Coaching: Dealing with large groups of high schoolers

[RITFencing]

I was recently hired as the head girl's coach of a high school fencing team (job starts in the winter) of a school with a very large program. The boys and girls practice together and there are over 100 of them. Most high school fencers in the area are bad fencers, and are trained to be bad fencers. I'm confident that I could help them out skill wise in a smaller group, but one so large is going to spread my attention pretty thin. There are three other coaches, two of whom with skills that I'm not quite sure of.

I'd really like to give these kids a solid background at the very least, because I remember being a product of the NJ high school fencing league and I also remember spending a lot of time, money and effort afterwards when I found out that what I was taught was really terrible fencing.

For those of you out there who have experience with groups of this size and general makeup, what are:

A) Techniques you found useful in keeping the kids happy, motivated and busy?

B) Skills you focussed on teaching the kids and generally helpful drills/ways of teaching them?

C) General makeup of a successful practice? (ie what % spent in warmup, what in drills, what in bouting, etc)

D) Any other helpful info you're willing to share?

I don't just want these kids to be succesful on the local circuit, I want them to learn to actually fence and put them in a good stead to continue fencing in the USFA and/or NCAA after they graduate, and if possible achivee some success in USFA competition while still in high school. I think that if they can do well in reasonably strong cadet/junior/open competition, the NJ HS league shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

As a side note, I will also be encouraging them to seek extra help and private lessons at some of the nearby (more reputable) clubs.

[IanSerotkin]

This may sound bizzare, but having come from a high school fencing environment like this, the best advice I can give you is: Distract them from fencing for as long as humanly possible.

By this I mean: Run practice like a slave driver. Have them run laps for miles. Have them do hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups. Work on footwork, footwork, footwork, footwork, and footwork. Work on bladework, bladework, bladework, bladework, and bladework. Have the other coaches correcting every single technical error they can find in the students' actions, every single time they see something to be improved upon. Every once in a while, throw them a bone with a fun game at end of practice.

The students will hate you. They will hate you with every ounce of their being. But they will get in shape, and they will lose or forget most of their bad habits because they're too busy hating you and actually focusing on the proper technical aspects of fencing.

Then, one day after about a month of this, you sit down and in an academic-style setting, you spend an entire practice bringing all the disparate elements you've been working on together. You start talking about things like right-of-way, timing, tempo, intention, distance. Ideally I'd hold off on this even longer, but the demands of the rapid high-school season don't really allow for that.

Once you've built a solid foundation, then you can start having traditional practices with a mixture of PT, footwork, bladework, bouting, and tactics. For the first month I'd recommend 50% PT, 30% footwork, 20% bladework. By the end of the season it's probably an even 20% split between the five categories.

A few other random thoughts...

If possible, have Saturday practices where you allow bouting the entire time with minimal interference. These will surpisingly become your most popular practices and will give the kids something to look forward to.

If you've got a few high-potential students or experienced students, encourage them to go to a local club (one that you recommend) once a week to see the "outside world" of fencing. The #1 problem with high school fencing, as you mention, is that it's largely a self-contained world and they don't understand that what they're doing may be wrong.

[SJB]

How long are the classes?

How many students per class?

[KD5MDK]

Do boys and girls fence separately in competitions? Are you doing all 3 weapons? (Can you coach all three weapons?)

[RITFencing]

Each practice is between 1.5 and 2 hours long, and barring meets, holidays, etc meets every weekday, plus any saturdays I can get the gym. I am competent to coach epee and will be working with darius wei up in rochester and possibly one of the coaches at RFC to bring my foil game up to speed just in case we can't find a foil coach. The boys head coach is our defacto sare coach, and the two assistants we have so far are epeeists. Competitions are gender segregated, only practices are integrated.

EDIT: Yes, the competitions are in all 3 weapons; same style as an NCAA dual meet. There will be between 100 and 150 kids per practice at first, probably tapering off to the 90-110 range towards the end of the year.

[AndrewH]

I was talking with an alum who coaches a HS team in NJ. He said that at the beginning of the year, he tells his kids "there's two types of people in this sport. Athletes, and fencers. And I don't want any fencers on my team".

I agree with doing plenty of conditioning at the beginning of the season, the ones who aren't dedicated will drop out and you'll be left with some dedicated individuals who are in good shape and ready to actually learn some fencing.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

I was talking with an alum who coaches a HS team in NJ. He said that at the beginning of the year, he tells his kids "there's two types of people in this sport. Athletes, and fencers. And I don't want any fencers on my team".

I agree with doing plenty of conditioning at the beginning of the season, the ones who aren't dedicated will drop out and you'll be left with some dedicated individuals who are in good shape and ready to actually learn some fencing.

