Stillness and Motion

The surroundings were quiet as if the whole classroom had pressed the mute button. In the middle of a 14-meter field, I stood on one side while my fencing coach was on the other.

We gazed at each other in silence.

Although the mask blocked my vision, I could still see the light reflected from his sharp eyes.

The silence was all around, and my breathing even seemed a little heavy at that moment. The coach moved and approached me step by step. A quiet sense of oppression gradually rose from my heart while I remained silent.

There was still silence, quiet enough to feel even a hint of fear.

Either perish in silence or explode in silence. Eventually, I decided to take the initiative.

I slid forward as fast as I could while extending my hand as far as possible and jabbing my foil toward the scoring position on the coach. At this moment, all the distracting thoughts in my mind were thrown away, leaving only the opinion of scoring. At the same time, his response was also admirably swift. He gently used his foil to poke my foil aside, then quickly drew back his hand to stab me with almost invisible speed. After a split second of hesitation, I hastily adjusted my foil to a defensive stance in response to the overwhelming attack. All I heard was a crisp "ting" sound that came from two swords clashing rapidly. I lowered my body with a last-ditch attitude and stabbed the foil in my hand from the bottom up.

"Drip," the scorer sounded.

I did it.

The coach removed his helmet, patted me, who was still in a low body position at this point, and said with a satisfied smile, "Good job, man! "