??? about clubs

[glowstix]

whats the atmosphere at your club?? is it competitive?? what is the percentage of fencers that actually compete regularly?? right now i'm kinda frustrated 'cause my club is so damn small..not like i can beat everyone there consistently but i have good success against most people there...i guess everyone thinks i'm pretty talented but i feel like i'm not growing anymore 'cause i fence the same people over and over again. i can't afford to go on those road trips to tournaments regularly since i would be going alone and would have to absorb all the expenses. joining another club is not an option since i'm in school and stuck at our one and only club in this town...what options do i have for improving??

[Black Jeebus]

At my club there is a kind of lethargy regarding competition. There was for a long time just two out of like twenty people apparently going to tournaments regularly in the past. Since I have joined (read: started fencing) I have tried to go to as many tournaments as possible. There are two other people who have also started going to tournaments so we now have a moderate number of people competing, I suppose. But like I said earlier there are quite a few people who don't really seem all to interested in competing in tournaments or competitive fencing. I can't remember the actual number but the USFA estimates for number of people fencing versus number of people registered with them is a huge number.

[sawsehel]

At least you have the opportunity to go to tournaments.
They are not exactly common here in the "land of the thousand lakes".

I myself have been fencing for about a year now. Our club consists of about 8-10 "active" members but only 5 of us fence in the weekly competition. And that is against each other...

So think about it. It could be worse. You could live in Finland.

[SJB]

My club is competitivly focused.

Though we're small a club we still usually take at least half of the medals in any given competition provincally and usually at least two medals nationally.

[Inquartata]

Most members of my club are rather disinterested in competition; they do it sometimes, but it's not high on their list of priorities, so when we try getting a count of who is going to enter an upcoming events there are a lot of matter-of-fact excuses. And that's just for local cpmpetitions---there are maybe three other than me who travel out of state to tournaments. ( In part it's a money issue; it's a college club, after all. )

Mostly the atmosphere is one of exercise and socializing.

But it fluctuates. Some years we have more focused competitors than others.

[Islander]

At least you have the opportunity to go to tournaments.
They are not exactly common here in the "land of the thousand lakes".

I myself have been fencing for about a year now. Our club consists of about 8-10 "active" members but only 5 of us fence in the weekly competition. And that is against each other...

So think about it. It could be worse. You could live in Finland.

Well, if you happen to be of an age where you can go to both junior and senior competitions, there is quite a fair number of tournaments to choose from.

As for my club, there aren't too many actively competing fencers, and most of the good fencers don't come and train very often. However, as my club trains in the same place as three other clubs, there is usually some high-level sparring to be found, so I don't complain.

[Aestro]

we've got around 20 fencers, and on average send around 4 or 5 to each tournament we attend. Those do vary to a degree, and our club will normally go to roughly 3 tournaments per semester (one of which per semester being our own, and another being another local club). We're a very laid-back club, and though most people do fence the whole time, only a few are really competitive with it. It's not unusual to see multi-man matches or two-weapon "fencing", though if they start getting crazy with it or don't seem to be doing normal bouts enough I'll put a halt to it (I refuse to let us turn into an SCA club). We don't have club warmups or drill, though a few of our members will start the practices with them. The tournaments we do attend are fairly low-scale, D or C.

We're a classical club, as far as fencing theory goes. A lot of competitive clubs really annoy a lot of our fencers, because it just looks goofy and would never be used in even a semi-realistic bout. Flick, I'm looking at you.

[Chris]

whats the atmosphere at your club?? is it competitive?? what is the percentage of fencers that actually compete regularly?? right now i'm kinda frustrated 'cause my club is so damn small..not like i can beat everyone there consistently but i have good success against most people there...i guess everyone thinks i'm pretty talented but i feel like i'm not growing anymore 'cause i fence the same people over and over again. i can't afford to go on those road trips to tournaments regularly since i would be going alone and would have to absorb all the expenses. joining another club is not an option since i'm in school and stuck at our one and only club in this town...what options do i have for improving??

G, I don't know where in Wisconsin you go to school, and you haven't really said how experienced you are, or what weapon you fence, but here are a few things you can probably do:

DO get to some local tournaments - Wisconsin is pretty big, but it's not Montana!
Most of the events are in Madison, Marshall (near Madison), and Milwaukee area, but there are a few at Beloit College (kind of in between, and south)

DO go around and talk to people, and make some friends, there's a good chance you'll find some people willing to work with you on trips, at least with respect to sharing lodging expenses.

