Academy of Fencing Masters Blog

Today I had a conversation that went badly wrong. I said something that landed as a personal attack. It was not intended as one. What I actually felt, what I was actually reacting to, lived in a register the other person had no access to. I was transmitting on a frequency he weren't tuned to. And I didn't realize it until the damage was done. This happens in fencing constantly. There is a moment every fencing coach knows. A referee makes a call. A parent says something in the hallway. A...

I recently reviewed Andre Agassi's autobiography Open on this blog, and the response was significant. Many fencing parents told me they picked up the book because of that review. That's great — it's an extraordinary memoir that every sports parent should read. But I'm worried that some parents took away the wrong lesson. Here's what some of them heard: Agassi's father was relentless, demanding, borderline abusive in his single-minded obsession with making his son a champion — and it worked....

There's a moment that happens at almost every competition I attend. A fencer comes off the strip after a loss. Before she even has time to take off her mask, her parent is already there: "Why didn't you finish your attack when she was at the back line? You had the moment! And that last touch — you should have parried instead of counter-attacking." The fencer's eyes go flat. She nods, says nothing, and walks away to pack her bag. The parent thinks they've just helped. They haven't. They've just...

I recently stumbled again upon The Nine Gifts book, to which I contributed an interview about attention — what it means in fencing, how we develop it, and why it transfers to life outside the sport. It got me thinking about something I rarely write about directly on this blog, even though focus and attention might be one of the most important things fencing gives our children. But first, let me start with something that has nothing to do with fencing to drive the point home (pun intended). The...

Children's fencing, even without victories, gives a child a kind of confidence that no school can provide. But very few parents truly understand this. Most parents, I would dare to say maybe ninety percent of them, look mostly at medals. I get it - medals are tangible, you can hang them on a wall, and post the podium moments  on Instagram. They feel like proof that all those hours of driving, all that money on equipment and tournament fees, all those early mornings — that it's all "working."...

Every season, I watch the same movie play out. A young fencer of eight or nine years old wins a few local tournaments, maybe even places at a regional. This child’s parents are ecstatic while the other parents notice and predict that that kid is going to be something special. And maybe she will. But probably not for the reasons anyone thinks. If you're the parent of a kid who just brought home a stack of medals from the Y10 circuit: at that age, it’s hard to recognize that most of what looks...