balancing weapons in a university club

[Pho]

I was sorta getting ready for the new batch of fencers coming into the club this coming fall semester and I wanted some input into how to balance out the weapons. Our club had traditional made individuals fence foil for the first semester and then let them pick what weapons they wanted. We found that using this method, we ended with a small group of people (not many of them liked foil). I made several changes such as teaching foil for the first few weeks and then letting them go into whatever weapon pleased them. The end result of this was a group of hardcore foilists, a ton of sabirists and one or two new epeeists (as well as retaining a lot more of the people). Part of this is my fault as I steered the guys whom reverslunge refered to as counterattacking retards towards epee. While many folks (especially the sabirists) would have little problem with this, I wanted to make sure the club had a healthy division between the fencers so that the club might be able to take part in collegiate league. Any suggestions as to how to even out the distribution.

[Epee_Pox]

>>>The end result of this was a group of hardcore foilists, a ton of sabirists and one or two new epeeists (as well as retaining a lot more of the people). Part of this is my fault <<<

What's the problem? You've got lots of members, they're doing all three weapons now, and they all like what they're doing. Sounds to me like you've hit on a successful strategy already.

[D'Artag-NOT]

In my university club, everyone starts out with a few weeks' instruction in foil. The coach then tends to steer fencers to other weapons depending on (1) their expressed desires, (2) what he thinks they'd succeed in, and (3) what he needs to round out the teams. In that order, I believe--I'm not aware that he's ever put anyone on a weapon they didn't want to fence simply to fill places on the team.

[Katman]

My university club keeps the beginners in a one semester foil class before they switch. They don't typically stick with foil once they're allowed to do whatever they want. My club has an even number of foilists and epeeists, but few saberists (all of my experinced fencers keep leaving foil for other weapons ).

Classes are taught that way as a convience. It's easier to teach them all one weapon then shove them off onto whatever squad captain for whatever weapon during the next semester. Our club is entirely self taught with no coach, currently, and few college students have much free time so for the moment this is the method we're stuck with. Your idea sounded pretty...sound though.

[Aeric]

Dang. I had to have three years of foil before my maestro allowed me to consider another weapon. I'm glad I did though; it transfers quite nicely. I do believe that initial training in foil (even for a few weeks) is crucial to all weapons, because it provides the basics needed in all weapons with the least confusion.

[qatet]

We had a fairly big meet in November with 5 slots in each weapon. Often the incentive to get to compete so early (shudder!) was enough to make somebody who was sitting the fence between a popular weapon and an unpopular one decide to fill out the unpopular roster.

And of course, that generally related to competition opportunities over the year, so it was a good way for somebody who was champing at the bit to get on strip. Although, really, we usually needed epeeists and I'm not sure that I've ever seen an epeeist champ at anything (ducks and covers).

[Inquartata]

I think that perfect balance is a chimaera. There's always going to be a disparity of personal preferences...people going into one weapon because their friends do...etc. Almost always the imbalance is going to favor foil, but I don't see any way to correct that, short of an autocratic decree that X people MUST fence epee and sabre whether they want to or not.

[Schiavona]

Why epeeists are champs at epee of course!

[darius]

One of the things we're trying at UR this year is taking the folks who did the semester-long beginning foil course (and anybody else who wants to try another weapon), and spending 2 weeks at the beginning of the next semester on epee and sabre. That way, everybody gets a little primer on every weapon, and they get a chance to try it out before choosing.

darius

[oiuyt]

At UMass we do 4(ish) weeks of footwork followed by 2 weeks of foil, 1 week of epee, and 1 week of sabre. Much of the foil work is going to translate into epee/sabre (terminology, the idea of parrying, feinting, etc.). Then people pick a weapon and get further training with that squad. In limited circumstances (generally between semesters and preferably between seasons) people can change squads.

