I’ve been fencing epee for two weeks now (I’ve fenced foil for over a year and a half) and on Thursday I bouted a couple people. Near the end of my first bout my oppenent misjudges his distance and counterattacks into my attack, and his tip nails my upper bicep hard. One hell of a hit. (It was a double touch, in case you were wondering). Normally, you don’t even feel the bruise until you find it later. Sometimes you feel it, but for just a few seconds. When I know pain is coming, I’m a bit weenie (I could never get a tattoo), but when it occurs in the context of sport (I don’t know it’s coming till it’s happened), I’m usually fairly tough and am unphased. This hit made me swear fairly vehemently and I had to stop for a bit and shake my arm out.

I continued fencing and forgot about it. I got home and it looked like this:

Not awful. It was swollen and warm in the middle. I woke up the next morning to this:

Today is day four and it currently looks like this: