Art of Fencing, Art of Life

Month: January 2020

Why and How Competing in Fencing is like Driving a Car

Why and How Competing in Fencing is like Driving a Car

Relating the unfamiliar to something that is familiar is a powerful way to change the way you see it.

Sometimes it’s really helpful for us to stop what we’re doing and think about things in a totally different way. Looking at fencing from a different angle, one that’s outside of our usual box, can make training better and success closer. This is especially true when we’re talking about something that’s new to us, like the way that fencing competition is new for novice fencers and their parents. 

It’s important that fencers compete because it helps the fencing to improve dramatically. There is no amount of training you can do in your fencing club with your classmates and your coach that will give you the kind of boost in your skill and your confidence that competing in fencing will give you. That’s all well and good to say, but showing is better than telling. 

I’ve had more than a few discussions with parents about this, trying to explain why their children will become better fencers through competition. It’s very difficult to explain to someone why competition is so essential! Recently I found a great analogy of how to explain to parents how their child becomes more experienced and even why they become more experienced.

Fencing’s Connection to Happiness

Fencing’s Connection to Happiness

What’s the key to happiness? Which people are the happiest? These aren’t questions that can be easily answered, and there are many different aspects to happiness, but we do know that fencing and other sports have a close connection to the creation of happiness.

There isn’t just one reason that fencing is connected to happiness, there are many reasons. 

Why Pool Rounds are So Important for Fencers

Why Pool Rounds are So Important for Fencers

The nature of competitive sports is to widdle the field down from a large group of competitors to just one, that one being the final victor, the champion of the competition. 

We tend to put a lot of focus on that victor, the end person who takes the top medal home. That’s where the glory is! The last stage of fencing competition, the direct elimination rounds, is exciting because the stakes feel high. To be fair, the stakes are high in the final rounds of competition. In the DE rounds, one wrong move can easily lead to being done with the dream of making it to the top of that podium.

The problem with putting all of that emphasis on the DE is that it ignores the importance of the pool rounds. The pools are radically important for fencers. The high stakes of the DE might feel more important, but sometimes feeling can be deceptive.

Which Fencing Weapon is the Most Prestigious?

Which fencing weapon is the most prestigious

A common question that I get from fencing parents is this one: “Which fencing weapon is the most prestigious?”

It makes sense in a way. It’s a kind of logical question when you think about it, because these people don’t know a whole lot about fencing, and so they’re trying to make sense of something that they don’t have a reference for. They know that there are three different weapons. They know that their child is going to have to choose one. They want to guide their kids in the right direction, but they don’t know at all how to do it. So they ask questions that make sense to them. It’s a good thing.

Which one is it? Is it epee, foil, or sabre? Which fencing weapon is the most prestigious? It’s a big question that there must be an answer to! People who are new to fencing rightly want to have some understanding. 

How Fencers and their Parents Can Live Like Olympians

How Fencers and their Parents Can Live Like Olympians

How do you train like an Olympian? This year, we are going to see the biggest sports stage in the world, with fencing taking center stage more than it does at any other time. Naturally, many fencers and many fencing parents are wondering how they can train like these incredible Olympians. 

The Olympics are very cool because we have so many resources to learn from these athletes. They don’t keep secrets about how they got to where they are. You can literally just go and listen to them, soak up the information. When you talk to Olympic fencers, they tell you how they got there and what their lives were like. There are similarities that run through their stories, and these are some of the themes that are very common.  

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