Paris and Tauber

[drippingwet]

I posted some of this stuff as a sub-topic in another thread but it doesn't seem to be getting any replies so I gave it its own thread and added to it:

I'm a foilist.

What is Tauber - what's the structure, the system, the facility? Can someone just turn up and get world class coaching? What happens? Is it good for foil? Is it expensive? Do Wessels, Joppich, Bissdorf train there? What's the English translation for Tauber's full name?

Is Paris good for foil? Is there a 'best foil club' in Paris? What's the story with Paris, cost and coaching, etc?

Thanks.

The thing is I could go to one of these places in a placement year at one of the universities I might be going to. I can take a language module prior to the placement year, but I would need to decide which place to go to before choosing the language to study. So I don't speak any of the languages right now and so German or French fencing websites aren't an option. So if you people can't tell me this stuf, where do I find out so I can make a decision?

P.S. what's happened to the edit feature on older posts?

[Zilverzmurfen]

As I am unable to go to sleep I decided to try to help you find some things out about Tauberbischofsheim. First of all "Tauberbischofsheim" means "(The) Deaf Bishops Home" in english.

Here are some informational links you may find useful:

• The German Fencing Federation. (In german only, as it seems.)
• Tauberbischofsheim Fencing Centre. (In german only, as it seems.)

According to what I could find out from these links Ralf Bissdorf fences at Heidenheim, Peter Joppich fences at Koenigsbacher Sportclub in Koblenz (site currently under reconstruction) and André Wessels fences at Tauberbischofsheim. (!)

Now for your other questions about structure, system etc I really have no clue! I just wanted to share the info, but I'm sure you will find out more visiting the Tauber FZ website (Doesn't seem to contains very many pics of facility though.) or e-mailing some people.

..And sorry, but i didn't bother to look anything up about Paris but I'll provide you with the URL for the French Fencing Federation. (In french only.)

Good luck! (And may i once again suggest Germany?)

[Zilverzmurfen]

This is what I found out about Fencing Clubs in Paris. This page will show you a map of France, upper left corner shows the different regions in the Paris area.

Clicking each of these areas will take you to a list PACKED with fencing clubs in that area! In the right column you'll see a link to that clubs website (if they have one).

Alas, which ones are best for foil you'd have to find out yourself!

Alternatively you could try PM:ing veeco or sreckiki and they might be able to help you as they are in fact from France, thus speaking french... (I only know "fencing french".)

[striker]

Originally Posted by drippingwet

.......................................
What is Tauber - what's the structure, the system, the facility? Can someone just turn up and get world class coaching? What happens? Is it good for foil? Is it expensive? Do Wessels, Joppich, Bissdorf train there? What's the English translation for Tauber's full name?
.......................................

I am not sure but this article about Epee might be of interest to you.

http://home.earthlink.net/~allenevans59/GERMANEPEE.HTML

[edew]

Although "tauber" means "deaf", I believe it's not named after a deaf bishop, but rather the river Tauber that runs through the middle of the town. The river runs through the town, the local bishop's home was in the town, and so the name became Tauberbischofsheim.

Then, again, maybe there was a deaf bishop who lived there and they named the river after his affliction.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Originally Posted by edew

Although "tauber" means "deaf", I believe it's not named after a deaf bishop, but rather the river Tauber that runs through the middle of the town. The river runs through the town, the local bishop's home was in the town, and so the name became Tauberbischofsheim.

Then, again, maybe there was a deaf bishop who lived there and they named the river after his affliction.

You are probably right. I have not seen a map of the city, I simply translated the name of the city itself.

[MikeHarm]

That sounds a lot more sensible than deaf bishop home.. You can run into trouble sometimes with translations if you don't know what the words are. I know of a guy who didn't understand Japanese very well who thought people were complimenting him in Japanese during his training and used the words for his dojo's name and ended up with the Laughing Weasel dojo.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Originally Posted by MikeHarm

That sounds a lot more sensible than deaf bishop home.. You can run into trouble sometimes with translations if you don't know what the words are.

Actually "tauber" means "deaf", it just also happened to be the river (of which I had not heard of)...

But I agree, a deaf bishop doesn't sound very "useful" although I'm sure he could have listened to peoples confessions for hours without ever being bored or able to tell on them!

So, now since that's sorted out...am I forgiven please?

[jjrenaud]

Originally Posted by drippingwet

I posted some of this stuff as a sub-topic in another thread but it doesn't seem to be getting any replies so I gave it its own thread and added to it:

I'm a foilist.

