Welcome all coaches!
Thanks for creating this Social group; I am glad to be a part!
This thread wasn't in the coaching section. Foilist Needing Sabre Advice I found it rather amusing how the majority of people got hung up on foil vs sabre issue and completely missed the obvious. 7-12 year old beginners for a 1 week camp, 1 hour each day= 5 hours of instruction. LOL... the average group of kids that age could eat up 1/3 that time just getting dressed! I would like to see them actually try and teach a room full of 7-8 year olds..... Folks can be so misguided in their advice.
One of the things that lead to the long thread (and a lot of useless advice) is that OP didn't phrase his/her dilemma very well. I just reread the post and the statement that sticks out to me seems to be: I'm a foil fencer who doesn't know anything about saber. Help. This is probably NOT the real question that is to be answered (and wasn't stated by the OP) which is: I have to entertain a bunch of hooligans with sabers for an hour. Help. Sometimes people get dumb answers because they ask the wrong question. AE
Good point Allen. She was wrapped up in the "I don't know sabre" bit, rather than realizing it wasn't all that relevant. So that's where people went. Also, she might have got a better response in the coaching corner, rather than the general discussion. Eventually, she provided enough information that she got the right answers, but it ended up happening in a roundabout way.
You're also right about it being entertainment. I was reluctant to say it in the thread, but that's really what it's about. Parents have unloaded their little darlings on you on a daily for a week and it's your job to keep them entertained and engaged. Fortunately, children of this age are enthusiastic about sword fighting.. okay a bit too much. So it's about keeping it safe and varying the activities enough that they don't get bored. They have a short attention span.
I was also a little surprised that someone who has had "a lot of foil experiance" and what sounded like a decent amount of teaching experiance (though she didn't say what age group) would be suddenly so floored by a fencing class in a slightly different weapon than she is used to. Odd. But then, it's the web, and there's always a back story I don't know. Allen
My guess is it's her first time on her own with a class for a week.
If anyone is interested in inexpensive club gear, here's a link: http://www.freestylefencing.com/ He's a fellow Canadian coach who bought direct from China, as a solution to outfitting his own club inexpensively.
