Category: Mosaic Page 3 of 34

Of all of the questions that I get from parents about their children in fencing, the one that I get the most is:

“Will my child be a successful fencer?”

This question comes up early and often from fencing parents, and it’s understandable that they would want to know whether their child will make it as a fencer. From my point of view, it’s better to pivot the question instead to: 

“What are the necessary ingredients for your child to succeed in fencing?”

There is, unfortunately, no way to tell the future. Not only that, “success” is not something that is so easily defined. For some fencers, that could mean that they compete regionally or nationally, for others it could mean that they get a college fencing scholarship, and yet for others, it means they won a World Cup. Every child (and adult) can and should make fencing goals that are attainable. Technically, there is no such thing as a fencer who is incapable of achieving success if you understand where you start and where you want to go. 

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For the most part, fencing categories are easily identifiable and distinguishable. It’s clear from the name what they are and what groups comprise their ranks. 

Youth categories are labeled with age-specific titles – Y8 through Y14 are clearly moving up through specific ages. It’s right there in the title. Veterans are mature fencers, which again makes sense because a veteran indicates someone who has been around for a long time. Cadet, Junior, and Senior all sound like military ranks as well, and they all give the idea of someone who is training or coming of age in the sport. 

Where it’s easy to get confused when we move to the divisional categories. This is all the more confusing because there are also divisional competitions within the structure of qualification for the Junior Olympics and Fencing Summer Nationals. Those competitions aren’t related to Divisions 1, 1A, 2, and 3, but rather they just share a name. There are many, many divisional competitions that cover a specific region or even down to a specific city. These hyper regionally focused tournaments cover a wide range of qualifying event classes, which are often tailored to the kind of fencing that is popular in that particular area.

For Divisions 1, 1A, 2 and 3, participation is actually fairly straightforward. These four categories have their own set of parameters, and they carry a specific weight in the fencing competition circuit. Like other fencing categories, they are separated by age, but there are other extraordinary things about the divisional level of competition. It’s not just another place that fencers progress to when they have a birthday!

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When a fencer loses a match, one of the most natural things to do is to start looking for a reason why they lost. 

• What if my lunges had been longer?
• What if I had controlled the distance more effectively?
• What if I were more focused during the match?
• What if I had cross trained better?

These are pretty standard questions that fencers ask themselves, but they aren’t the only things that roll around in the minds of athletes when they lose. The big question, the elephant in the room, is this one:

What if I’m just a bad fencer?

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We all make mistakes. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re doing, you’re going to miss a cue, lose track of time, or take an extra step. 

There is a fine line between showing our kids that we love them unconditionally and also giving them the right kind of guidance to keep moving forward. They have to keep on moving forward if they’re going to become the successful and happy adults that we want them to grow up to be. 

To do this, we need to learn to help them build on their strengths, rather than pointing out their weaknesses. 

Fulfillment and achievement are two sides of the same coin

As parents, we are charged with giving our kids the space and support to grow from their mistakes. It’s we who are responsible for showing them the path forward. Oftentimes we get fixated on the ways that we quantify that path forward. We look for the things that we can measure, like fencing rankings or test scores. 

The less tangible things, like happiness and self-fulfillment, well we cannot easily measure those things. It’s not so easy to say “My child is highly fulfilled in their life.” That’s subjective. You can’t just measure it. On the other hand, it’s very easy to point directly to an achievement – “My child is the top-ranked fencer in their age category.”

The true conundrum here is that both of these are necessary. If you go too far to one side, you won’t give your child the scaffolding they need to succeed. Achievement does equal self-fulfillment, in one sense at least. If a child, or an adult for that matter, does not believe that they are capable of achieving the things they want to achieve in life, then they don’t value themselves. In the right context, chasing those big goals is an integral part of self-fulfillment.

One way to think of this is as two gears in a machine (the machine would be your child). You have to have both gears, fitting together and spinning at the correct speed, to make it work. Neither is less important.

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