What is Tauber - what's the structure, the system, the facility? Can someone just turn up and get world class coaching? What happens? Is it good for foil? Is it expensive? Do Wessels, Joppich, Bissdorf train there? What's the English translation for Tauber's full name?

Is Paris good for foil? Is there a 'best foil club' in Paris? What's the story with Paris, cost and coaching, etc?

Thanks.

The thing is I could go to one of these places in a placement year at one of the universities I might be going to. I can take a language module prior to the placement year, but I would need to decide which place to go to before choosing the language to study. So I don't speak any of the languages right now and so German or French fencing websites aren't an option. So if you people can't tell me this stuf, where do I find out so I can make a decision?

P.S. what's happened to the edit feature on older posts?

for Paris, in foil you could go to the PUC(Paris university club), it's very good and you'll see there some of the best french foil fencers,
or you have an other club who's very good it's "la tour d'Auvergne" very good foil club

[drippingwet]

Thanks for you're efforts. I'll see if there's any translation sites on the net. Failing that, maybe I could talk to one of the language teachers at the university. Any ideas short of asking for free interpretation services from lecturers?

Thanks again.

[Insipiens]

There is a member of the UK fencing forum (www.fencingforum.com) who is German and according to her profile a member of Tauber. She doesn't post very often but you might be able to get info from her on Tauber - her username (or whatever it is called) is Sabine.

[drippingwet]

Thanks for all your efforts. I just found an interpretation tool which kinda opens up a whole new world!

[drippingwet]

Insipiens, there's a Dr Sabine Bau who appears to be a member of the executive comittee.

[drippingwet]

This is what I had translated:

By a membership in the fencing club e.V. you receive deaf bishop home the possibility of using the sport mechanism in the context of one or several groups of hobbies and of participating in the association life. One differentiates between the following memberships: active and passive members, youth members, honour members and promoting members.

Although the fencing club deaf bishop home is achievement-sportily aligned e.V., the spreading haven is promoted also here. In addition special groups of hobbies of different kinds of sport are to the members at the disposal (times and partner on the request form).

In order to request your membership with the FC TBB, you fill out please the form * pdf or the form * doc, will expression it afterwards, sign it and send it to the following address: Fencing club deaf bishop home e.V. Member administration Pestalozziallee 12 97941 deaf bishop home

Zilverzmurfen, have you been? How did you get in? Did you have to fill out a form?

[Zilverzmurfen]

Originally Posted by drippingwet

Zilverzmurfen, have you been? How did you get in? Did you have to fill out a form?

No no no, I haven't been to Tauber at all!
I just hadn't much to do and tried to help you out by doing some "detective" work.

I suggest you send them an e-mail. I am sure they will welcome you, and you are sure to get some good sparring!

[JackSparrow]

There is a chapter on the Tauber in Richard Cohen's book. I can tell you what I know from reading that. Tauberbischofsheim is a town with just 12,000 inhabitants, set between the Main and Tauber Rivers. Before the 1970's the town had little economic or political significance, and few even in Germany, knew of its existence. That was to change with the rise of coach Emil Beck.

One day in his teens he saw a government training film for fencing. The next day he went back to see it again and he was hooked. After the Second World War Germans had been banned from fencing internationally because of the sport's connections to Nazism. Germany was readmitted in 1949 and had been competing for only four years when Emil began coaching. However, Beck needed pupils. Up to this point he had been recruiting people in his father's shop. Now he persuaded children in the village to drop by his club, where he would throw five balls into the air and see which child caught what. Those who caught at least two he kept. He became their substitute father, fretting over their schooling, arranging jobs, doing favours.

However, Beck was not just teacher and manager but also fund-raiser and organiser. He managed to attract fifty-two sponsors including Daimler-Benz, DuPont, Sony and Adidas. By 1971, Tauberbischofsheim had it's own purpose built fencing centre and Beck was put in charge of the Olympic team in Munich. Beck put his fencers through weightlifting and gymnastic sessions, three-mile jogs and fast-paced lessons, would hold a tournament each night, breaking down the fencers into pools of twelve or fifteen and assigning to each one a number of victories he must achieve.

At the 1976 Olympics, nine fencers from Beck's academy won eleven individual or team medals, including five golds. In 1984, eleven of his fencers won twelve medals, seven of them gold. The centre at Tauber continued to expand. Even at the beginning it had a cafeteria, weight room, physiotherapy department, and photographers' lab. Today it boasts a soccer field, basketball and tennis courts, a sauna, a massage room, a weapon repair shop and a pulsimeter to monitor the condition of each fencer. It also has full facilities for disabled fencers, an isokinetic centre, a twenty-meter "warm pool" for stretching, a room for mud treatment, fourteen bedrooms, purpose built with extra space to accommodate fencing bags. The medical department is twelve strong, with facilities for operations and doctors who base their practise within the club.

