Academy of Fencing Masters Blog

“Mom and Dad, I want to quit fencing.” This is a serious situation that many fencing parents have had to face. They put a great deal of effort and hard work into supporting their child in this rigorous and expensive sport, only to have them suddenly want to quit. The statistics back up the experience – 70% of children drop out of organized sports by the time they turn thirteen. That’s a sad number! Youth sports in general, and we believe that fencing in particular, are powerful and important...

Oftentimes we find that fencers fence fantastically when they are up against very strong opponents, but then when they come up against less advanced fencers they come up short. This is especially true with novice fencers. Why is that? Rise to the occasion We’ve all heard the cliché that people “rise to the occasion” when they’re faced with a problem that’s seemingly insurmountable. This is a terminology that’s most commonly associated with war or hardship, when people do extraordinary things...

Without thinking, without overanalyzing, answer this question - “What’s the most important thing in fencing?” If your answer was “winning the match”, then we need to talk. Though winning is the ultimate goal of any sport, it’s not the driving force behind playing. Winning is not the reason that we play! Yet somewhere along the line, winning became this ultimate, hugely important thing. That’s not just in fencing, it’s something that we see across the board in sports. Everyone seems to think...

Being a referee is one of the very important ways that a young fencer can learn to master the sport. It’s a fantastic way for young fencers to take on some additional responsibilities and for them to learn more about the sport of fencing. The level of knowledge and understanding that a young fencer gets from refereeing is on a much deeper level than what they’ll get just by fencing! Calling the rules vs. being called Young fencers who start refereeing learn to see the game differently....