Coaching: Dealing with large groups of high schoolers

[Durando]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Yes, it is an insane amount to deal with.
...EDIT: And yes, they are all in the gym at the SAME TIME.

Oh man. What a challenge. Good on you for taking it on. I think with any class of students of this age, structure is your friend. Write out your first few lesson plans (at the very least). If you get lost in your plan, just move on to the next thing.

Keep in mind that the difficult part will be changing activities at a satisfactory rhythm. Five minutes is a LONG time sometimes. Also you need tactics to move things along so that getting dressed doesn't devolve into social hour. I once directed a language school with about that many students. Boy, did I ever get in touch with my inner authoritarian. Sometimes yelling is just the most efficient way of communicating.

Satellite stations for certain drills or games seems like a good way to go. You're definately going to need someone to help you those first few classes. After that you'll know who your high initiative students are--lean on them afterwards. Also, think of what kind of visual aids you can stick up on the wall and leave in place. For example, in my club there is a series of ten footwork drills. Which is a great convenience for a coach. You can tell a malingerer to get off his a$$ and go do drill number whatever.

[RITFencing]

The general consensus from the thread and the rep messages I've gotten is that this is going to be ridiculous and I am insane for taking it on. For the record, I am already insane for other reasons; this is just adding to it.

Yeah, it's going to be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it. The pay isn't great, but as I believe I mentioned, the issue of sub par coaching in high school fencing is very close to me, and if I didn't do something to change that I'd be just another jerk whining from the sidelines. Besides, I enjoy coaching, and this is giving me some decent money for a part time, three month job.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far, especially Durando; I found his post to be especially useful.

[RITFencing]

What I'm going to do now is lay out my current thoughts and hopefully get some feedback; I think it will get better results than just mentioning the problem and getting a bunch of disparate answers. Please feel free to say what you agree with, what you don't, and what you would change, but also please include a reason why. As with anything, understanding why some things are good should be the key to running good practices.

I have some experiences with large groups, and what I've found to be useful is to keep them split up as much as possible and to rely on the more motivated and advanced students to help out with the rest while my back is turned. Thankfully, there are already team captains (three each for the boys and girls) to help me with that. I've also found that groups of any size work best when they aren't left doing one activity for too long, to prevent them from getting bored and slacking off. Interrupting every 15 minutes with a new drill/exercise meant to work on the same skill is much more effective than having them spend an hour on one drill. I'm also going to try and combine conditioning work and footwork as much as possible to let them get as much practice in as they can. One thing I am also considering is having squads alternate "exercise days." IE, on monday the foilists will be running, doing pushups, simple footwork drills, that sort of thing, which can be run by the two foil captains, freeing up the coaches to work with the epee/sabre fencers.

For the first week or so, I will be working only on footwork, and concentrating on getting clean, economical motion. I know that's hard to do in a week, but any longer without weapons and kids start turning out. I'm going to focus on small steps, balance, and direction/tempo changes (very simple ones.) I am also going to teach them to lunge, again focussing more on economy and stability than distance or speed, at least at first. Assuming 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's ten hours to concentrate on the feet. As stated before, I'm going to keep changing the drill every 10 to 20 minutes to prevent things from getting stale, and also to build their skills up.

In the second (and possibly third) week, I am going to start them on bladework. I am unsure of what to do at the moment with the foil/sabre fencers (and would REALLY appreciate some input) but with the epeeists I am going to start on simple attacks with an advance, making it to different targets (hand, arm, body) and making sure they lead with the point. Once they can do it with an advance, I will have them do it with lunges, and then advance lunges. No fleches because they are sadly not allowed by the league rules. When they can do simple attacks decently, I will get them started on counter attacks using a retreat. There are several reasons I teach counter attacks to epeeists before parries: It teaches the fencer that they do not have to be moving forward to hit, it helps to prevent them from planting their feet, it helps instill a sense of closing and opening the distance, and if they miss, they will at least be moving backwards and will be less likely to hit than if they screwed up a parry, which by nature leaves you close to an opponent's point. This may well take up all of the bladework time, but I would rather they get a good feeling for a few things than a slight grasp on many. What I am going to be focussing on in both simple attacks and counter attacks is proper distance and point control, the latter of which I've found to be a big problem with high schoolers, because no one teaches them to hold the blade correctly and LIGHTLY.

