Art of Fencing, Art of Life

Month: February 2018 Page 1 of 2

How Often Should Your Child Compete in Fencing?

How Often Should Your Child Compete in Fencing?Deciding how much a young fencer should compete can be a challenge for parents and kids to figure out. There are lots of variables that factor into how often young fencers step onto the strip for competition – desire of the kids, desire of the parents, fencer level, readiness, region (and therefore accessibility to fencing tournaments), and so many more factors that are individual to a family.

Why it’s Important to Encourage Your Child to Watch the Olympics

Why it's Important to Encourage Your Child to Watch the Olympics in PyeongChang 2018Watching live sports is a thrill, and of course no sporting event is quite as thrilling as the Olympic Games.

This year the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang are 17 hours ahead of us here in California. That’s almost a whole day! That’s the same time difference that there will be in 2020 for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Juggling how to watch our favorite events live with that kind of time difference can be a challenge, but my youngest son pointed out why it matters.

My youngest son begs me to watch the Olympics live. Even when events happen late at night or at odd times of the day due to the time difference, he insists that we watch it while it happens. At only nine years old, to me it at first seemed unreasonable to allow him to stay up late at night or wake up early to watch events that he could just as easily watch recorded the next day in a more reasonable time.

When I gave him a firm “no” to his repeated requests recently, he turned his face up to mine, looked deeply into my eyes, and told me:

“Mom you need to understand, I want to connect to the hearts of these great athletes! I feel their excitement and pride right now and I imagine myself proudly representing America at Olympics on 2028!! “

5 touch bout vs. 15 touch bout – What’s the Difference?

5 touch bout versus 15 touch boutAt a recent big national tournament, a parent and I watched as a much higher ranked epee fencer lost 5:2 in the pools to a much weaker opponent. It happened so fast! I mentioned to the parent that in a 15-point match, the stronger opponent would likely have won. She of course immediately asked “why is that?”

Ode to Fencing

Love of sport - love fencing valentine day

It’s Valentine’s Day! To celebrate, we’ve got a short poem that extols our love of fencing. We hope you enjoy.

 

How do I love fencing? Let me count the ways.

I love fencing to the height of the podium and the breadth of the strip.

My passion reaches higher, my skill takes flight in every competition trip.

I love fencing to the level of each day’s hard work,

Packing and unpacking the fencing bag in which my smelly glove does lurk.

I love fencing freely, without demanding that it return anything more than I give.

I love fencing purely, for the joy that it brings me in the thrill of swords clinking.

I love fencing with a passion that I put to use in lessons and in classes.

I love fencing when I forfeit a touch or lose the bout.

This goal of winning is not the only thing this is about.

Smiles, tears, aching muscles, tired legs

I shall still love fencing when for a rest my body begs.

 

*this poem was inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s classic poem Sonnet 43

**image credit – http://www.loveforsport.co.uk/portfolio/fencing/

8 Minutes to Make it into an Elite College – How Fencing Helps Applicants Stand Out

8 Minutes to Make it into an Elite College – How Fencing Helps Applicants Stand OutWhen we think of the amount of time that students put into their college applications, we think not only about the time that is sunk into writing the essay and filling out the forms, but also the years of test preparation, extra-curricular activities, and time in the classroom. That one application is the sum total of years of hard work.

What we don’t often think about is how much time the universities themselves spend reviewing that application – the college admissions process is a bit of a mystical mystery! A recent article in the Wall Street Journal shed some light on how much time universities actually spend on those highly sought after applications, and it’s a timeline that’s surprising.

EIGHT MINUTES or less!

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