It's critically important--if you want to fence well--to put the kibosh on destructive self-talk.

• Destructive self-talk is punishment. Punishment hurts; it doesn't truly motivate . . . instead it promotes avoidance. Keep it up and eventually you'll hate fencing and quit. The only type of person who truly thrives on self-punishment is a masochist.
   
• You are you . . . and fencing well--or not--has nothing to do with that. Your friends don't care how you did; they're not grading you . . . if they're truly your friends.
   
• You aren't a failure when you don't win. There is no failure, only results.
   
• Grading yourself is a fruitless exercise; if you were good enough to teach the subject, only then might you be qualified to grade. So how fair and reasonable are you being to yourself by grading yourself from such a position of ignorance?
   
• Winning or losing means nothing as far as who you are and how good a person you are. How you strive and how you go about improving is more important.
   
• Watch out for the following destructive keywords in your self-talk:
   
• "should"         (who said?)  EXPECTATION
• "should not"      (who said?)  EXPECTATION
• "could have"      (HYPOTHETICAL . . . it didn't happen)
• "would have"      (HYPOTHETICAL . . . it didn't happen)
• "can't"           (unless you have a physical or mental handicap, this is unlikely) EXPECTATION
• "bad"           (who says?) EXPECTATION
• "lesser opponent"  (there are only varying degrees of difficulty, not opponents) EXPECTATION
   

If you find them running through your head, or if you're mumbling them out loud, STOP!

DYSFUNCTIONAL FRAMES--FRAMES THAT DON'T WORK WELL--ALSO RESULT IN DESTRUCTIVE SELF-TALK

Here are some of the frames that--all too often--are adopted by fencers:

• "The 'lesser' fencer will always lose to the 'better' fencer."  VARIANT: "The 'better" fencer will always beat the 'lesser' fencer If either of these were true, why bother fencing? You're fencing your opponent to see what happens, not to fulfill a self-fulfilling prophecy. Aren't you?
   
• "You can do anything you put your mind to" is BS. It's an unrealistic EXPECTATION.
   

You can put your mind to something; but unless you've trained and prepared yourself appropriately . . . and then executed really well, you won't succeed.

Also, everyone has limitations. Everyone has things they'll never enjoy. If you don't enjoy what you're doing, you won't ever truly excel at it. You may do well; but you'll never the best you might be capable of.
 

• If you quit, you're a bad person. Hmmm. If you quit, you quit. Perhaps the activity just wasn't for you. Why push yourself into things you don't enjoy? Wouldn't that be stupid? If you're getting angry about fencing all the time, perhaps the sport is NOT for you.
   
• Doing better than everyone else makes you a better person than everyone else. REALLY?. Such thinking will make you miserable, especially when you lose. It makes your friends and fellow competitors miserable too. No one likes to be around a miserable person. You are who you are, before, during, and after competing. The only things that potentially can change who you are . . .are how you cope with frustration, how you cope with winning, and how much you learn from your mistakes.
   
• Doing better than everyone else in all things at the expense of others makes you a better person than everyone else. NONSENSE! It just makes others hate you and ensures you'll be left alone.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER WHICH MIGHT PROVE ENLIGHTENING WHEN YOUR SELF-TALK TAKES A NASTY TURN

• Why do you fence? What's the payoff? What do you get out of fencing? Why continue? Why fencing over some other activity? Fun? If it's fun, why are you working so hard to suffer?
   
•  How's winning make you the better person? How does that work? Magic? Or what?

You can only truly excel in those things you truly enjoy. Destructive self-talk murders such enjoyment. Strive to learn from--not to crush--your opponents . .. and kill the destructive self-talk.

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