For someone who avoids exercise like the plague, I write about sports more often than I should. I’ve never stepped foot in a gym, and hopefully never will, yet somehow, over the course of my 18 years I have found exactly two activities that I have willingly worked out for. Rhythmic gymnastics basically raised me and fencing got me through the hell that was high school. Although it’s been a while since I’ve held either ribbon or blade, both sports have been wild enough to carve out a place in my heart. Weirdly enough, I miss them – blood, bruises, sweat and all. It's not something I’ve forgotten at all.

Nothing makes me remember them more fondly than the aches and pains.

Every time my hip pops out of its socket like that of a ninety-year-old woman’s, I’m reminded of each and every lunge of my high school fencing career. Every time my wrist aches, I recall how great it was to have my captain tell me I had tendonitis right before a tournament. As much as I’ll complain about my hip, my knees, my shoulder, my back, etc. and seeing my thighs without the regular bruises that existed on them during the season is the weirdest thing.

The absence of the season is like a hole in your schedule.

When winter comes around, once the chilliness sets in, I expect to be forced into sweaty gear until 6 p.m. each day. But this year, I continued to go to class and work as per usual, and never did I have to worry about fitting my schedule around practices and meets. As freeing as it’s been, I miss the three to four month period that allowed me to forsake the rest of my responsibilities so that I could practice stabbing people with blades. This winter has been extraordinarily cold to me without my four layers of gear, the shouts of “fencers ready, fence!” and the constant mental repetition of “beat, disengage, attack.”

Not that the mental repetition goes anywhere…

Certain rules are literally beat into your head from your very introduction to a sport. In gymnastics, “point your toes” and “straighten your knees” becomes a mantra. The moment you pick up a blade to fence, the first thing you hear upon your first attack is “arm first.” The more time you spend in the sport, the more things you pick up. Regardless of how long it has been since you’ve last done the sport yourself, the things you’ve been taught stay with you.

They’re the first things you notice about other people when you watch videos from competitions or when you come to watch your old team at meets. I’m forever going to notice how a girl falls from her releve during a pivot or how a saber learns to let their opponent’s attack fall short before riposting. Finally, it’s been ingrained.

Watching other people in your former sport is not as gratifying as watching your former team.

Watching the same people that you trained with take the floor or the strip, forces a mix of pride and nostalgia into your chest. You used to sweat and stretch together. You used to get nervous before tournaments together. Now, you’re standing on the sidelines watching their progress through pictures and victory announcements. Part of you wishes desperately that you could be back in it. Despite this, you still wish them luck and a million happy moments in the sport that once made you so happy, and continues to do so even now.