After working attacks and counter attacks, I am not sure of whether to go next to compound attacks and attacks on the blade or to parries. I may work to develop them concurrently, because to practice attacks and counter attacks with disengages, it helps to have an opponent who knows how to parry. Actually, as I write this I'm thinking of working parries first, because I can see more of an advantage to knowing the parries when going into compound attacks than vice versa.

Once they've got some comfort with those, I'm going to move into attacks on the blade. I know what you're thinking: "But RIT, that should be taught early on, with simple attacks!" It often is. My feeling, however, is tthat trying to beat or bind someone's blade can have more effects than just clearing out or controlling a line. What I begin teaching with attacks on the blade is preparation; what you do to set up your opponent. When I teach preparations, I like to have 2 outcomes possible from whatever prep they are working on. In the case of a beat, one outcome could be simply that you knocked the opponent's blade out of the way; the other could be that they disengage your beat and attack into your preparation. It seems like the fencer is looking for the first one and hoping to avoid the second, but right here is where it gets sneaky... if a fencer wants to take their opponent's blade and hit, the second response is the one they are actually looking for. By letting the opponent see the beat and avoid it, they can be lulled into giving the fencer their blade. So, either option A or option B can work, it all depends on what the fencer is trying to set up. This is just an example, but what I'm trying to illustrate here is to use a preparation to set up the desired response from their opponent. Seems self explanitory, right? Good fencers are always trying to think a step ahead of their opponents, to try and control them. However, it is something that I have never seen taught at the high school level. Anyway, I'm starting to go off on a tangent here.

The way I teach the a preparation is to first teach have them do the action in a way designed to draw the first response. In the case of that beat attack, a short, quick beat without a windup. Smack the blade aside, hit to the hand. Then, I teach the second. In our example, give a bit of a windup, don't go quite so fast, make a bit of bell guard motion to ensure that the other fencer sees it, but not so much that it is an obvious invitation. The opponent disengages and attacks, the fencer picks up parry-riposte. After that, I tell the fencer and their partner that they can do either one, but that the partner should not react randomly, but to what he/she sees. If they see the beat coming, disengage and attack. If not, they get hit. The fencer doing the drill decides before each action what they want their opponent to do, and tries to get them to do it.

I realize I spent a lot of time there, but it's something that forms the core of my fencing and my coaching. Choose how you want to hit, then choose how to set up that action. Work backwards from the hit until you know how to start.

Anyway, moving on. As the year goes on, I will be moving the drills away from simple A lunges, B takes parry 6 riposte type drills and throwing in more movement, distance, tempo and tactical options, at least to the more advanced fencers. The freshman and perhaps sophmores may have to stay with simple drills for longer, depending on how they progress. I may split each weapon into advanced (Varisty and subs) and beginner (JV) groups for drills.

The footwork drills will also become more advanced as the year progresses, starting with more generic and basic "ok, get the advance good and we'll move on" to drills based around controlling distance and tempo. I have a few of these, more are always good. One excellent suggestion I got from one of the coaches at RFC is that if I will be building up to a bladework action that night (say slow fient to outside of the blade, take parry riposte in counter time) to have them practice footwork specific to that action beforehand to help them integrate it.

This leads me to another thing I am big on: building compound actions from simple ones. I realize that it is difficult, especially for beginners, to make an attack in which the tempo changes several times and there are several fients or even possible hits. When I teach really complex actions, I start them practicing each one individually and then slowly string them together, making the finished result the culmination of that day's practice. A one two attack fienting to the wrist and hitting to the chest, followed by a quick parry 4 riposte to the chest as a safety when the opponent counter attacks is a neat action, but it's not a very simple one, so starting them off with an attack to the hand, then the one two, then practicing the parry riposte while allowing the opponent to close the distance, and then stringing it all together makes it suddenly much more manageable.

