The Natural - Natalie Vie

(excerpted in JAVA Magazine, September, 2010)

Inside the dank helmet, moist with breath and sweat, the sound of your own respiration is as audible as the sounds in the hall around you. Thus insulated, your world narrows until there is only you and your opponent and the yard-long steel blade you each possess. Final salutes given, you now adopt the traditional stance. Knees bent, lead leg to the fore, trailing arm behind with elbow bent at 90 degrees and open hand pointing casually at the ceiling, sword forward with wrist up, elbow bent close to your body, ready to strike.

Ready to kill.

The stiff steel mesh an inch in front of your eyes all but disappears as your focus zeroes through to your opponent, six feet away and just as ready to kill YOU. Not so tough. Keep your confidence or they'll know it and smell blood. Then you're dead. Take an easy breath - the last one for a while - and release it slowly. Focus now. Look at nothing in particular, the better to see everything...

"En guarde!"

An involuntary but welcome adrenaline surge doubles your heart-rate and halves your perception time. You're prepared for action and you can barely wait. The record shows that six matches out of seven, your opponent has been the first to strike - usually at the face. Always in the upper area. When they do, you'll deflect that and stab their torso with the same lunge. Should they deflect that strike, you know exactly how you'll set yourself up for the next one. What are they waiting for?

Damn. Fine! Advance. Advance. They also advance. You're within striking distance now. Your blades meet almost casually in several small, swirling feints, each of you trying to draw the other out. Watching… watching…

Their shoulder drops and you instinctively move to block the lunge that will invariably follow. Except that this time it doesn't. This time the true attack happens just as you've become off-balance and un-guarded. You FOOL! Your blade scrapes theirs and jabs ineffectually at the air while the tip of your opponent's blade, with their full weight and power behind it, slams into your mid section. Were this not a game, the contents of your spleen would now be fouling your shoes.

Ask Olympic hopeful and four-time women's collegiate fencing champion Natalie Vie why she chose a sport derived from mortal combat and her initial answer is deceptively superficial. "I was reading a book, and the main character worked on the fencing team and...that just put the idea in my head…"

What she doesn't say, although true, is that she and championship fencing were made for one another.

Natalie Julia Vie was born in Los Angeles and raised in Phoenix, the eldest of four children. She credits the family responsibilities she undertook after her parents divorced and her mom began full-time work with keeping her on the straight and narrow; but it doesn't seem to have slowed her down much. A confirmed polymath, she can alternately and credibly describe herself as a writer, sculptor, fencer and coach. Active in sports from first grade on, Natalie competed in three prior to college: Swimming, track and...cheerleading.

"I was really into competitive cheerleading my whole life growing up and I know that sounds dorky, but I loved performing and challenging myself and the physicality of it." Fun as it was, though, Natalie was increasingly drawn to the more individual sports in which she was also involved. "I'd done cheer since first grade and it's just part of my personality that I stuck with it… but it ended up not being as fun for me as the swim team or the track team… the individual sports."

All sports went on the back-burner during her senior year in high school, when Natalie focused on academics and her role as editor of the school newspaper. It was also when she read Catcher In The Rye and, even though its depiction in the novel is decidedly lackluster, became curious to know more about fencing. She looked up local fencing clubs and, along with a friend, checked one out.

"My friends thought it was hilarious! 'Fencing? Who's ever heard of fencing?!' but at the same time they were super curious." Still, Natalie doesn't think they were too surprised. "I don't think they expected anything less from me because they knew I kind of go with my passions, and if I get an idea I just go after it."

Fencing was the right thing at the right time for Natalie. "Graduating high school left a huge void, especially in time, before college started." She also found that it satisfied her in ways that her previous activities hadn't. "It involved a mental aspect that I'd never found in the other sports I'd done, with the physicality and the fact that it was an individual rather than a team sport...so it was the perfect combination for me."

Of the three weapons used in Olympic competition, Natalie competes with the eppe' - the heaviest and most rigid, and the one whose rules allow the most freedom of form.

Though she began fencing at a relatively late age for a future champ, Natalie realized she'd actually been in training for years. "The competitive cheer I did outside of school was closely tied to a gymnastics program...and through that I really learned about rhythm and dancing and mastering my own body in terms of coordination - all the physical things that fencing requires. So it's almost as if I'd been leading up to this my whole life. When I came to fencing, it just felt natural."

