You can do anything, but you can’t do everything. – David Allen

This quote rings so true for us at this moment. Though we often tell our children that they can do anything they want to in life, we must also balance that with encouraging them to focus on their strengths and to learn to adapt. In fact, adaptation and knowing how to change is what makes a fencer successful. Learning to adapt is a key skill, and it’s something that we have to practice even when things are difficult. Right now, we are making choices about how to adapt to make things as good as possible for our fencers. 

Doing the right thing often means making the most difficult decisions. This was very much the case for AFM when we decided to make the move to close our foil program and become an epee-only fencing club. When you want to grow and become better than what you are, you do well to focus on your strengths. That’s what we’ve decided to do, and it’s a huge step in the right direction for AFM. 

Through the last eight years, we built foil and epee fencing programs from the ground up. We began with two tremendous coaches and a handful of students. From those small beginnings, our club grew and widened its reach, all along the way with us cheering our fencers and their accomplishments. 

We are proud of what the foil program achieved and what everyone involved achieved up to this point. In the last season alone, we had national-level top finishes in every single NAC. Each and every one of our competitive fencers made us proud, growing as people as well as athletes. It’s not possible to put into words how much we appreciate the sacrifices and hard work that our foilists brought for this success. To part ways is heartbreaking, even though we step onto this path knowing that it’s the right thing to do. 

Once the dust settles and the logistics of changing clubs and adjusting to schedules has transformed into a daily routine of training, we hope that both our epeeists and our former foilists will see the integrity in this decision. We as a fencing community build beautiful things together, and that doesn’t stop. We are so privileged to be a part of this community and to have been a jumping-off place for the long and fulfilling journey that these incredible foilists will have in this sport. We will always continue to cheer our foilists on. We know that they will look back and see what a positive step this was in their fencing journey, even as it was an incredibly difficult step to take. 

Our epee coaching team is one of the best in the United States, and we are so grateful for our remarkable coaches. With two Olympians and coaches who have put many fencers through the many national teams, AFM has a core epee program that speaks to the best in our fencers. At every level, our epee fencers provide a strong competitive discipline that rivals any fencing in the United States. We are rightfully confident in our skills and in the direction that AFM will go with this new focus. 

Going forward, we will continue to raise the bar and improve our programs. As a strong fencing club with a laser-sharp focus in epee, our members will now be able to reach even higher heights, to reach out towards new horizons, and to elevate our epee fencers to whatever level they wish to rise to! 

This marks an exciting season for everyone. For the fencers in both disciplines, the future is brighter and better than it ever has been.