Trevor Wallace... Injured and Then What

[LilHCorny 55]

As we all know it's theme week.  So it's time for an alternate reality.  For this one we're starting back at Grand Rapids Christian, where Trevor Wallace attended high school...

It happened all in an instant.  One second I was skating on the rink, shooting at the goal.  The next I couldn't move my fingers in my right hand.  I didn't know what to do.  I was one of the top hockey prospects in the state of Michigan, and I couldn't hold a fucking hockey stick.  How was I supposed to play in the VHL?  That'd been the dream all along of course.  To one day be drafted in the VHLM, spend a year or two there, then graduate up to the pros in the VHL.  Yet, no matter how hard I tried my fingers wouldn't budge.  It was just me at the rink, just taking some time to work on my penalty shot, a part of my game that needed improvement.  Or now I guess, now I have no game, without a right had that works.  So, I did what any sane person does, I panicked.  Thankfully, there was no significant pain.  My nerves must be cut off too (thank you science class for actually teaching me something).  I skated over to the door, used my left arm to push it open it and ran over to my phone.  I immediately called my parents, using my left hand.  It took forever using only one hand.  I told them what was going on and they suggested I head to urgent care at the local Mercy Health.  

 

Maybe at another time I would've headed to Spectrum Health, but I'd had a bad experience there when I was four. 

It turns out that I'd somehow had my blood flow cut off and there was no way to get it back.  This meant that I either have a limp hand, or I get amputated.  I decided to do the latter.  In the meantime, I needed to figure out a sport that only required no hands or one hand.  I had been decently fast on the rink, but that was with skates so I really didn't feel like track was my thing.  However, I'd heard from a friend that fencing would really only require one hand, so I decided that was gonna be my thing.  I had the athleticism and I'd been a good enough student that the mental part didn't seem like it'd bug me.  And heck, who the didn't like stabbing someone with swords, sign me up!  So, I signed up for a fencing class at Grand Rapids Advanced Fencing Academy (GRAFA).  I had a few fencing clubs as they call them, to choose from in the area.  I could drive over an hour daily to go to Bay Regional Fencing Academy, or head on over to the other one by my high school, West Michigan Fencing Academy.  In the end though, I decided to choose GRAFA because they seemed the most intense, and were run by Russians which stereotypically, I know, reminded me a bit of hockey, since we all know that's a big sport there.

 

The first class was... different from any sport I'd known.  We had to do everything in this weird half sitting position with my one good arm bent at the elbow and extended a little bit with my other arm just sitting there behind me.  My feet were perpendicular to one another and spread out while my knees were bent.  if that sounds confusing, good, because I had no clue what I was doing.  Apparently fencing has three weapons that you can fence.  Foil, which you start out with, sabre, where everything above the waist is the target and you slash people in a sense, and epee where the whole body is the target.  I really wanted to fence foil for some reason.  Thankfully, that's what you start out with.

 

As the weeks progressed I learned a lot.  I'd started dominating bouts (the fencing equivalents of matches) in the beginner class.  I guess I'm a fast learner.  My main attack was a simple feint and disengage.  Which is where you extend your blade without actually intending to hit your opponent and when they try to parry (block) your blade you go around their weapon and extend fully to get the point.  The only problem I had was hesitating a bit.  You see, in the foil and sabre weapons there is this thing called right of way.  You almost always need it to score.  Whoever is attacking has right of way, so at the start if you take an advance (step) forward before your opponent you gain right of way, however it is very easy to lose.  You step backwards? You lose it.  Hesitate and your opponent advances?  You lose it.  Your opponent parries your blade?  You better be ready to retreat or parry their blade, because you won't have right of way anymore.  Of course, it's possible to score without right of way, however your opponent must not hit you whatsoever because right of way is what determines a touch when two people hit each other at the same time (which happens a lot, surprisingly).  And yes, if they hit you off target (anywhere outside of the torso in foil) and you hit them on their torso, nobody gets a point.  That was confusing to me in the first week, but I learned it pretty quickly.  Anyways, I was ready to go to the advanced class.

 

Once I was in the advanced class, I struggled.  In fact, my parents decided to get me some private one hour classes with the coach which helped a lot.  I had to learn to stop with the parry disengage so often because everyone in this class could easily defend it with a circle six parry (in which you make a counterclockwise circle with your blade to parry your opponent's blade).  So, I had to diversify what I was doing, I now really saw why they called it mental chess.  I based most of my strategy and style around infighting (fencing from a very close distance to your opponent,  usually within a foot), which I found myself to be surprisingly good at.  It took me a few months, but I started competing, and winning.  After all, I was quite in shape from hockey and was able to be agile along the fencing strip (the fencing equivalent of a field or rink). 

 

Then came my first tournament... or so I thought.  In my first bout I tore my ACL and then my time frame was up.  My prime as a fencer was going to be wasted.  So yeah, that's Trevor Wallace as a fencer.

 

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1122 Words

[Ledge 1,131]

Review: Wow, this is a fantastic story. Sad and tragic, but captivating and somewhat motivating. If this is based on real life, then man, do I have a ton of respect for you. Either way, pretty good formatting, putting in a title would make it more professional but it isn't mandatory.

9/10

[LilHCorny 55]

On 4/18/2021 at 10:19 PM, Ledge_and_Dairy said:

Review: Wow, this is a fantastic story. Sad and tragic, but captivating and somewhat motivating. If this is based on real life, then man, do I have a ton of respect for you. Either way, pretty good formatting, putting in a title would make it more professional but it isn't mandatory.

9/10

Thanks.  Thankfully, only the fencing part is based on real life.

[LilHCorny 55]

Claiming week 2/2