Another natural thing may help explain Natalie's success. One of her great uncles, Julio de Caro, is considered by many to have been a prime progenitor of modern Tango; and for Natalie, who enjoys Latin dance herself, the footwork which carries her comparatively slight frame into battle exhibits an apparently effortless facility. An example of this can be seen on YouTube.com, in a video of highlights from Natalie's title-winning Duel in the Desert bout this past January in Las Vegas. Her opponent, also a world-class fencer, always searches out a solid footing. Natalie, in contrast, seems to be continuously moving to an inner rhythm; pivoting her hips as she shifts her weight back and forth. Her steps are more frequent, more evenly measured and more fluid. The more intense the action, the more Natalie seems to be dancing.

According to Natalie, a fencer's style is as unique as her finger print. "Even if I didn't know who was out there, I could tell who they were as soon as they started fencing." This is why several seasons ago she began taking notes on every fencer she might be matched against. She noted their strengths and vulnerabilities, patterns of behavior, and individual peculiarities. Natalie knows she can only take this so far, though. "Obviously, you try to avoid their strengths and exploit their weaknesses. But you can't rely on it," she says, "because as soon as you do, then they do something totally unpredictable and you're not ready for it. More than that, the whole process of taking the notes helps me keep my focus the entire time while I'm waiting for a bout."

In the few short years since she began fencing, included four years on ASU's Salle Diablo Fencing Club, Natalie has earned bachelors degrees in both Political Science and Sculpture (graduating magna cum laude), and competed in fencing championships in five different countries, some multiple times.

Despite her relatively brief time at the sport, she has racked up an enviable ratio of wins, including four U.S. championship titles. In fact, her win/loss ratio suggests she would be evenly matched in the highest echelon of women fencers in the U.S., the top four of which will automatically earn a spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team.

If only it was that easy. Due to the way fencing rankings are calculated, (cumulatively and with the lowest three scores discarded) a dominant fencer's ranking will generally improve the more bouts they are able to compete in. In countries which sponsor their athletes, this isn't a problem, and rankings are likely to have a direct correlation to raw talent. U.S. fencers, on the other hand, must pay their own way to every event. Here, talent is necessary for a high ranking, but not sufficient. A fencer also needs funds.

Natalie has a job coaching up-and-coming athletes at Phoenix Falcons fencing club, which is one of the few employers able to understand and work with her unique scheduling requirements. Up until final Olympians are selected in April of 2012, she will have the opportunity to travel to as many as twelve competition per year worldwide. That's a lot of time off, and a lot of airfare, lodging and fees to pay for.

And of course Natalie's not alone. The roster of U.S. fencers tends to be younger than their international counterparts - a competitive disadvantage in a sport where experience is an asset - due to the fact that there is no living to be made from it. Also, unlike many other countries, the U.S. does not subsidize their Olympic athletes. "We have an incredibly young team...once you leave college there's no support system. It's sad, but that's the truth."

That's not to say that U.S. fencers aren't competitive, all things being equal. Far from it. In fact, in the last two olympics, of the six medalists in the sabre category, FIVE were Americans. What leveled the playing field somewhat for sabre was that it was a new olympic adoption, and so all of the competitors were new to the sport on the Olympic level. The oldest forms of Olympic fencing, which use either the epee' of foil, however, are still dominated by Europeans.

French fencers are rock stars in their home country, where champs can be certain not only of sponsorship, but also career-spanning endorsement deals, paid guest spots and the like. In many ways the sport perpetuates itself through personality in Europe much the way that U.S. basketball does here, where the public is always looking to the next Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, etc.

"If you think of any popular sport, one of the biggest factors is the individual athletes and whether you care about their story or not," Natalie reflects, "and so I think if we start to put our athletes forward that will only be good for U.S. fencing."

There is a long way to go before the sport gets mainstream recognition here (and pro soccer looms as a prescient example of the difficulty of an internationally adored sport to usurp any of the attention we give to the big 5 of baseball, basketball, football, golf and NASCAR); but if anyone can turn some heads to it, it's probably Natalie Vie. She has not only the captivating mix of sex appeal, athleticism and ambition necessary to gain attention, but also the intellect and grounding to maintain it.

Would SHE like to become the popular figurehead of U.S. fencing? "I have a lot of support here in Phoenix and a lot excitement from people at my club and I love it when some of the kids at the club look up to me, but... the most important thing to me is that I get my tournaments paid for. I'm not looking to get famous - I want to be an international player and get as good as I can get."

(Space) Rocks In Her Head

For Java Magazine,

February, 2010 - On newststands now!

You may be surprised to know that the top of the world is a cluttered office at ASU's main campus. Behind a desk there sits the stunningly beautiful Professor Meenakshi Wadhwa, Director of ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies. Not content with merely being a renowned scientist in the field of cosmochemistry, (because, honestly, who couldn't do that?), this PhD from Punjab is also an avid hiker, triathlete, pilot and potential astronaut. She's doing what she loves, and having a great time doing it - on top of the world, as they say. Did I mention the stunningly beautiful part? Well, it bears repeating.