So I've talked a lot here on individual actions. More than I meant to really; but I tend to ramble. As far as the actual practices go, I am going to start them off drill intensive, and after about week 2 or 3 begin to incorporate bouting time, to give them a chance to try out what they were just drilling in a more realistic situation. I've found that bouting right after I get a lesson is very helpful for me; I can work on an action in a vacuum to get it right and then start trying it on the strip, which is very different. Towards the end of the year, the makeup of a general practice will probably be 25% warmup, stretching, conditioning, 50% drills (again split up into 3 or 4 different ones to keep things from becoming boring) and 25% bouting time.

I really dropped a text bomb there. As a thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this thing and give me a well thought out opinion on all or part of it, I'll rep you if I can.

[Tomas N]

That's a lot of students. Being a product of NJ HS fencing myself (this was back a couple of decades and with a very competent set of coaches), I'm always happy to see someone new taking on a program. Which one?

You've probably seen this, as the link has been put up a number of times in other threads, but I've found the CFF's coaching manuals to be useful.

http://www.fencing.ca/coaching_manuals/manuals.htm

Tomas

[RITFencing]

Hunterdon Central. It's a young program; I think this will be its third year.

[KD5MDK]

What's the male-female ratio?

Teaching counterattacks before parries is really going to cause you trouble in foil. Sabre you might get away with it, if your fencers learn beautiful tempo and distance. But I wouldn't recommend it. Particularly since I doubt the quality of refereeing you have is prepared to deal with the kinds of tempo you need in order to avoid parrying at all.

[AaronK]

You have an amazing amount of work ahead of you.
You have like 30 kids in each weapon or so, and everyone at the same time? That's a problem I'd like to have!
I would reccomend a few things:
GET HELP!!! KEEP THEM MOVING!!! PREPLAN EVERYTHING!!!
Even if you have assistant coaches or other coaches to help manage parts of practice...how many kids can help you manage various parts of practice? How much can the kids do on their own?
If your practices are from about 1.5/2 hours I would agree that you can get everyone to participate in conditioning games and footwork...lots of footwork. As someone said above...LESS TALKING IS BETTER.
Footwork and conditioning can be done in groups that big. Games have to be broken into smaller groups to be effective, but if you have the gym to yourselves that shouldn't be a real big problem. The hardest part I have found in HS and College coaching is that when large groups of friends get together, they tend to stagnate (breakdown into inaction and meyham)...so the more you can kick their buts while allowing SOME social interaction and fun, the easier it will be for you [but you may feel like you are doing more policework than coaching].
I have found that in handling larger groups you have to behave less like a mentor-coach and more like a supervisor-manager (which is not my favorite thing to do...I hate being a drill-sergeant).
The more you can pre-plan what you intend to do, the better. That doesn't mean that the plan is set in Stone, just that you will hav esomething to help you at those moments you are feeling overwhelmed. (I am speaking not only from experience coaching fencing, but when I did student teaching in college.)

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

What's the male-female ratio?

Teaching counterattacks before parries is really going to cause you trouble in foil. Sabre you might get away with it, if your fencers learn beautiful tempo and distance. But I wouldn't recommend it. Particularly since I doubt the quality of refereeing you have is prepared to deal with the kinds of tempo you need in order to avoid parrying at all.

If you notice, that's my general plan for the epeeists. Don't have one as yet for foil and sabre.

[darius]

One minor suggestion: if you're looking to hammer them at footwork, do it. If they're getting antsy about not having blades in hand, work the same footwork exercises, only with blades.

