Bouncing Back

All athletes have experienced some sort of loss in their athletic careers. Some of these losses, being extremely heartbreaking, dramatic, or real huge confidence blowers. The feeling of losing something in your respective field is never a good feeling, no matter how well you played, or how close you came to winning. How does one bounce back?

Huge losses are always tough. I remember two years ago, I traveled all the way to France to compete in a Junior (U20) world cup and I lost to a frenchman 15-1. I have never lost that badly in my life since I was 13 years of age. I felt like I waste both my time, and my opponent’s time. I couldn’t look at my dad at the time because I had just performed as poorly as one could have. When I took off my fencing clothes, I looked down at my equipment and thought to myself, ” I never want to fence again.” The entire time I was packing my bag, getting ready to go back to hotel, I was doubting myself, telling myself I am not good enough to compete at this level. I was putting myself down and the worst part is that I believed everything I was telling myself.

After getting home in the States, I missed practice for a few days straight, not feeling the desire to return like I usually do after coming home from competitions. Eventually, I got over it and came back to practice, not feeling the greatest, but I knew I had to come back. I knew I had to practice and I realized it was not the end of the world. Still, the loss affected me pretty hard and it took a lot out of me to get over and it regain my confidence. To a fencer, losing your confidence is as bad as a soccer player losing a leg, there is no team to depend on, just yourself.

At the next tournament a few weeks later, a smaller tournament, something domestic here in the United States. I was shaky. The tournament in France still lurking in the back of my brain. I felt it on the strip as well. My actions were tense, as if I was trying too hard to not mess up. My reactions were basically overreactions, completely unnecessary. My childhood best friend, practically brother who started fencing with me on the same day comes up to me and tells me to “man up” but in his own vulgar way that will not be repeated. He knows me better than anyone and told me to forget what happened earlier and that it’s in the past. I was able to fence a lot better for the rest of the day and actually produced a solid result. A result that brought back some confidence in me, and I needed it.

Thanks for reading,

Mohamed.

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