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...
There's an old saying that goes "Dig your well before you're thirsty." It's simple wisdom that applies to nearly every aspect of life, and it’s definitely relevant to competitive fencing. The moment you step onto a competition strip, your fate is essentially sealed --...
I recently stumbled upon a quote from Winston Churchill that stopped me in my tracks: "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." These words resonated deeply with me, not just as a life philosophy, but as the perfect encapsulation...
I want to talk about planning for next season. Wait, you might probably want to say to me, it's still three months left in the 2024-2025 season, we still have a few regionals and the Summer National competition. Why should we plan the season so soon? And maybe you...
At March NAC I was standing near one of our students when I overheard a conversation between two fencing parents who discussed a child of one of these two parents when he was disconnecting from a reel after a devastating 0:5 bout. His mother was lamenting that her...
In fencing, as in life, our memories of how we felt during crucial moments tend to fade. The intensity of that devastating loss, the thrill of executing a perfect attack, the frustration of a missed opportunity—all become less vivid with time. As a result, we often...
Focus is the mechanism through which we make the most of our fencing. We have to be able to focus adequately in order to give our all, and coming up with the right focus is not always so straightforward. Athletes are always on the lookout for ways to up their...
Most of us hate mundane, hard things. For example, doing cardio training, working on targets, doing footwork exercises. Despite all of the goal setting and resolutions, we tend to drop them sooner or later. Rather than consign ourselves to the fate of always...
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