DO pay attention to how strong an event it is.
DO pay attention to the people who do well at these tournaments, especially if it IS a strong event.
DO notice how these people move, and how they are scoring touches.
(if you can swing it, try to borrow a video camera, and tape some some of it for later reference - get some footage of yourself as well...)
When you are practicing at the club, try to pick out the 2-3 other people who seem most motivated about improving, and try to work with them as much as possible. (Note this behavior could be seen as somehow snobbish, or elitist, especially if you stop working/sparring with other people completely, so whether, or not you decide to be public about your ambitions is something to think about, and be sure to 'make the rounds' with everyone.)

Challenge yourself when sparring: try to get the best scores you can; it is very helpful to have the best possible score in tournaments; try to score touches in different ways; don't just practice your favorite moves (practice them a little, and then move on...); rememeber you want to be able to beat the other people out there, not just the 8-10 people at your club! This will require some motivation, and discipline.

Work on maneuvering more, not just doing everything with advance lunge (aka, the two step shuffle), speed up your footwork, and you will learn how little time one needs to be able to work with, and suddenly, as you opponent does those big arm-flailing moves, you will see them as the huge openings that they are!

Try to work on making your actions as crisp, and smooth, and controlled as you can: smaller, tighter actions are going to be quicker. As you improve in this aspect, you should find that you have more time to actually 'decide' (i.e. observe, and respond) what to do, so you will be more likely to make the more effective responses.

Take you 'favorite move(s)', and turn them inside out: if it's a move the goes from high to low target area, think about doing it low to high; then practice it; outside to inside - make it inside to outside (aka front to back). Flip them around: there's a lot of 'moves' in fencing, but a lot of people have been doing it for a long time: If it's you 'favorite move' and it's actually any good, chances are it's somebody else's favorite move, and people have seem it! Try to get yourself understanding WHY it really works when you do it, and THEN figure out HOW someone ELSE would try to neutralize it, or turn it against you...Every move will make you vulnerable, in some way - when you understand the ways that your moves make you vulnerable, and learn what it should look like when your opponent is trying to do to exploit that, then you can play off their reaction: no one is more predictable than when they think they are going to get an easy touch, and there's no overestimating the power of being able to predict someone's actions like that - of course there's still the matter of timing! But I think I have made my point...

Once you really start making some progress in this area, it should have an effect on your more frequent training partners, especially if they are more motivated, as yourself: If they can learn to discern your more subtle actions, and respond to the diminished stimulus, they will provide you with at more challenging engagement; hopefully this results in them developing tighter, more controlled actions which will challenge your powers of perception. and so it goes.

Good luck!
Have Fun!

[Morion]

My club is a combination of a beginners/intermediate class. Which is mostly High School or younger fencers. They compete regularly in youth tournaments and actually do quite well frequently. We also train with the local College club who supply most of the better fencers. They consist mostly of people who have been fencing for some time having started when they were young. However being in college they seldom have time for tourneys. Finally there are the older miscellaneous fencers (my group). We are either people who took the sport up later in life or folks who have drifted away from fencing and now returned. Over all this group doesn't participate much in the tournament scene either.

[sawsehel]

Well, if you happen to be of an age where you can go to both junior and senior competitions, there is quite a fair number of tournaments to choose from.

As for my club, there aren't too many actively competing fencers, and most of the good fencers don't come and train very often. However, as my club trains in the same place as three other clubs, there is usually some high-level sparring to be found, so I don't complain.

True. I just wish I lived closer to Helsinki. Vaasa (my home "city") doesn't really have a fencing scene yet, but maybe <optimism> after we get more fencers </optimism> we can organize something. Right now though it is more along the lines of

Me: "Let's go to this tournament next month!"
Others: "Too far...no cash...no time...no chance"
Me: "Ok... "

Just wait until I get my own car!!!

[GGK]

joining another club is not an option since i'm in school and stuck at our one and only club in this town...what options do i have for improving??

Might I suggest a summer camp?

[hpfencing]

HPF is centered around compititions and preparing for them but only around half our memeber competite. We have no problems with recrecational fencers at our club but they are held to the same standards at practice that the competitive memebers are.

[deflagratio]

My club as a good mix of of competitive and non competitive. Most of our fencers turn up for tournaments all the time. A few even travel cross country every now and then. I wish I could travel to more tournaments. Those always seem to be the most fun.