Anyhoo, the story doesn't have a very happy ending as Beck lost the plot a little. I can tell you about it if anybody cares. *sorry for the length of this post*

[drippingwet]

Yeah I care.

Man, how on earth did fencing attract that sponsorship? Can't this approach be copied so we can have a Tauber in every country?

[JackSparrow]

Well to some extent he became a victim of his own success (which is quite considerable... Beck's fencers have won 147 gold medals in world, European and Olympic championships, senior and junior). Foreign nationals, including Romanians, Russians and Cubans were brought to Tauberbischofsheim: thus the triumphant German team in 1992 included Robert Felsiak, a Polish immigrant of just three years' standing; and Vladimir Reznitchenko, who had won a bronze for the Soviets in 1988.

Other German clubs resented Tauber's power. Fencers from other countries dreaded taking on Beck fencers; referees felt intimidated. In fact Beck and the Italian Attillo Fini had an understanding that wherever possible, in a key bout, an Italian would get a German referee, a German an Italian; things worked out so much better that way. However, Beck found his nemisis in Arnd Schmitt. Schmitt's father had competed as a show jumper and knew the demands of international sport. He would be a crucial support for his son in the events that followed.

Arnd Schmitt was a regional schoolboy champion in high jump and hurdles, but Heidenhiem where he lived had for years been the venue for a huge international epee competition. Caught up in the excitement, Arnd and his brother decided to try their hand. Arnd became national junior foil champion and also qualified for the world youth team at epee. However, the reserve in the German foil squad came from Tauber: Beck was soon protesting to the federation that no fencer should be allowed to compete in more than one weapon. The Federation, under such pressure caved in and forced Schmitt to make a choice. So he did - epee; and the vacant foil place went to Beck's pupil.

Despite this early quarrel with Beck, for Schmitt, German national service was looming, but the government allowed selected atheletes to opt for a two-year training period at a suitable sports center in place of the normal fifteen months of compulsdory service. This lead to Schmitt joining the Tauber. Schmitt soon drew attention to himself because on his father's advice, he had turned down a club Mercedes and the chance to borrow money free of interest. That is when he started to fight with Beck, because he didn't want to owe him anything. Beck called Schmitt into his office and urged the teenager, "to be part of us". By his account, Schmitt responded politely that he did not need any more than he already had. Beck's whole demeanor changed. "He got really angry. He pushed his head into mine and yelled, 'I'm going to destroy you - you're never going to become a champion. Never.'"

The next thing Schmitt knew, all the Tauber fencers - bar himself and his brother - were sommoned by Beck and told that they should not talk to Schmitt. Beck tried to make the other squad members believe that Schmitt had wanted more money and that he had decided to kick him out. However, on the fencing strip, Schmitt's progress continued, and he duly qualified for the German team. At this point, one of the leading German officials, an ally of Beck, wrote to the federation, asking for Schmitt to be excluded from the Olympic team. The national sports press reported that without Schmitt Germany would jeopardize its chances of winning gold. The federation met and voted 7-1 in Schmitt's favour.

At Seoul, the entire German team had one of its worst Olympics, winning only two golds. One was in swimming. The other was in men's epee, where Arnd Schmitt, only twenty-three and in his first Olympic final, was unstoppable. At the moment of his victory, TV cameras showed Beck with both hands over his face. For a single athelete to triumph over the power of an organization like the Tauber is exceptional. Also, despite painting Beck to be somewhat of a megolomaniac, it is clear that Cohen has great admiration for his achievements as both a teacher and motivator.

[tsalyards]

If you're interested, another member of this forum recently put a lesson manual summarizing the German system into my possession that I am in the process of converting into a pdf document. It was used by Halberstadt Fencing Academy (San Francisco) as part of a coaches college back in 94 and covers the basic lesson system that Beck developed back in the day. I don't think that distributing it would be a problem as Halberstadt is no more.

I would imagine that many of the lesson tenants described are still in use at Tauber. The German System varies greatly from Italian and French schools of epee, so it might aid you in deciding whehter you want to fence there.

I can sum up the German System as follows:

Hit fast
Hit many times
Hit hard

Let me know if you are interested and we can arrange a download.

[edew]

Halberstadt Fencers Club in San Francisco is alive and well, thank you. And several coaches there still offer coaching clinics following, more or less, the german system.

Golden Gate Fencing Center also teaches the german system, especially in the epee: fast, many times, and hard.