Sorry guys (and girls), she's taken.

Born and raised in India, Mini (her favored nickname) was not the typical young Indian girl. In a culture that generally expects different things from its daughters than from its sons, she credits her parents for keeping her free to set her own path. "My father was always very progressive and my family never imposed any limitations on me. A lot of girls in India grow up with the pressure to get married as soon as they can."

"IF they go on to higher education at all, it's with the idea that it will just help them get a better match when they do get married. More often, they just learn how to cook and how to clean. I didn't even learn to cook until I attended graduate school here in the states."

How is she now? "I'm pretty good!"

Professor Wadhwa is by no means boastful, but she's not self-effacing, either. When our conversation gets to how she spends her leisure time, tucked between running and seeing bands, she casually mentions "I just got my pilots license." It's clear she didn't want to draw attention to it, but when I do a double-take, she admits her enthusiasm. "Yeah, I've wanted to do that for a long time… it was very cool!"

Perhaps she's accustomed to being exceptional, but she bears herself with an easy assuredness and lack of affectation. "Cool" seems to be how she describes the things that please her the most.

Her path to ASU began with a youthful interest in rocks and the physical world, but she says she wasn't one of those people who knew what they wanted to do from an early age. "I went into geology not fully appreciating what it was all about, really. I knew that it required a lot of field work and I liked the idea of being outdoors and basically doing something in the physical sciences."

It was early on, however, that she realized she'd chosen an untraditional pursuit. "...so I went to the university to sort of talk to the professors and look into it, and there wasn't a single woman faculty member; and even today it's a very small minority of departments of geology in India that will have faculty that are women."

Though she won't describe it as a struggle, she did have some convincing to do. "They were not very encouraging. The professors would say 'no no, it's not a field for women. You have to go on these long field trips and trudge around a lot…' They didn't think I could do it. I just said, 'wait a minute, I'm pretty sure I CAN do it.' "

How much of a motivation was proving them wrong? She laughs. "Well their attitude kind of goaded me on, but that was really secondary," she says. "I mean, at that age (17) you're still trying to prove yourself, but I KNEW I could do it just as well as anyone else, and I wanted the chance to actually do the work, that's all. In the end I was first in my class, so I kinda did o.k., I think." Point proven.

In deference to her father, Mini applied for a potentially lucrative position with the Indian oil and natural gas commission just after graduation and got it! This meant financial security, relative prestige and, since she was so young, the likelihood of even higher promotion in the future. Besides which, and not unimportantly as far as her family was concerned, she could still live in India. By any traditional standard, accepting the position was an easy choice.

Mini Wadhwa, as you may have already gathered, is not about easy choices.

"At the same time, I'd applied to grad school here [the U.S.] and been accepted here, too," she explains. "The job in India was just not where my heart was. If I'd taken it I probably would have left anyway...it's not what I wanted to do."

And so she came to Washington University in St. Louis for graduate work in geology - basically the study of physical Earth. One fateful day, however, a professor allowed her to examine a piece of a Martian meteorite that had been discovered. The lightbulb went off that she could apply all of her training not only to Earth, but to the arguably far cooler entire solar system as well! The die was cast, the seed was sewn, insert your own cliche here because I'm out.

Since then, she has done field work in Antarctica, been Visiting Scholar at the University of Chicago, Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, and Curator at the Field Museum, among other positions and appointments. Some of her awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Wings WorldQuest Air and Space Award, and the Meteoritical Society's Nier Prize - among others.

If you look up at the right time, you probably won't see it, but somewhere up there is an asteroid named in her honor as well - 8356 Wadhwa.

She also got married - to another geologist whom she first met in Hawaii, fresh from her Antarctic stint.

Doesn't that mean she never really gets too far away from work? "Yeah, well, maybe, but we love our work! Also, there's a lot about his work that I don't know and vice versa, so it's always interesting still." Does that sound ideal? Maybe it is. Eleven years suggests something's working here.

"I have absolutely no tips whatsoever on balancing personal and professional time...I'm a big believer in doing the most that you can every single day and having fun with it," she says. Still, she's avoided burnout by getting outdoors. She hikes, goes to concerts and has become, to even HER surprise, a triathlete. "I was an outdoorsy kid, but I never did any of the three sports before really. I got to know people here and they were getting into it and I thought, 'why is it that I can't get into that?' " Why not, indeed?

[One of over 1,500 meteorite samples which comprise the collection of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration]

Drawn To ASU

The Center for Meteorite Studies has been at ASU since 1960, when the university had the foresight to purchase the collection of Arizona resident and avid meteorite collector Harvey Nininger. A "gentleman" scientist who also operated a museum at northern Arizona's Meteor Crater, Nininger virtually established the field of meteoritics in the US, according to Wadhwa. A portion of the collection had already been sold to the British Museum and ASU had to scramble to get the rest.

