Every season, I watch the same movie play out. A young fencer of eight or nine years old wins a few local tournaments, maybe even places at a regional. This child’s parents are ecstatic while the other parents notice and predict that that kid is going to be something special.

And maybe she will. But probably not for the reasons anyone thinks.

If you’re the parent of a kid who just brought home a stack of medals from the Y10 circuit: at that age, it’s hard to recognize that most of what looks like talent is actually physiology. But that’s the hard truth behind early successes. One child hit a growth spurt twelve months earlier. Another developed coordination faster. A third has natural speed that has nothing to do with how many private lessons she’s taken and everything to do with her genetics.

I don’t say this to diminish those victories. They matter: they build confidence and give a young fencer reasons to be proud of. But they are not predictive of anything.

The Great Equalizer

Ask any fencing coach and they would tell you they a story of a dominant ten-year-old who could beat everyone in the Y12 age group. This kid seemed untouchable at regionals and his parents were already researching Cadet World Championship qualifying paths.

And then came thirteen and fourteen, the age when bodies start to even out. This is the age when the early growth advantage disappears because everyone else catches up and the child who won easily for years suddenly faces opponents who are the same height, the same speed, the same reach.

But these kids have something she never needed to develop. A work ethic.

This is the moment that separates fencers who will have long, meaningful careers in the sport from those who will quietly drift away. Not because they lack talent, but because talent was all they ever had, and they never learned that talent alone is not enough, that eventually it runs out.

The Comfort Trap

I’ve seen it in our club, at NACs, and at every level of youth competition. A child who won easily at eight, nine, ten and even twelve, becomes to be too comfortable. Winning is the default, while training is a necessary evil, an activity to endure between tournaments, not something to pursue with purpose. When the coach pushed harder, the child resisted, because why change something that’s already working? And often the parents complacent in this too.

The problem is that it stops working. It always stops working.

At the Y14 level, the playing field levels out dramatically. The kids who were smaller, slower, less coordinated at a young age, who had to fight for every touch and lost most of their pools bouts week after week, who cried in the car on the way home and then showed up to practice on Monday anyway — those kids arrive at fourteen with something invaluable. They know how to lose and work through frustration, and their improvement is not collected at the medal ceremony but earned with a lot of sweat on the practice strip.

But the early champion often hits this wall and doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s never had to dig deep to rebuild her game. She’s never sat with the discomfort of being outclassed and chosen to come back anyway.

What Parents Need to Hear

If your eight- or ten-year-old is winning everything, congratulations. Enjoy it. Take the photos. Celebrate the moments. But do not build a pedestal. Instead, build a foundation for long term development.

Ask yourself: Is my child learning to love the process of fencing, or just the results? When she loses, does she want to understand why, or does she just want to move on? Is she willing to work on the boring stuff, like the footwork drills or conditioning, that doesn’t feel like fencing but makes fencing possible?

If the answer is yes, you have something far more valuable than a stack of Y10 medals. You have a fencer who is building the habits that will carry her through the inevitable plateau.

If the answer is no, that’s okay too. But it means the work ahead is different than you thought. It means the most important thing you can do right now is not sign up for more tournaments to win mode medals, but to help your child develop the relationship with hard work that will matter when the easy victories stop coming.

The Fencers Who Make It

After all these years, I can tell you who makes it in this sport. It’s not the most talented ten-year-old. It’s not the kid with the best results at the earliest age. It’s not the one whose parents invested the most money in private coaching before middle school.

It’s the one who stayed.

The one who loved training on a random Tuesday night more than she loved standing on the podium. The one who watched a shaking recording of her losses and asked her coach what she needed to fix. The one who got beaten badly at her first national competition and came home with a list of things to work on instead of a list of excuses. She might cry after losing, sometimes even throw a tantrum, but the next time she comes to the training she’s all smiles and eagerness to train.

Talent is a gift. But in fencing the gift only matters if you do something with it. The early medals and the early ratings are exciting. But nobody cares what you did at eight. They care what you’re willing to do at fourteen, and sixteen, and eighteen.

The fencers who understand this are the ones still standing on the strip long after the “naturals” have moved on to something else.

A Note to the Late Bloomer’s Parents

If your child is ten years old and hasn’t won a medal yet, if she’s the one getting knocked out in the first DE while the star of the club collects another trophy, I have something to say to you:

Don’t panic. Don’t compare. And whatever you do, don’t quit.

Your child is learning something right now that the early winner isn’t. She’s learning resilience. She’s learning that improvement doesn’t come from talent but from showing up. She’s learning that the strip is a place where you earn everything and are given nothing.

These are the lessons that build champions. Not at eight. Not at ten. But at the ages that actually matter.

The road is long. Trust the process. And let your child fall in love with the work.