...........yes? Is that the right answer? Should I try again?" And arguing over whether we were running in a rectangle or an ellipse DEFINITELY kills time. Especially when the foil assistant instructor tries to prove his point by running square corners. I suppose that is what I really love about fencing: the people here are just plain silly. I have a special heart for geeks.* And this team is full of them.
Sadly my new shoes have felt soles and I was sliding all over the wood basketball court where we practice. So it's back to my old tennis shoes.
*Okay, so maybe I haven't always had a heart for geeks of the science/computer department bent, but I do now, okay?! At least, I've gotten to the point where I can admit they are human beings. There. Only 11 steps left to go...
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I have also decided that if I ever get married, I am going to have a jazz band at the wedding reception, even if it costs so much I end up having to sew the wedding dress out of bed sheets. (Or I could pull a Scarlet O'Hara and go for the draped look, except I wouldn't want to imply that marriage was "curtains" for me...) All I ask for is a piano, a standing bass, definitely some horns, maybe a few guitars, a drum kit, the clarinet, and of course....the saxophone.
...although at times, that slave stages an insurrection.
Now that fencing practice is back in full swing, my muscles feel like petrified jelly--the only thing keeping them from buckling outright is the rigor mortis. Our coach made us feel somewhat better by reminding us that fencing takes entirely different muscles than running or biking or in fact any other sport (except ballet perhaps). So though the soreness is entirely expected, life is still hobbling along right now.
At least we didn't have to run stairs last night. Rather, we went outside and ran on the track. Since my previous educational experiences never included track and field facilities, this was the first time I had ever run on a track. It was spongy. I pretended I was Max Fisher in order to make the laps pass faster.
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This morning I made plum sauce under dillusions of culinary grandeur. And I do believe it actually worked. I've also decided to give up trying to make UK flapjacks without Teflon. It just doesn't work in a glass pan. I've created enough numerous failures to make the case convincingly.
Is it just the purple haze that makes me feel like Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun" (The Jimi Henrix Experience: Are You Experienced?, 1967) sounds like something off Kid A?
I like finding possible influences in music. Nothing's a vacuum, especially culture.
"Manic Depression": The song's waltz meter contributes to the restless unease: 1) A triple meter is unusual in rock (unless a slow, lyrical mood is intended). I've encountered brief passages in 3/4 in the Beatles, but usually as intrusions and disrupters of the symmetrical--and thus forward driving--duple meter standard. I've heard duple meters subdivided into triple beat patterns, but the macrobeat was still one-two-three-four; 2) triple meter is asymmetrical and doesn't imitate the walking stride of the body's normal method of locomotion.
"May This Be Love" has a bolero rhythm interestingly enough.
In other news, Steinbeck makes my heart ache. I watched Of Mice and Men tonight. Not the version Aaron Copland scored unfortunately, but still an excellent film.
One more thing: due to the end of the year relaxation of strict fencing conditioning, the MAC Fencing Team's annual Epee pyramid competition has officially begun. Never having held an epee before, I realized I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and accordingly signed myself up. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the first few bouts of the contest. I ended up in the same spot in which I started (which isn't too shabby), but hopefully next week I can move up a level or two. I've discovered that fencing non-epee persons is the easiest way to win a bout (we are allowed to challenge whomever we like as long as they are immediately one level above or below us). Not to be disloyal to my weapon, but I almost like epee better. The weapon is easier to hold and I don't need to worry about rules like priority.
Tonight at fencing practice I saw the best shirt ever. Now normally, I expect to see guys sporting shirts depicting "Led Zeppelin" or "The Ramones." This fencer, however, had a silkscreen, full-sized picture of Adobe Acrobat Reader. I didn't get close enough as we were jogging to read the version number, but this kind of shirt is not atypical of the McMaster Fencing Team, and the anecdote relates how marginal I feel in this science-majors dominated sport.
OUA regional preliminaries are coming up, so the A team got special attention tonight, to the neglect of us sad C team members. Fortunately, a more advanced fencer worked with me on step-lunge and some parries. He is a foilist that to the casual eye appears "socially awkward," but he does a good job of really explaining and re-explaining and re-explaining how a move works. Though not particularly popular, he nevertheless has the fundamental qualities (patience and clarity) of a good teacher. And since bouting with an advanced fencer is entirely a one-way street, I was grateful.
A fresh shower has put me in the mind for bed. Good night, moon.
Update concerning Carleton Fencing Competition.