Nobody has to be masked, since there's no antagonistic work, and lots of fencers are lazy about what they do with their hands when doing footwork. This forces them to keep their guard positions up, and having a blade in their hand seems to make the kids I've worked with take the footwork more seriously.

darius

[Tomas N]

One thing to think about is the variance in ability. Even if everyone starts off at the same level, quite quickly you're going to get some students doing very well and some doing not so well. Some of that will be effort, some will be natural ability, some will be the fact that they have a private coach (who will be teaching things slightly differently from you, leading your student to question your abilities as a coach in some cases). This is a classic question for all teachers. How to teach the matierial so that you reach the bottom (or near the bottom at least, some people are hopeless) of the class, while still providing a challenge to the top students. Hopefully your captains will do a good job for you as assistant coaches, but that will take careful managing on your part. I've had student assistants in the classroom many times (not fencing). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

One other thing to think about is motivation. Are they getting a grade and PE credit? Are some people going to get varsity letters and others won't? Do some people get to travel to tournaments while others don't? Who chooses those things? How? With that many students those could be tricky. A couple of years ago we had a tennis coach who was more interested in the men's than the women's team. So one year he asked the women whether they wanted to have a tournament to see how people were ranked (who played #1 etc.) or whether they should just stick with the rankings that they had in the previous year. Women who wanted to have a internal tournament felt like they couldn't vote for it (it was an open vote) or else they would look like they were too aggressive/not team players. So they stuck with the old rankings, some folks were bitter about that, and then they ultimately quit the team.

Tomas

[IanSerotkin]

Hey, one thing I forgot to ask:

Are you allowed to cut athletes? Cutting down to 50 would probably make your job a whole lot easier. If it's a Varsity program, I'd probably cut even further and move some to JV.

[Allen Evans]

Coach Vinnie Bradford (in Texas) wrote a paperback manual on teaching fencing to groups. She has ideas for lessons and drills from beginners up to the pre-and early-bouting stages.

You definately need to get this manual if you can.

Allen

[Five Rings]

For what its worth, I started fencing in a similar program in another country - I think we started with 90-100 students. Basically we were kept doing footwork without weapons for about a month (anyone remember the calf/shin muscle pain the day after?), then provided dowels in lieu of actual weapons for another month, before we were finally given weapons. Even then, we didn't bout/free fence until about 4 or 5 months after we started. By that time, there were about 25 students left, of which about 12 eventually went on to fence on a longer term basis (myself included - 25th year now). Point I am trying to make is that fencing is one of those sports that many people, kids especially, take up because of some misguided sense of romanticism (or to impress their friends), and then they find that it is hard work, and the ones who are there for the wrong reasons (i.e., can't go to the next level or commit to it), will tend to drop out anyway. I am not sure if RITfencer is able/intends to retain all of his/her students, but it would seem that this problem he/she faces is probably going to abate over time.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by IanSerotkin

Hey, one thing I forgot to ask:

Are you allowed to cut athletes? Cutting down to 50 would probably make your job a whole lot easier. If it's a Varsity program, I'd probably cut even further and move some to JV.

Nope. The only way I'm allowed to cut is to make practice so gruelling that people quit. Eastern European style sounds better every day...

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Allen Evans

Coach Vinnie Bradford (in Texas) wrote a paperback manual on teaching fencing to groups. She has ideas for lessons and drills from beginners up to the pre-and early-bouting stages.

You definately need to get this manual if you can.

Allen

Allen, do you know if that manual is for all three weapons, and do you know where I can find a copy? Thanks.

I tried to rep you, but I need to spread some more around first.

[RITFencing]

On the subject of cuts, I'm not sure I have it in me to turn away anyone who actually wants to learn to fence. Those who are just there to BS, however...

[Tomas N]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Allen, do you know if that manual is for all three weapons, and do you know where I can find a copy? Thanks.

I tried to rep you, but I need to spread some more around first.

It's for foil, available at American Fencing.

Tomas

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Tomas N

It's for foil, available at American Fencing.

Tomas

Awesome. If I had to pick just one weapon, it would be foil.

For the book, that is. If I had to pick just one weapon for life: epee, epee, epee!