Ask any soccer parent what their kid does in practice, and conditioning will come up before they finish the first sentence. Think about basketball, swimming, track and field. In every one of these sports, conditioning is just part of the deal. Nobody questions it....
Fencing doesn't happen all at once. You don't walk into the club one day and suddenly execute perfect attacks. You don't fence one great bout and become successful at the national scene. You don't have a single breakthrough practice that transforms everything....
You wouldn't dream of stepping onto the strip without a physical warm-up. No one walks into a bout cold - no footwork, no blade work, no stretching - and expects their body to perform at its best. Everyone understands that muscles need preparation. But what about your...
Every fencer hits the moment in their career when almost everything they do feels wrong. New actions as well as old and trusted actions. Nothing feels quite right. Some fencers will keep trying, grinding through the frustration. Others will want to move on to...
January 1st arrives with familiar declarations: "This is my year!" "I'm finally going to get serious about training!" "I'm more motivated than ever!" The young fencer posts inspirational quotes on social media, creates detailed training schedules, and attacks their...
Screenshot A mother of a beginner fencer came to me recently and signed up for ongoing group classes. Then she watched some private lessons and asked if her daughter could take them too. "Yes, of course," I said. "Actually, private lessons are a necessary part of...
A few years ago we had a fencer with an interesting habit. Before every bout she performed the same routine: adjusted the mask three times, tapped the guard twice with her left index finger, took four steps back, then advanced to the en garde line. She'd been doing...
Talk to any fencing coach and they will tell that the difference between successful fencers and others lies in discipline. And that's exactly right, but what most coaches mean is a different type of discipline than what fencers and parents typically assume. Let’s look...
Talk to any fencing coach (actually any sports coach) and you will hear many stories of overtraining. They all watched a promising young fencer collapse during what should have been a routine lesson. Not from exhaustion—from sheer mental fatigue. This athlete had been...
While we welcome the end of a fencing match, we also know that the ending is the hardest part of the whole process. The final minutes are always much more challenging than the opening minutes. Taking charge of those riveting and oftentimes overwhelming moments that...
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