I spoke too soon in my last post regarding the status of my relation to the group leaving for Carleton this weekend. I am on call: if someone breaks a leg or becomes violently ill or just mysteriously disappears before the bus leaves at 4:30 this afternoon, then I shall join the team. Adding panic to the mystery, I am on call for a weapon I've never fenced. I am a foilist. Should I go to Carleton, I will undergo a crash course in épée and hope for the best.
If you hear not from me till Monday, you will know where I have gone.
Amusing thought this morning: the last time I complained of my lack of a vital and necessary addendum to my life, my parents procured it and gave it to me. And I figure a man can't be much harder than an umbrella to track down and send in the mail, right? I'll be checking the post more frequently....
Everybody has a water buffalo. Mine is fast, and yours is slow....Wait! Stop! You can't say that! It is not true that everybody has a water buffalo. We're going to get angry letters from people saying, "I don't have a water buffalo. Where's my water buffalo!"
Maybe I should explain that, in Funkish, the phrase "Where's my water buffalo?" has been appropriated to mean "How come everyone else has something, and I don't?" Informal. Used in jest.
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"It's getting better all the time." Fencing practice, that is. During exams, we don't have to run stairs. Instead, we perform the ancient rite of masquetball! Part ultimate frisbee, part basketball, the teams pass a koosh from member to member down the court in an attempt to land it in an upside down fencing mask. Once your hand grasps the ball, your feet must remain stationary, unless you are the fancy twirl-in-the-air-and-throw-the-koosh-over-your-shoulder kind of guy. The teams are divided according to the shade of the shirt you happen to be wearing that night, either light or dark. I discovered an interesting phenomenon: a correlation between a height in excess of six feet and light shirts. Guess what colour mine happened to be. What made the night slightly more unfair is the sudden appearance of two additional supra-six-foot team members, who both happened to be wearing, you guessed it, light shirts.
The increased pressure of exams means that attendance was severely depressed. As the only beginner who showed up, I was able to fence with the experienced members of the team, even bouting a few with the coach. I also discovered that one must change her tactics when she goes from fencing someone barely 5'3" to fencing....shall we say a light shirt? Fencing someone a foot taller than oneself throws your calculations off. I would think I was a safe distance from my opponent, and he would just reach his arm out and tap me. Stupid long arms.
But I had fun. I am beginning to feel like a member of the team. The student-instructor-who-makes-us-run-stairs-on-normal-days even knows my name. Since there are 60 beginners, I am impressed.
Apparently other fencing teams are not so chummy. A friend on the William and Mary fencing team said that the older members make it a point to intimidate the new comers (he was even shoved against the wall and cussed out once). Maybe this has to do with the fact that W & M boasts a primarily male team (only one woman on the team) whereas at least a good third of the MAC team is female.* But this is only a surmise. Whatever the reason, I am glad that we are not out to kill each other.
*Another hypothesis is that the MAC fencing team is simultaneously the Nerd Club....refuge of engineers, physics majors, and mathematicians who couldn't make the cut on the football team....
...if you have the right partner, your skill improves FAR beyond your experience level.
I had a cold. I didn't want to go to practice. I didn't want to run up four flights of stairs four times in four minutes (I'm only down to 4 and a half minutes anyway) and then run laps round the building. I didn't want to practice footwork and race across the gym en garde. But for the last ten minutes of practice, I got to fence one of the student instructors (the one that makes us run stairs, actually). Not only did I get to improve my carte parry* and attack-disengage,** I learned how to avoid the disengage with a different parry, a return to en garde.*** However, I need to remember to keep my wrist "oout." It helps me to aim and hit target (for foil, the chest area) more successfully.
*Carte parry: stopping the attacker's blade by rotating the wrist across the front of the body, in something like a windshield wiper motion. The object is to get the lower (and stronger) part of your blade over your attacker's blade while pressing it down, in order to deflect his blade off target.
**Attack-disengage: you extend your arm for the attack, but dip your blade ever so slightly in order to avoid your opponent's carte parry. Your blade then comes over his, and you carry forward on the momentum of your thrust to (hopefully) hit the target area.
***Return to en garde: Your opponent has attacked, you've done a carte parry, but he has succesfully disengaged. If you have stepped back while doing your carte parry, you might have enough time to bring your arm back to en garde position (bent elbow, hand slightly extended in front of you, pointed at opponent). This reversal of the windshield wiper movement of carte parry catches your opponent's blade underneath (because if he has disengaged, his blade is now over yours) and pushes it up and to the side, away from you.