People should be exposed to all three and then should choose which weapon makes the most sense and which they most want to do. Balance is nice, it smooths lots of other things out, but people will do best and work hardest in the weapon they want to fence. Yes we get surges in squad popularity (a couple of years ago everyone wanted to be a ME, this past year everyone was MS). It has tended to work out over time. Then again we also have the luxury of being able to field more than full squads even in weapons where our numbers are a bit light in a given year. Build your overall numbers and then slight fluctuations won't matter as much.

-B :)

[qatet]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

a couple of years ago everyone wanted to be a ME

Aww, Brad, you must set a very good example if everybody wants to be you! ;}

[darius]

Brad,

How do you keep your crew interested in 4 weeks of footwork? We get some enthusiastic people, and I'd kill to have that much footwork under their belts, but they lose interest quickly if we don't get weapons in their hand early.

We do standard distance-keeping/stealing games and beanbag games. This is a huge thread hijack and prolly deserves its own thread...what else do you guys do?

darius

[oiuyt]

Some of it is games like you describe. I love the glove game as it helps teach distance, strategy, tempo changes, and uses all that footwork they've been learning. Some of it is mixing in general conditioning activities so that it's not purely all footwork, all the time. A lot of it is knowing that if they do footwork for a month then they'll get to play with swords. Lots of personal attention and enthusiastic novice coaches.

*cough*Depending on the semester, particularly attractive novice coaches (which is how we ended up retaining a TON of male fencers last fall)*cough*

I come from a background that required considerably more than 3-4 weeks. When I learned to fence at Hopkins we weren't allowed to touch a weapon until we had passed a footwork test to the satisfaction of the coach. He wasn't even willing to start testing the first of us until after October. So minimum of 7-8 weeks, another 2+ weeks on average until the footwork was good enough, and it took the slowest nearly until thanksgiving to be allowed to start working with weapons. But who wants to be the first to quit? 10 other guys are doing it five days a week, I can't be the first to wuss out. Oh, him, yeah, he quit, but he wasn't really all that into it. I can't be the first of the "serious" guys to wuss out. Oh, it's the end of October and 10 of the 11 of us are ready to start the testing? Okay, HE passed, I can pass tomorrow or by the end of the week for sure. WOOHOO, I get my epee!!!!

In the Hopkins situation (there's been a coaching change so this really should be "in the Hopkins situation at the time I was there") there was also extensive rules-learning and terminology learning going on. There was a test administered that required 90% correct to pass (if failed the retest required 95% correct (different test)) that was also required to remain on the team.

Some years the program steadily shed people throughout the semester. Others, including my freshman year, nearly no one dropped out. In either case there was definitely a sense of team belonging, a sense of working towards a significant goal, and a sense of achievement upon arriving. Whatever else you say about it, it built a number of fencers with solid fundamental groundwork laid before introducing weapons to the mix.

Compared to that we're easy on people. :)

That said, yeah, you will lose people. Building team esprit de corps is key. After our novice practices it's not uncommon for the novice coaches to take a group (frequently nearly everyone) over to the nearest dinning commons for group dinner. Ideally the non-novice team members are there as well. Get it to be a social group in addition to the crap physical work and people will want to continue coming. Can footwork be boring? Yes, certainly. Can hanging out with a large group of new friends while learning a new activity be fun and entertaining? No question. All a matter of which it gets viewed as. In my experience people tend to understand the idea of needing to learn the steps before they get to dance.

For reference, at UMass the novice practices (7-8 weeks) are held separately (sometimes contemporarily, other days on different scheduled) from the team practices. The novices are taught by experienced fencers from the team under the direction of a head novice coach (sometimes myself, sometimes a fencer from the team). At the end of the program all of the novices are integrated with the rest of the team and choose their squads.

