The October NAC did not go well for me.

I warmed up (mental and physical), ignored everyone, and ate honey, along with doing most of what I intended overall—in short, I followed my process.

But there’s one cardinal rule I believe in that I completely neglected to follow in this case.

If you’ve been following me you may know that I don’t consider results the most important part of any given competition—or the priority at competitions in general.

In fact, I have maybe a controversial take on fencing for results. My cardinal rule is this:

If you cannot enter a competition and be completely okay with whatever outcome you get—don’t enter that competition.

The point of this sport for me isn’t to cause unmanageable stress, to get a college scholarship, to win the respect of peers, or get approval from my coach. I’m not fencing for a living, or to protect myself in duels.

I’m doing it because it’s fun. And if competing stops being fun, it loses its most essential underlying purpose.

There are other reasons I fence, and compete—to challenge myself, to expose areas where I need to grow, as an excuse to travel, to have a goal to work towards.

But none of those reasons are worth really, truly upsetting myself over, and at that competition I walked away from the strip deeply upset, and stayed that way for hours.

For my next competition, the Division I NAC in December, I’ll be taking a big step back and truly focusing on just fencing, with a large helping of enjoying myself on the side—and no pressure at all.