Today, the center holds the largest research collection of meteorite samples in the world, and the fifth or sixth largest collection even considering those held by museums.

In 2006, ASU incorporated the center into its newly-formed School for Earth and Space Exploration, a multi-disciplinary school, encompassing everything from meteoritics to engineering, geology to astrophysics. It was the attraction of building this dynamic new school from the foundation that lured Mini and her husband (also on the faculty) to Tempe.

Though very active following the lunar missions of the early 1970's which brought back moon rocks for examination, the center itself was still not widely known, despite having such a significant collection. Part of Prof Wadhwa's mission is to change all of that.

"The center really is a kind of unique resource," she says, "so we've been trying to rejuvenate interest in our samples and try to make them more available in the science community as well as to the general public. And now there are plans for the school to have a new building and a big component will be exhibit and interactive space, and the meteorite collection will be a big part of that."

The outreach extends into the local community as well. "We have samples that we take to schools to try to get kids fascinated with this stuff. Plus there's a lot of people who don't know we're here." Probably most people don't, actually.

Like the rest of the faculty, Wadhwa had to take a furlough earlier this year to help make up for budget cutbacks brought on by the recession. In addition, she says they lost the equivalent of at least one and possibly two positions this year.

Might there be a well-endowed benefactor out there who just needs to be made aware of the school?

"That's why I'm talking to you."

Mini Wadhwa, you sweet-talker, you! Oh. Yes, publicity. Yes, I see. I'll certainly do what I can.

As full as Wadhwa's life may seem at the moment, it's about to get even fuller.

After a career spent largely studying Martian soil that has found its way to Earth by natural means, Wadhwa would like to go and get some for a change. She is principal investigator for a Discovery Class mission to Mars, which aims to collect Martian atmosphere and dust samples and return them to Earth for study. "It'll be a big time commitment but I'm really excited about it because Martian samples will mean a lot to different scientists around the world."

"Right now, we can only be 99 percent sure that what we think are Martian meteorites are actually from Mars," she explains. Part of the SCIM (Sample Collection for the Investigation of Mars) mission would be to give us samples that we can be 100 percent certain of for comparison. Further experiments on the samples would seek to answer questions about the evolution of Mars, the solar system and the Earth itself. NASA will decide next year whether or not SCIM is included in its next mission.

Assuming the mission does go through and is successful, Wadhwa and her team at ASU would be first up to receive the fruits of their labors. "We'll have six months after the samples get back to do a subset of experiments on them. The idea is to try and get the most science out of the sample, so the last thing we'd want to do is hoard them. It's impossible to have our small group of individuals do all the research that needs to be done, so we limit ourselves to just what we think we'd be best at and then make the samples available to others."

Having Wadhwa as "principal investigator" on this project will certainly raise her profile, as well as that of the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration. "Part of the draw of being in this unique environment is that you have all of the different parts together at this one school. The goal is to prepare the next generation of space scientists, so bringing NASA projects here is definitely something we want to do as much as possible."

And what does the future hold for this award-winning and amply accredited professor?

"Twenty years from now I hope we'll have actual samples back not only from Mars, but from some of the other planets in the solar system. I want to be involved in some of these missions."

JAVA: And if there's a manned mission…?

Wadhwa: Oh...

Throughout our long and pleasant conversation, Professor Wadhwa was always sure-footed. She's been interviewed a lot and is justifiably confident of her material. It was intriguing, therefore, when she hesitated slightly at this question.

Wadhwa: Oh...GOD yes, absolutely!

JAVA: Is that why you're keeping in such good shape?

Wadhwa: Well...you know…who knows...

JAVA: Is that actually what's in the back of your mind when you're doing triathlon - so that you can still pass the astronaut exam when you're sixty?

Wadhwa: Ha ha ha ha...of course not...I mean, of course SO! That's what I meant to say [she is now officially blushing.] Yeah, I would LOVE to have been an astronaut. That would have been very cool!

Lest we think that her head is now in the clouds, she takes pains to explain that it is not.

"At the same time, there's so much cool stuff for me to do...and the important thing is to have fun at what you're doing at the present time. You don't want to just sort of make do and bide your time while you're thinking about some really really long term sort of plan that you're aiming towards..." Yeah yeah yeah, the common term for those things is "dreams," Professor. I get the impression that she's trying to convince herself as much as me.

She needn't worry.

Who among us would ever accuse Mini Wadhwa of simply biding her time?

See more pictures of the esteemed professor at my Flickr page.