I want to talk about hope. Not the vague “I hope I win this tournament” or “I hope my fencer gets better” kind of hope. No, I want to talk about real, substantial hope – the kind that sustains us through the darkest moments in fencing and beyond.

You might be thinking, “Igor, why are you talking about something so abstract? Give me concrete drills, tactical advice, something I can use!” And I understand that reaction. But I’ve come to realize that without hope, all those technical skills and tactical approaches become meaningless. A fencer without hope is like a beautifully engineered sports car without fuel – impressive to look at, but ultimately going nowhere.

When Fencing Feels Hopeless

Let’s be honest about the moments when hope seems lost in fencing. I’ve seen them all:

These moments aren’t just disappointing – they can be soul-crushing. They make you question everything: the time invested, the money spent, the sacrifices made. They create a weight that makes it hard to pick up your weapon for the next practice, hard to register for the next competition, hard to return the next season, hard to believe that anything will ever change.

• The cadet who trains relentlessly for months, only to get eliminated in the first DE round of the tournament they’ve been preparing for all season.
• The parent who watches their child struggle bout after bout, weekend after weekend, seeing no improvement despite investing thousands of dollars and countless hours.
• The once-promising fencer who hits a plateau so long and so stubborn that they begin to question if they should continue with the sport at all.
• The coach who tries everything in their playbook to help a struggling athlete, only to see continued defeat and growing frustration.

I recently worked with a 16-year-old epee fencer who had been competing nationally for years. After a particularly devastating result at Junior Olympics – eliminated in the early round of the Direct Elimination after having good pools – the fencer told me through hardly suppressable tears, “I don’t know why I’m still doing this. Nothing ever changes. I’m never going to be good enough.”

In that moment, hope seemed not just distant but completely extinguished.

The Science of Hope

But here’s what fascinates me – hope isn’t just a fluffy emotional concept. Research in sports psychology has consistently shown that hope is actually a cognitive process with three critical components:

1. Goals: Having clear, meaningful objectives
2. Pathways: Being able to identify multiple routes to achieve those goals
3. Agency: Believing in your capacity to follow those pathways

When fencers lose hope, it’s typically because one or more of these components has broken down. Either their goals have become too focused on outcomes they can’t control, or they can’t see a viable path forward, or they’ve lost belief in their ability to execute that path.

Understanding hope this way transforms it from an abstract wish into something we can actively cultivate and rebuild when it falters.

Rebuilding Hope After Devastating Losses

I recently had a discussion with one of the most prominent coaches in the USA about this topic and he described to me a situation about a fencer in his club that I knew. A few years ago, one of his club’s most promising fencers suffered a catastrophic season. After being nationally ranked in the top 10 the previous year, he experienced a string of early eliminations that dropped him a few dozen slots down. Nothing in his training had changed dramatically. His technique was solid. But match after match, his performance collapsed.

The temptation in such moments is to make dramatic changes – switch coaches, overhaul technique, even quit the sport. It comes from that desperate feeling that something must change, and change dramatically, to save a seemingly hopeless situation.

Instead, they took a different approach. They rebuilt hope systematically:

First, they refocused his goals away from results and rankings toward process metrics he could control – his attack completion percentage, his preparation quality, his tactical decision-making.

Second, they created multiple pathways for improvement, not just a single approach. They analyzed his losses not as failures but as data, identifying patterns and developing several different strategies to address them.

Third, they rebuilt his sense of agency through carefully designed training scenarios where he could experience success, gradually increasing the difficulty until he was overcoming challenges similar to those he faced in competition.

The turnaround wasn’t immediate. Hope doesn’t work that way. But over the next six months, his performance began to stabilize, then improve, and eventually surpass his previous level.

The Coach’s Role in Cultivating Hope

As coaches, we sometimes focus so much on technical and tactical development that we forget our equally important role as hope-builders. The best coaches I know don’t just teach fencing – they cultivate an environment where hope can flourish.

They do this by:

• Celebrating process victories, not just outcome successes
• Providing clear, specific feedback that illuminates paths forward
• Creating training environments where failure is framed as essential learning
• Helping fencers develop multiple strategies for improvement, not just one
• Pointing out progress that fencers themselves might miss in the day-to-day grind

I remember a conversation with a coach I met at the recent International Competition who told me, “Technical coaching is maybe 30%-40% of what I do. The other 60%-70% is managing hope – knowing when to push for more, when to celebrate small victories, and when to completely shift focus to rebuild a fencer’s belief that improvement is possible.”

