When I first started fencing, I hated it. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. The position felt strange. I couldn’t get a point. It was the utmost inconvenience on a Saturday morning.

Now fencing means so much to me. It’s arriving to training weary as a wet dog and leaving pumped up like a chihuahua on speed. It’s hitting my foot with my foil and bouncing on my toes to warm up. It’s the invincibility I feel in a plastic boob plate. It’s the sore hot spots on my fingers and toes that I always forget to tape. It’s chucking on music, stretching on the hotel floor, and cleaning my tips. Losing the miniature screws in the carpet then looking for them for hours. Re-taping my foils with an exhale. It’s dancing around to shake out the nerves that feel like little bugs crawling around, infesting my veins and arteries.

It’s the noise-canceling headphones working as a shield against forced social interaction at a competition. It’s getting the fifth point in a row that shoves your opponent emotionally into their grave. It’s going head to head with girls that could squash me with their thumb. It’s the breath that leaves my chest when some badass bitch absolutely wrecks me with a stunning point.

It’s the beep-laden voice memos that I capture hunched and panting over my bag at the venue, noting what I need to improve on. It’s learning how to set boundaries and how to push boundaries. It’s surrendering to the sweat and heat and burning thighs, finding voice and expression in the rhythm of my feet.

It’s the sexual tension with the girl across the piste from me, who turns my legs to jelly as I try to keep my cool while doing the hottest activity ever. Smirking at her from across the venue when no one knew, her cheering me on, calling me a queen… her voice when she said forza.

It’s the 15-hour layovers in Doha. It’s getting into the elevator with Olympic Champions on the way back from a grocery store run and managing to squeak out a ciao. It’s the convenience store snack runs in a foreign country. It’s shoving the blue light of my phone in front of my eyes to fight the jetlag. Scalding my throat with hot tea because it’s worth the caffeine boost. It’s snow angels in Vienna and blurry late nights with chain-smoking strangers in Budapest. It’s whining as I drag my fencing bag — big enough to fit me inside it — banging up and down the subway stairs in Rome.

It’s the crushing lows that bring your feet back to the ground. It’s being able to scream at the top of my lungs and have no one blink an eye… It’s the 11-point comeback, the post competition headache sealed with salty tears. The awkward conversations about all the bruises I have. Having to pee in a cup and gaze at it with two strangers as it sits on my dining room table. It’s the visceral urge to show the other countries what Australians can do. It’s the delicious taste of drowning myself in hydralyte. It’s the constant struggle to prove myself and justify the last ten years of sacrifice.

Slaying for sport

When I first started fencing, I hated it.