Academy of Fencing Masters Blog

Watching live sports is a thrill, and of course no sporting event is quite as thrilling as the Olympic Games.

This year the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang are 17 hours ahead of us here in California. That’s almost a whole day! That’s the same time difference that there will be in 2020 for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Juggling how to watch our favorite events live with that kind of time difference can be a challenge, but my youngest son pointed out why it matters.

My youngest son begs me to watch the Olympics live. Even when events happen late at night or at odd times of the day due to the time difference, he insists that we watch it while it happens. At only nine years old, to me it at first seemed unreasonable to allow him to stay up late at night or wake up early to watch events that he could just as easily watch recorded the next day in a more reasonable time.

When I gave him a firm “no” to his repeated requests recently, he turned his face up to mine, looked deeply into my eyes, and told me:

“Mom you need to understand, I want to connect to the hearts of these great athletes! I feel their excitement and pride right now and I imagine myself proudly representing America at Olympics on 2028!! “

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Veteran fencers come in a variety of forms. They can be fencers who didn’t start fencing until they were adults, or they can be fencers who started when they were younger and never stopped. There’s also that middle ground of veteran fencers who fenced when they were younger, took a break, and then came back to the sport.

Adult fencers are marvelous to work with. What they bring to the strip is wholly different from what youth fencers bring, and they can teach us a whole pantheon of things about fencing that are both valuable and pertinent. What’s really cool is that there are opportunities for youth fencers to practice with veteran fencers thanks to open fencing nights. Though fencing is generally much more structured during classes and in private lesson, open fencing offers fencers of all ages and skill levels to work with one another, learning and exploring.

During open fencing, we very much love to see young fencers working with veteran fencers! There are so many reasons that this kind of matchup is a positive one.

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It’s nearly Thanksgiving, and this is a time of year when we start to think about the things that we’re thankful for in our lives. We’re meditating on the good people in our lives and the good things that have happened to us this year. But gratitude isn’t something that we should focus on only once a year, it’s a sensibility and a system of living that we need to bring into our lives all year long.

Gratitude isn’t something you think, it’s something that you live. Practicing gratitude is a proven way for athletes to not only improve their performance, but also for them to improve the quality of their lives as a whole. That’s because fencing is not just the art of the sword, it’s the art of living.

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Fencing is amazing!

We are always interested in spreading the word about our beloved sport. That’s exactly what World Fencing Day is all about, and we’re encouraging everyone to participate and share their love of the sport with people all over the world. World Fencing Day is sponsored by FIE, the International Fencing Federation. It’s a day that’s all about getting the word out about the joy of fencing to everyone possible. We want to spread the word about fencing and what it means to us.

This year, World Fencing Day is Saturday, September 9, 2017

How can you participate in World Fencing Day? It’s easy! Here are four simple, straightforward and fun ways to spread the word about World Fencing Day and celebrate the sport.

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