I remember there was a thing at the 2007 Worlds in Russia where low line actions in sabre weren't going to be called as attacks and this was seen as a deliberate action against US sabre fencers (probably specifically WS) because we were the ones who mostly did that. Then the whole interpretation disappeared again afterwards. Was that a response to a US innovation or reading too much into this?

Good post.

First off, I'd ask what you mean by the early ages? 6-8? 9-12? 10+13? Those can all be quite different. In general, my approach to teaching young kids isn't so much in changing the exercises they are doing, so much as changing the mindset of the kids when they are doing them. We've seen 7 year old kids stay focuses and LOVE what they are doing while they spend 30 minutes learning to advance; its all just about the way its presented.

Even when you're dealing with young kids, I say treat them with some respect, and appreciate the fact that they might still want to learn some real stuff. If you expect them to just come in and run around for an hour, they will. If you expect them to actually learn something, they will.

Is changing the mindset your innovation? Or is the innovation it the way you change that mindset?

Innovation is a combination of idea plus execution, so it would have to be both. Anybody can have an idea, but in order to actually be a useful innovator you have to implement that idea and make it work. Sort of like needing to provide a working model of your perpetual motion machine to the Patent Office.

Well, maybe. But I think your terms aren't very clear. Can you explain this to me in a way that makes it clear to me?

For instance, I want to teach a new fencer to lunge in an innovative way. What's the idea and what's the execution? Aren't there times when the execution (the different way of teaching the lunge) is the idea?

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I have a hard time saying its true innovation. Someone somewhere has to have a good idea of how to deal with kids. That said, of the dozen or so clubs I've trained at, none of them seemed too impressive in dealing with kids, so maybe it is innovation to some degree.

The innovation, if you want to call it that, would be getting young kids to be happy with mastery of skill rather than results.

What do you mean by "lunge in an innovative way"? Do you mean "make a new and different biomechanical motion"? Or "I want to use a new way to teach an existing motion"?
I guess I don't care about bad innovations, so to me innovation in lunging is "Taking an effective motion and teaching it in a way that it is learned faster, safer or more thoroughly"

When I think of innovation, I think of things like the iPad or Model T, where the total impact isn't because someone created a tablet computer or a cheap car, but that someone created a tablet that people wanted, knew they wanted, and could be produced and sold in the quantities they wanted them, or produced a cheap car, on a production line, with standardized features. It's the combination that's important, not one element.

Sorry. Word confusion. I think there is a lot of room for innovation in teaching actions, rather than in the actions themselves. And the innovation may not be teaching in a way that no one has seen before, but in bringing in outside teaching ideas to fencing. For instance, someone told me once that they teach the lunge first. Bang. First day of class, before advancing or retreating. That's different. Perhaps even innovative to fencing.

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ps--but whether it's a good idea remains to be seen.

I highly doubt it makes any difference at all if one introduces lunging before advancing--though it does make me wonder why more coaches don't start with lunge.

The lack of innovation, obviously.

There's probably room for a whole cadre of people with degrees in Education to come in and improve fencing instruction.

I'm sure you're being sarcastic with the "degree in education" thing, but there are a lot of things we do in fencing that can't really be explained except by: "That's the way we do it". I think there are a lot of things in fencing that we haven't examined very closely, especially when it comes to teaching a very complicated (both in terms of rules and in terms of processes) sport.

A good example is the disengage, which a lot of coaches STILL say is a circle, even though that's not a very efficient or practical model for the motion. This is a trivial example, but illustrates how little we actually think of the "how and why" of teaching fencing.

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Actually, no. I'm the only person in my immediate family without an advanced Kinesiology degree. Either I have to presume they didn't learn much useful in there, or that if they knew enough about fencing to understand what's going on they could apply everything they learned about physical education to making fencing students learn actions faster and better.