Academy of Fencing Masters Blog

Written by an anonymous Crazy Fencing Parent I’ve known some crazy fencing parents. I’m one myself.Not that I scream curse words at the fencing referees when my child gets carded. Nor do I jump up and throw things when my young fencer loses a match. I don’t berate the coach if my child gets knocked out in the first DE or give evil looks to the opponent’s parents at competition. When my child doesn’t want to go to that private lesson or whines about the long drive to a fencing competition, I...

Sometimes, what we see doesn’t line up with what people say. What do you do when the words of the coach don’t make sense with what you see happening on the piste? If you’re a parent who doesn’t have a history in fencing, this can be all the more confusing and frustrating. Though you might observe matches, watch videos, and read blogs, fencing is not a sport that’s quite as clearly defined as something like basketball or soccer, where you can clearly see that the ball gets points. All fencers...

“Raising a teenager is hard… But, being a teenager is hard, too, which is why our kids need someone they trust to lean on, to come to for advice, and to share their lives – the good, the bad and the ugly. Having a front row seat in our kids’ lives is a far better place to be than sitting on the highest bleacher.”  This quote from Raising Teenagers Today really hit home when I saw it. While kids today have a lot of advantages in life, they also have their own tough things to carry. The world is...

Have you ever played with one of those Magic 8 Ball toys? You know, the ones that look like a pool ball and are supposed to tell you the future if you shake them and look in the little window.  There have been times when I see fencing parents who seem to have used some method like this to see into the future of their child’s fencing career. It’s also the case that parents often want to know whether a coach or I can tell the future of a young child’s fencing skills based on...

Goal setting and forecasting the result of your fencing is important, but what happens when you take it too far and get overly invested in the outcome you expect? Becoming too attached to the possible outcome is a serious problem for all of us that can lead directly to disappointment. Rather than accepting what’s happened and learning from it, we become trapped in the cycle of our dreams to the point that we are beaten down if they don’t come true.  On the other hand, we can set a goal and...

One of the best ways for kids to get involved in something new is to try it over the summer.  During the school year, there’s so much going on that kids can get overwhelmed, making it difficult to put themselves out there and give a new activity a shot. The school year is incredibly stimulating, even for young kids who are full of energy.  Beginner fencing camps offer kids a way to dip their toe into the sport of fencing in a place that’s friendly and supportive, not to mention it...

Sports, in general, are naturally competitive, so it makes sense that fencers would be concerned with competition. It’s part of why we love doing it! It’s a big reason people come to fencing as opposed to taking painting classes or joining a theatre group. There are winners and losers, and while we work hard not to place too much emphasis on winning, we do still want to get better through competing against others. This is the backbone of the sport. Every single fencing match is a miniature...

“The days are long, but the years are short.” This adage about what it’s like to be a parent really hits home. There are long days of working hard, with all of the immense number of details that we have to keep track of. Juggling everything means we can either find ourselves on autopilot or totally lost in appreciating the preciousness of time that we’ve got. There are also those real moments of frustration and exasperation.  Then, in the blink of an eye, the kids aren’t kids anymore and...