Academy of Fencing Masters Blog

Whether you realize you’re doing it or not, you’re sending your children messages, constantly. They’re internalizing the information that you surround them with, the things that they hear most from you and from others people they interact with. Whether it’s at home, at school, or at the fencing club. That information and those messages are sometimes verbal, and sometimes they aren’t, but they are always heard.

The toughest part is figuring out not only the right messages to send to your kids, and it’s just not just how to communicate those messages, it’s also in decoding which messages you’re sending without even realizing it. For me personally, thinking about this subject has helped me to make some positive changes in my own parenting, because I was inadvertently sending some messages that I didn’t realize I was sending.

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Fencing doesn’t just happen in isolation, it’s part of the wider world of youth sports. There are millions of kids under the age of eighteen that participate in youth sports in the United States. There is a culture around kids competing that we fencers participate in, whether we are aware of it or not. Trends in youth sports affect us!

It’s worth exploring the trends in youth sports so as to give us a better understanding of where fencing is and where it’s going. So here are thirteen mind blowing facts about youth sports in general and fencing in particular to help you get the big picture.

*Facts and figures come from ESPN, USA Today, Time, and Sports Illustrated

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“Money can buy material things, but real happiness must be earned.”  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1750

“Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today.” – Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon, 1973

“Mo money, no problems.” – Notorious B.I.G., 1997

It’s a cliche for a reason, because it’s true. Money can do a lot of good things for people, but it can also cause a whole lot of big problems. It’s at the point that you start to think that money can buy you out of doing the hard work of life that problem comes in.

This can and often does become easily mixed up with parenting, because wealthy parents want to support their kids and protect them, just as all parents want to support and protect their kids. If you are in a place to provide a lot of monetary support for your children, you’d think it’s a good thing right? However it’s not always a good thing. Sometimes it can backfire badly.

Fencing is often a sport that is associated with higher social classes, going all the way back to its beginnings. It is considered a sport of kings after all. World class fencing teams are generally associated with elite universities like Duke and Harvard. Fencing equipment is expensive and traveling to competitions is expensive, so there has to be a certain amount of money involved to progress in the sport. The question is all about where we draw the line and how we create the most supportive experience for our fencers while still letting them stand on their own two feet.

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