This got a surprising number of comments on my facebook page. I thought I would share it here, as well.



Every bout you fence tells a story about who you are. The score is part of that narrative, but so is how you deal with victory and defeat, bad calls, and unpleasant opponents. You are the principal author of that story.

What stories are YOU telling?

I used to talk too much during lessons. This caused two problems: it broke up the flow of the actions in the lesson -- and fencing is just about feeling actions flow as it is about doing actions correctly -- and it kept me from connecting with my students on an emotional level.

Fencing operates in a lot of areas at once: technical, tactical, physical, and emotional. The fencing lesson should incorporate these elements as well. By talking too much, I kept my students from connecting

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I happened to be reading a book about the rise of new financial products (specifically CDOs and synthetic CDOs) and I turned to thinking about innovation in fencing.

What is innovation in fencing? It's almost impossible to come up with new moves: the sport is so old that it's unlikely anyone is going to "invent" a new parry or type of thrust. While I'm often shown new "actions" by fencers and coaches, they are often actions that went out of favor years ago. These

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I watch a lot of lessons when I'm at big tournaments. I've seen a lot of top coaches give lessons. Some lessons have held my attention, and some haven't. The ones that held my attention have always very different (imagine comparing the lessons of Vladimir Nazlymov to Paul Soter, for instance) but each interesting lesson had certain spark that less interesting lessons lacked. I can recognize that spark very quickly, even across a big venue.

Trying to put my finger on that "spark"

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I've been thinking about the issue of "surprise" and the role it plays in a fencing bout. One of the differences between an average fencer and a good fencer is how much the good fencer controls the environment of the bout. The better fencer is not surprised because of the way they control the environment in their bouts. Gary Copeland talked to me a little about this in terms of some of the fencers he has trained in the past (such as Nick Chinman). While he never actually stated it as fact,

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