One of the most famous mountains in the United States is Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado. At 7400 feet of climbing to take you a total of 14,000 feet above sea level, getting to the top is the equivalent of a half marathon at 13.5 miles, though that marathon of a climb is up instead of flat. It’s one of the most famous hikes in America, up there with the towering Mount Rainier (14,000 feet)  in Washington and Mount Hood in Oregon (11,000 feet), though nothing in the lower U.S. comes close to Denali in Alaska (almost 20,000 feet). 

Getting to the top of any of these is an incredible accomplishment, but Pikes Peak is unique because you can drive all the way to the summit. That’s right – you can do a half marathon from down below, carrying your gear over the course of nearly thirty miles from the bottom to the top and down again, OR you can fill up your car with gas and drive an hour to the top, look down over the valleys below, and then drive another hour down to the bottom. 

Which one would give you more personal satisfaction? Which one would challenge you and change the way you thought about yourself? For that matter, in which would you learn more about yourself?

Clearly, driving to the top of a mountain in a car is not at all the same as hiking to the top of a mountain. 

The best part about getting to the top of a mountain isn’t looking out over the forest below – it’s the climb that makes it special. It’s the climb that changes you, and that’s why people love to go climb mountains. 

The same thing is true in fencing. 

It’s not the medal, but the journey, that makes it worth something. 

Climbing the mountain isn’t easy for fencing parents

The journey up the mountain in fencing isn’t just tough for fencers – it’s tough for their parents, too. Standing on the sidelines fills us with emotions, and it doesn’t necessarily get any easier over time. As much as we might be thrilled at witnessing a successful action, it can be equally as defeating to watch your child lose a point that they just barely didn’t defend against. When things go off the path, it can fill us with anxiety.

This all makes a lot of sense, because as parents we’re tightly connected with the emotions of our kids. Our empathy for them every step of the way is part of what makes us able to support them through thick and thin, but it takes its own toll. 

Here, I can’t help but think of the sherpas who support hikers as they climb the biggest mountains in the world. Sherpa is actually the name of an ethnic group in Nepal, but it’s come to mean the person who helps another one up to the top of a mountain. They’re often lost to the world, for a wide variety of reasons that include societal ills, but the were still there every step of the way. The most famous example would be Tenzing Norgay, who’s name you probably don’t know. He was the Sherpa guide of Sir Edmund Hillary, and it was in fact both men who summited Everest for the first time, though Hillary is the one whose name is world famous. These people are also known as porters or carriers, because they’re hired to carry the gear for the people who are coming to hike the mountains. They’re also known as guides.

Who does this sound like?

Parents of fencers, or any kind of young athlete, are the ones to support them through the journey, to carry the gear, to guide them through the ups and downs. We’re very much akin to the Sherpas of Everest, doing many of the same things that our fencers are doing but standing in the background always. 

Here’s the real question – why would you do this? Why be a guide or a porter? I can’t answer for the people who do it for mountaineers because I’m not one of them. But for me as a fencing parent, it’s the journey up the mountain with them that makes it worthwhile. I get to go up the mountain alongside them. I get to take joy in their progress, to feel the sting of setbacks, and to stand strong when I know they need it. There’s gratification in my process, much more than the gratification in any outcome we might get to. 

It’s about instilling values that extend beyond the fencing strip—values like determination, sportsmanship, and the ability to navigate both victories and defeats healthfully. While watching your child standing on the podium is undoubtedly gratifying, the real joy, the lasting joy, comes from watching as they grow into resilient individuals, both in fencing and in life. 

Parents play a pivotal role in creating an environment where the joy of the climb is celebrated. It involves encouraging not only the pursuit of excellence, but equally cultivating a passion for the sport that’s outside of winning. The shared moments of overcoming challenges, the late-night conversations about strategies, and the unspoken bond that you create going up and down the mountains of victory and defeat are what make the journey something to be treasured. 

This is a place where it’s important for us to model where the fulfillment of fencing comes from. If we as parents put the emphasis on the top of the mountain, then that’s where our kids will put their emphasis. If we put the emphasis on the value of the climb, then that is where our kids will put the emphasis. You can’t expect them to be focused on the good things along the way if you’re solely fixated on the end result. Besides, it’s not good for us as parents either. In order for us to have a healthy relationship with the competitive nature of fencing, we have to learn to enjoy the journey up the mountain. 

Long-Term Benefits vs. Short-Term Gratification

Our world is obsessed with instant gratification. We see this in so many places, and we often complain about it in lots of places, too. Kids today have more access to more information instantly than we could have ever imagined. If they want to know something, they have it in their pocket at almost all times. It’s absolutely magical, but it can feel coddling as well. How will they ever learn to hike to the top of mountains if it’s so easy for them to just get in the car and drive to the summit?

Fencing can teach kids valuable lessons about the importance of patience and long term commitment. Success in fencing isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. Each training session, every bout lost, and every setback is a step forward towards the peak, and it’s gratifying to take each and every one of those steps, if only our young fencers will allow themselves to feel that success. 

Yes, it might be tempting to think of the immediate victories that a child might be able to get to on a video game, or for them to look at a Youtube video of an Olympic medal bout and see only that very top portion of the journey, but getting there in real life and in real time is a much deeper and very different feeling. The real joy in fencing, or indeed in anything in life, comes from the intrinsic satisfaction we get from every step. Getting that bit of footwork just right, the feeling of a precisely well executed action setup, the accomplishment of accurately predicting the opponent’s movements. This all comes from inside the fencer, not from anything that’s on the outside. 

The daily grind is actually fulfilling if we allow it to be. There’s satisfaction in the rhythm of going to practice, putting yourself against an opponent, and connecting with your coach and your teammates. The pattern of it all is a nice thing, and healthy thing. Though we always want to keep going higher and searching harder for the fulfillment, it’s the step by step that makes it so good, not to mention sustainable. 

This is exactly the same thing as climbing a mountain. Every step is a positive movement towards the summit, even though you’re stepping over a root here, jumping a gap there, and wading through a creek when you have to. The little points along the way where you are having to problem solve and figure things out are how you learn about yourself as well as learn about the environment around you, and there’s a sense of flow and peace that you get in the forest. We find that on the strip, too, though it’s broken up rather than happening all in one shot like mountaineering.

Finding joy in the climb

The true joy is in the climb itself – the process of becoming, evolving, and embracing the challenges along the way. It’s about recognizing that success is a nuanced experience that unfolds with time.

While the podium and the medals are tangible things that show us that we’ve done something with our time and have made progress towards a goal, it’s the hours in that make the difference in our lives, not the destination. Every medal represents growth, learning, and the resilience to navigate the twists and turns of the fencing path as we climb up the mountain. But when you move along through the forest of practice and competition, it’s the time you put in that leaves the deep down fulfillment that makes it all worthwhile.

Both for the fencers and their parents – their Sherpas in this journey.

Image: Flickr user Joel Tonyan