-B :)

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by qatet

Aww, Brad, you must set a very good example if everybody wants to be you! ;}

Hey, what can I say. No matter how many times I tell them there can be only one me, they still strive for perfection.... :)

Actually one of the largest determining factors appears to be the experience of the student novice coaches. Get a group of sabre fencers teaching and everyone ends up wanting to fence sabre. Have primarily epeeists and everyone ends up wanting to fence epee. Part of this is intentional recruitment ("no, no, you don't want to do THAT! Here, try an epee") but most of it is unintentional, people either mirroring what their instructors do or just the fact that foilists will teach foil better than they teach epee or sabre so the novices have a better experience and feel more accomplished during the weeks of foil. We try to balance this out (both by mixing up the representation of weapons in the selection of novice coaches and by actively trying to make sure that personal bias(es) in favor of (or against) a weapon isn't transferred).

-B :)

[blackbeltmark]

Originally Posted by darius

One of the things we're trying at UR this year is taking the folks who did the semester-long beginning foil course (and anybody else who wants to try another weapon), and spending 2 weeks at the beginning of the next semester on epee and sabre. That way, everybody gets a little primer on every weapon, and they get a chance to try it out before choosing.

darius

I have a feeling that this will work a lot better than our previous method, which was start everyone on foil for the first semester, and then just let everyone go to whatever weapon they want. I know that when I started, most of the beginners in my group just stuck with foil - we only had one person switch to epee (me), and two switch to sabre - and one of those also switches in and out of doing foil. Of all the other beginners, I don't think any even TRIED the other weapons.

I'd say the reason for the lack of people moving to weapons other than foil was probably due to the fact that when you have Darius coaching you, your perceptions of weapons are definitely ...colored... by his opinions regarding the other weapons, especially when you don't have any experience of your own with the other weapons.

[darius]

Mark, have you ever found it odd that I turn into a 5'1" female sabre fencer when I teach the beginner program? Oh, right...I don't!

The current method isn't perfect, but the reasons you're bringing up aren't necessarily an issue. When our epee coach taught the group, *nobody* switched to epee.

If we can get fundamentals down a little better, I wouldn't mind going to an accelerated program similar to what Brad's talking about : 4 weeks of footwork, followed by a few weeks of each weapon, all within the same semester. This will probably require more discipline and committment on the part of the veteran fencers to be self-motivated, so that coaching man-hours can be freed up.

darius

[Pho]

Well whats eventually so frustrating I guess about the number of people in each weapon was that we had enough people to field a team in the MACFA, but due to the weapon split weren't able to.

I have to say though, having an attractive novice coach would probably help and it looks like we'll have a few people who fill that role in this year (and one with pigtails!). From the feedback I got from the prior year's novice though was that one of the things that made them want more was the chance for a tournament. That in itself brings up a significant dileama about teaching foil as the first weapon. When a novice fences in the open tourneys, I have found that it can be humilating experience especially for foilists. An D or C rated foilist would eat the novices alive (who wants to lose every single bout in a pool and then go 15-0 in a DE). At least in epee or sabre, you can get a few lucky hits. I tend to notice that we lose a ton of newcomers after the first open tourney. Actually one of the reasons, I didn't like foil so much was when I first joined the club, went to a hamilton open and proceeded to have mr. wei beat me 15-1 (I am catching up though). Perhaps one of the ways we can encourage students to stay is to coordinate with local clubs have a seperate non-usfa novice tourney in all the different weapons instead of just foil.

[D'Artag-NOT]

Our club competes in an intercollegiate fencing league, so a lot of the people they face are also novices, or at least unranked. Our coach also encourages club members to join USFA and participate in USFA events, but the focus during the competitive fencing season is on those league competitions. Maybe that's an option for you?

[EpeeConvert]

Everyone always tells me that foil is so great to start out with. I need this explained to me in simple terms, everything else requires me to read a 40 page chapter in book i cant afford. Epee helped me personally understand right of way. but i also hang out with almost all sabrists. i believe that Epee is the ultimate right-of-way weapon because the entire idea is that you hit the opponent without being hit yourself. and from what i've read and been told, Right of Way rules were designed to maintain some type of reality in fencing, instead of 2 people running at each other with blades, cause then sabre would be awfully boring. Just my humble opinion.

[D'Artag-NOT]

You say "Crazy Foilists" like it's a bad thing.

What did you convert to epee from, and why?