A father of a beginner asked me last week how long it would take his daughter to become a very good fencer. “ What do you mean by becoming a good fencer?” I asked. The father shrugged. “Well, winning national medals and being recruited.”

I asked him a question back. If she picked up a violin tomorrow, how long before she’s good enough to sit in the Vienna Philharmonic?

He laughed. “Years,” he said. “Maybe never.”

Well, then…

Fencing is one of the hardest sports to master. Timing, distance, tactics, footwork, the mental game, competitive experience, understanding referees, performing under pressure, learning to overcome fear of going against stronger opponents, losing and then winning priority minutes, all of it layered on top of each other, all of it live and reactive. You’re building technical skills and the nerve to perform under pressure, against opponents who are also improving and want to beat you no less than you want to beat them.

And you can’t find a shortcut through that or a unified formula based on repeating steps of another successful fencer. There’s no camp, private lesson package, and a list of designated competitions that skips the years.

The only thing that will get a fencer to their desired destination is staying on the course by showing up, losing and learning why. And then showing up again.

When I talked to this dad, I didn’t invent the question about the Vienna Philharmonic, as years ago I read it applied to something else. And it stuck with me because it’s true in any activity we do, be it writing, music, performance, magic tricks, or fencing. The single and the only truth of mastery is that it doesn’t negotiate on time. No matter what, to reach anything in anything you must practice.

Which reminds me of an old story: A pedestrian on 57th Street asks a musician getting out of a cab, “How to get to Carnegie Hall?” And the musician replies wearily, “Practice.”

Image: by Mitch Lazorko licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.