Attacks...Out of Time

Upon realizing that it's been nearly one year since I made my first post to this blog, my heart literally sank. What has become of my year? I am dying in the suburbs and that's something I always vowed to avoid. Everyday I am becoming more normal and less interesting. It kills me. Why does it feel like yesterday that I was so happy in my breezy, sunny, beautiful apartment in my beloved city? God...

Well it was not meant to be a self-pitying post, but I had to vent a little. Here is the brilliant segue: My sense of time is rotten. I realized this last night in a lesson when the topic turned to training your opponent to react in a certain way. Repeating an action multiple times until they're reacting just the way you like, then...wham. I thought about this on the way home and had a hard time coming to grips with the idea. Certainly this is not because I disbelieve Maitre, but because - to me - 3 minutes just does not seem like enough time to accomplish this and still get in 4 more touches and/or avoid being touched as many times.

But this shouldn't surprise anyone, given that I become an unmitigated embodiment of urgency at every allez!. How many of my tournament bouts have honestly lasted longer than a minute and a half? That I am too aggressive and in too much of a hurry has already been established. Perhaps it is a natural inclination toward a quick and (not so) painless death. I suspect my subconscious feels this limits my exposure to humiliation.

Perhaps I can use this tactic of training my opponent to trick myself into prolonging bouts. Can I use it slow down the rest of my life? Doubtful.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death

-Pink Floyd