Parents as Hope-Keepers

For parents, your role in maintaining your fencer’s hope is perhaps even more crucial than the coach’s. You see your child at their most vulnerable – in the car ride home after a devastating loss, in the quiet moments of doubt that never make it to the practice strip.

Your response in these moments matters tremendously. Premature reassurance (“You’ll do better next time!”) can feel dismissive. Overly technical analysis (“Your parry four was too wide”) can feel critical when the wound is still fresh. And focusing too much on outcomes (“Well, at least you still have a shot at qualifying…”) can increase the pressure that’s already crushing them.

Instead, the most effective approach I’ve seen from parents is what I call “holding hope in trust.” When your fencer can’t believe in their own potential for growth and improvement, you hold that belief for them – not as a demand or expectation, but as a quiet certainty they can borrow until they rebuild their own.

This might look like:

“I know right now it feels like nothing will improve. That’s a normal feeling after a disappointment like this. When you’re ready to look forward again, I have complete confidence we’ll find a way through this.”

Hope is a Team Sport

What’s been most remarkable to me over the years is how hope travels through a fencing community. It’s contagious – both in its presence and its absence.

In clubs where coaches and parents maintain a stubborn, resilient hope in the face of setbacks, fencers tend to bounce back faster from disappointments. Where hope is fragile or conditional, dependent entirely on results, the entire community becomes brittle – prone to fracturing when the inevitable challenges arise.

I’ve seen this play out dramatically with teams at NACs and Summer Nationals. The clubs that maintain their cohesion and performance throughout grueling tournaments aren’t necessarily those with the most higher ranked fencers. They’re the ones with an ecosystem of hope – where coaches, parents, and fencers all contribute to maintaining belief in the face of setbacks.

Practical Hope-Building Strategies

So how do we cultivate hope more effectively in our fencing communities? Here are some practical approaches I’ve seen work consistently:

• Celebrate process milestones aggressively. The first time a fencer successfully executes a difficult action in competition – even if they still lose the bout – is worth acknowledging as a significant victory.
• Create hope portfolios. Document instances of improvement and growth that the fencer can review during difficult periods. Video comparisons of technique from six months ago can be powerful reminders of progress that feels invisible in the day-to-day.
• Develop “hope mentors.” Pair struggling fencers with slightly older athletes who have overcome similar challenges. Hearing “I was exactly where you are two years ago” from a respected peer can be more powerful than any coach’s reassurance.
• Practice “hopeful after-action reviews.” After competitions (once emotions have settled), conduct reviews that explicitly identify what worked, what didn’t, and multiple specific pathways for improvement.
• Normalize struggle stories. Share examples of elite fencers who overcame significant setbacks. The path to excellence isn’t linear for anyone, and understanding this helps fencers contextualize their own struggles.

The Realism of Hope

I want to be clear – hope isn’t blind optimism. It’s not ignoring problems or pretending that every fencer will become an Olympian if they just believe hard enough. Real hope acknowledges difficulties honestly but maintains belief in the possibility of finding a path through them.

Hope doesn’t mean believing everything will be easy. It means believing the struggle will be worth it.

That’s what I wish for every fencer, every parent, and every coach reading this – not that you’ll avoid the difficult moments that make you question everything, but that when those moments come, you’ll find the resilience to keep believing in the possibility of growth, improvement, and joy on the other side.

I’ve seen enough miraculous turnarounds, enough unexpected breakthroughs, enough stubborn persistence rewarded to know with absolute certainty:

Hope in fencing isn’t just a nice idea. It’s a practical, powerful force that makes all the difference between those who weather the inevitable storms of competitive sports and those who don’t.

And so I tell you with complete conviction: Hope is real. Nurture it in yourself. Cultivate it in your club. Hold it for others when they can’t hold it for themselves. It might just be the most important thing you do in your fencing journey.

Because at the end of the day, hope isn’t just about believing in better results. It’s about believing that the journey itself – with all its challenges, disappointments, and struggles – remains worthwhile.

And from where I stand, after all these years in the sport, both from the coaching and parental positions, that belief is entirely justified.

Image by: Marc-Olivier Jodoin marcojodoin