Art of Fencing, Art of Life

Month: May 2021

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way – 6 Ways to Keep Going When You’re Down

When there is a will, there is a way

Everyone says that “you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” What happens when you’re struggling to put your mind to it though? 

There are times that it’s easy to push through and keep on going, but there are also times when you need to find some new tactics because you get stuck. That’s especially true if you’ve failed recently, because failure challenges our belief that we’re capable. Tactical thinking is something that fencers are good at in general, it’s a skill that we develop as part of our training anyway. Just as we know that we can always look at a fencing problem in a new way, we can look at larger problems that aren’t on the strip in a different way. Make no mistake – there is always a way to keep moving forward. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Motivating yourself is mostly a matter of getting some new tools to refocus and keep going. 

Here are six ways to keep going when you’re down. 

Frustration in Fencing – the Beast or an Ally?

Frustration in Fencing - the Beast or an Ally?

Fencing can be infuriating. The frustration of things not going your way, even when you are working hard to do everything the right way, can be overwhelming for fencers at times. It’s the reason you see fencers get angry and throw their sword or yell at the referee. It’s the reason you see fencers clench their fists and it can be the reason fencers yell on the strip. All that balled-up emotion that gets pushed down deep. 

One of the unfortunate realities of fencing is that you can do everything right and STILL get hit.  That is, you can select a good action and execute it with the right distance and timing, but if your opponent guesses correctly, you can still lose the touch!

How can a fencer possibly combat this reality?

The metaphor of a beast in the case of frustration is a fitting one. But what if it didn’t have to be a beast? What if you could work with frustration to help your fencing get better? If this can happen, then frustration can transform from a beast to an ally.  

35 Hilarious & Heartwarming Fencing Mom Jokes for Mother’s Day

35 Hilarious & Heartwarming Fencing Mom Jokes for Mother’s Day

There are a thousand things that fencing moms do for us, from scheduling lessons to arranging our gear to cheering us on when we are competing. Our fencing moms make our world work, and we are so deeply thankful for them that we know we can’t repay their generosity and guidance. Fencing moms step in every day to keep fencers training, in a thousand little ways that we most probably don’t even know about. There is true magic around moms! 

Though there is not ever a way to totally repay them for all that they do, we do try our best. This year, we decided to give them some jokes that might make them laugh and also let them know how much we see all the things they’re doing. Though we might not say it enough, we appreciate our fencing moms every day of the year.

We are not utterly original in our jokes, and some of them are free improvisations based on timeless classics, but hey, we righteously stole them at a swordpoint. 🙂

Now for the laughs! 

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