How many days a week do you practice fencing?

[Oxi-Clean]

How many?

I personally have recently started practicing fencing 5+ days a week

[mrbiggs]

I go for 5, but I almost always have something to do on one of the days.

[AntonioDelMonte]

i train 6 days a week 3+ hours aday and i coach fencing 2 nights a week

[Ordway]

Only twice a week, which I suppose isn't much for a serious competitive fencer. But, I have a job (two of them, actually) and a life, including a husband who likes to see me sometimes , so twice a week is pretty decent for me, all things considered.

One thing that I do - which certainly wasn't the case when I fenced 4 times a week in college - is that when I come to fence, I FENCE. I make sure I'm ready to jump right into the warmup when I arrive, I'm ready to go right away when my coach taps me for a lesson, I put 100% concentration into doing the footwork in drills, and I suit up quickly and fence as many bouts as I can before we all get kicked out for the evening - I'm almost always in the last group to leave before they turn the lights out.

In contrast, there are other people who show up, take forever to get ready, spend a lot of time standing around chatting, and leave early. I get more training done in two sessions than they get in 4 or 5.

I also get a reasonable amount of fitness work outside of fencing (I ride my bike to work, do yoga, etc.) so I don't have to rely on fencing practice for general fitness (like I did in college).

You know, now that I wrote all that, I feel a lot better about choosing one of the lower numbers in the poll Quality over quantity!

[melihop]

For me it depends on the time of the year.. during the winter season at school, its 5 days a week practice, compitions on saturday, and a non school compition about once a month, and armory the other sundays....

during the spring its 3 days a week, monday wednesday friday.... sunday compitions whenever possible

during the summer its 4 days a week..... compitions whenever possible

during the fall, 4 days a week, and compititons more often.... lol

I also do yoga, once a week and running.. also dancing 2-3 days a week... and these things only happen when i am not fencing 6 days a week.. so it helps....

[glowstix]

about 3-5 times per month.. with footwork/point drills pretty much everyday. gas prices are ridiculous these days!!

[shinekomi]

I fence against other people about 3 times a week.
I try to do foot work drills for about 30 minutes on days when I'm not at a club. Or when I'm standing around, waiting for something to finish running/spinning/incubating/whatnot. Of course, this is if I'm not occupied with anything else...

So, I practice a little bit every day? A little bit can go a long way.

[Cerian]

Just a bit ago, 3 days a week. For now, 4 days a week. Once school starts, 4 is most likely, but 5 or 3 days are possible, depending on workload. Also physical training 3 days a week.

[akaiyuki]

I picked "When ever I feel like, Goshhhhhh" but that's not really true hahaa. It just depends on how many days of practice I CAN get in. During high school I got to practice 5x a week. In college, 3x a week. Over the summer... 1x a week......

[VELISARIOS]

I fence 4 times per week.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

once a week during the summer, twice during the school year.... this doesnt count daily footwork and drills.

[howtobrew]

What?! twice a week?! four times a week??!
Don't you people have to work and maintain a household?!!
(just kidding)

[Lemberg]

4 X 2.5-hour practices per week, weight training twice a week, and Grouse Grind (this intense 45min-1 hour almost verical hike - those of you who have been to Vancouver may have heard about it) - on Saturdays. Wish I could make myself do a bit of footwork on weight rainig days but no luck there so far.

[prototoast]

5x+ during the NCAA season, averaging <1 for the rest of the year.

[dramamine]

Fencing 3 days a week, weight training 2-3 days a week, with a couple plyometric exercises before weight training. On off days I do some footwork too. Wish I could fence more here but for now I'm stuck at 3 days a week.

[bmcfencer]

If I"m REALLY lucky, twice a week. Though now I'll be coaching once a week and hopefully actually fencing once a week. Yay for finding people with actual fencing experience at my school!

[Aestro]

Twice a week for two hours per practice, though most of that time is actually coaching. I'll randomly bust into footwork for a few minutes at least a couple times per day, but I guess that's just my alternate to pacing sometimes.

I wish I had the time and energy to do more, but really I think if I went up to say 4 times per week I would burn out too quickly and have trouble enjoying it. There is a nice balance between improvement and enjoyment.

[Sciurus-Rex]

Verb choice is important in your question -- "practice" fencing? And a larger timeframe should be considered as well.

Right now my training includes a lot of weight work and developing aerobic capacity. As the season progresses, that will shift to include plyometrics and individual lessons. I do a lot of footwork drills every week. At home, I also spend time repeating extensions to target. And lots of visualization. ... None of those elements by themselves represent the whole activity of fencing, though.

Actual bouting is really the only legitimate example of "practice" fencing, and that doesn't happen very often at this point in the season.

[sreckiki]

Originally Posted by Ordway

Only twice a week, which I suppose isn't much for a serious competitive fencer. But, I have a job (two of them, actually) and a life, including a husband who likes to see me sometimes , so twice a week is pretty decent for me, all things considered.

(...)

You know, now that I wrote all that, I feel a lot better about choosing one of the lower numbers in the poll Quality over quantity!

I totally agree with that. I saw so many people in all the clubs I've been to who are just here for two hours waiting for a 20 min lesson, do one or two bouts and after go home. And they do that 4 to 5 times a week! Maybe they like training like that. But I really think that's a big waste of time.

I train twice a week (which by the way can be enough even for a serious competitive fencer if you do it seriously). So that lets me plenty of time to be with my wife, to do some other sports like soccer or basket-ball, go to the theater, have drinks with friends etc... In my opinion, fencing is the best sport ever, but, and I know other people on this board won't be agree with that, there is a life outside fencing!

[sabreman]

I agree with you. I only fence (sabre) two or three times a week now but I go really hard at it. Also my body really can't take anymore now that I am over 40.