Try to Enter

When I was seventeen my parents organised a sword contest to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. I told my brother I wanted to enter. He laughed and out right refused.

“Look, this time next year I’ll be married, my husband will have put a baby inside me and I’ll have no chance of ever doing this again, I’ve got to do it now!”
After a lot of argument I challenged my brother to fight me. If I won I’d enter, but if I lost I would never pick up a sword again.

The following day he arranged for me to meet him using wooden practice swords. It was the most important fight of my life up to that point. It was hot and sticky with the sun beating down on the ground. With his very first lunge he knocked my sword out of my hand and stood on it. Despite all my training I was beaten by his first strike, or was I? I bent down to reach my sword and as I did I grabbed a handful of dust and threw in into his eyes. He leapt back, I grabbed his leg, pulled him down and held my sword to his throat. He was not pleased, but admitted I had won and could enter the contest, as long as I wore a mask and fought in the female section.