Comfort Zone, or Lack Thereof

I honestly am looking forward to Divisionals this weekend. Women's Epee is actually a relatively strong event compared to the other women's events this weekend, though it doesn't look like it'll be as strong as last year's. Still, as per usual, I am fretting a little bit about how I will do.

I haven't felt like my fencing was all-together in quite a while. While struggling to improve my form and tactics, I seem to lost a lot of "comfort" with my body on the strip. It's like I have to instruct each limb separately which, as you might imagine, can seriously impede one's threat level. Practice has left me with a low-level of frustration lately. It's not a serious, mood-altering frustration that makes me want to throw my mask; it's a low-level pulsing sort of frustration that hovers just under the surface of my brain and just makes me want to sigh. Why is this so hard? I do understand that it will just take time and eventually things will begin to feel in harmony again.

But I am left wondering what to do in the meantime. Faced with an important tournament, should I fall back on my "comfortable" fencing style where I am confident, but essentially reliant upon counterattacks? Should I try to be the new fleet fencer that I want to be: dancing in and out of the bubble, but losing mental acuity in the meantime? I thought I was trying to be the latter at SitS but was informed afterwards that I still looked like my old stiff self most of the time. I guess we'll just have to see. T minus 1 day and counting.