Do top-level fencers need to have good coaches?

[The Bayer Hunter]

Do top-level fencers need to have a good coach even later in their career? Is it possible for them to coach themselves? I am thinking it is not. No matter how much you think you know about fencing, and no matter how objective you can be about correcting your own fencing, I think it is of utmost importance to have someone watching and working with even the best fencers in the world.
What does everyone think?

[damianip]

Do top-level fencers need to have a good coach even later in their career?

Yes.

Is it possible for them to coach themselves?

No.

What does everyone think?

Yes.

Paolo

[darius]

Jiujie Luan (CAN) was self-coached all last season during her Olympic run. She managed to qualify for Sydney (at age 42!), so that's not too shabby.

Of course, we can't really speculate on how she would have done had she been coached.

darius

[d8m2k]

Pavel Kolobkov, 2000 olympic individual gold medal ME, was self coached for the last several years.

I believe that the coach passed away, and his fencers including Kolobkov kept training together, just without their coach.

[attila]

Beauty question! Some people can do just fine self coaching. Some people can suck eggs even with the best coaching. But top flight fencers do have good coaching. I am an example of self coaching. I have never had a coach nor formal instruction and have had relative success on the strip.One college fencing class and a book on fencing plus an 8 hour greyhound bus ride to the fencing events is how I got started. I learned the skills on the strip and by stealing lessons through observation. If I had had a coach I think I would have not only reached the "A" but I know I would not have torn up my body. I live out in the boonies and it is about 300 miles to the nearest coach I would trust.

[neevel]

As the example of Kolbokov shows, it may indeed be possible for a top level fencer with the right combination of self-discipline and self-examination to self-coach _after_ they've already reached a high level, but I don't think that everyone has those aptitudes. It'd also be essential that you routinely practice against and train with other top flight fencers (as was the case with Kobolkov). I'd suspect that Kobolkov and the fencers he was training with were actively coaching each other, and thus were still recieving the kind of feedback and correction you'd get from a single coach.

That said, I'd also have to say that in order to even get to that point in the first place you really do need a good coach from early on.

-Dave

[arcon]

[ 10-19-2001: Message edited by: arcon ]

[space_cadet]

Maybe they do and maybe they don't.

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