I think I know who you're talking about, and if I'm right he's one of the assistants. I agree with the idea of doing plenty of conditioning, but I disagree with the idea that he doesn't want any fencers on the team. Fencing skill and athleticism are not mutually exclusive, and fencing is a great way to build athletic ability, as anyone who has ever done intensive footwork drills can tell you.

[KD5MDK]

I think by "fencers" the meaning is "bandana wearers", FWIW.

[keith]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

I think by "fencers" the meaning is "bandana wearers", FWIW.

to misappropriate a biblical reference; perhaps a basket of bandanas at the door then reject all those who put one on?

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

I think by "fencers" the meaning is "bandana wearers", FWIW.

In most circumstances, I would agree with you. Here, I'm honestly not so sure.

[keith]

So are you going to be judged by participation or results?

....kinda makes a difference as to which way you go with the training regime..

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by keith

So are you going to be judged by participation or results?

....kinda makes a difference as to which way you go with the training regime..

Good point. I'll be judged by results, but it's a very young program and they're hard up for coaches. Honestly, though, I care less about how the administration judges me and more about how the kids learn to fence. I'm not exactly in this for riches and fame.

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

I think by "fencers" the meaning is "bandana wearers", FWIW.

Bullseye.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

Bullseye.

If that's the case with the person you're talking about, I totally take it back, and I agree wholeheartedly. Of course, I'd agree with any club/team I taught at, not just a high school one.

[jBirch]

100 Fencers? That's a ridiculous amount. 100 at a time or do you get them in waves?

Assuming you need to deal with 100 students all at once, general athletics is a good place to start, with warm up, stretching and footwork all done as one big massive, giant, group. Expect lots of goofing off especially with boys and girls mixed together. There will be probably 90 students in that class that would really rather be elsewhere.

Don't spend more then 15 minutes on that giant group part of the class.

You could also run station drills where you have targets at one station, footwork at another, a game or two at another, some athletic stuff at another,etc...

You need enough activities at each station that the fencers are occupied. Standing around time in this sort of situation is absolutely deadly. You can't have any for any reason or things will get out of hand quickly. The key to making this work is that for however long that you have them, they never stop moving or doing.

No academic theory stuff. No explanations unless absolutely necessary. Just lots and lots and lots of games and/or activities. You can't answer questions either.

Hope this helps.

James.

[RITFencing]

Yes, it is an insane amount to deal with. They'll be split up by weapon, but without more coaches we can't afford to split them any further. If we had one coach for each gender/weapon combination, that would become much more manageable. Do you have any ideas for footwork drills/games to keep large numbers of people active and busy? I think one of the big problems I'll be dealing with is people wasting time because the coach can't be everywhere at once, and my prefered method of dealing with that problem is to try and keep them as interested in doing the work as I can.

EDIT: And yes, they are all in the gym at the SAME TIME.

[Bryn Ralph]

I recommend Laszlo Szabo's work entitled Fencing and the Master which contains pedagogical, methodological, psychological and tactical advice for students and coaches.

And, I must add,that Ian Sertokin's approach is quite viable.

[jBirch]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Yes, it is an insane amount to deal with. They'll be split up by weapon, but without more coaches we can't afford to split them any further. If we had one coach for each gender/weapon combination, that would become much more manageable. Do you have any ideas for footwork drills/games to keep large numbers of people active and busy? I think one of the big problems I'll be dealing with is people wasting time because the coach can't be everywhere at once, and my prefered method of dealing with that problem is to try and keep them as interested in doing the work as I can.

EDIT: And yes, they are all in the gym at the SAME TIME.

Wow! Sucks to be you man.

Couple of ideas (though I've really got nothing for you):

1) Target practice. You can probably have 10-30 fencers at a time (depending on the size of your space) doing actions on the target dummies. Attack, attack with lunge, disengage, double disengage, feint-attacks. All four target locations (high left/right, low left/right).

2) Standing on one leg and doing parry transitions.

3) 10 strips occupy 30 fencers (2 fencing and 1 referreeing).

4) Glove tag. (Both fencers take a glove and then use proper footwork to score touches on each other. A swipe indicates ROW shifts to the defending fencer)

5) Can you divide them into skill levels? Have the more advanced kids teach the newbies the basics? Then you just have to focus on teaching the advanced kids and your life got a whole lot easier.

6) A set of basic drills per weapon that you don't really need to monitor (attacks/stop hits to the arm in epee, parry riposte in sabre/foil)? Then you just get them to pair up and perform the drills. When they're done, they go to the next drill.

7) Do what Ian recommends and just run them into the ground. If they puke, yay.

James.

[I_luv_saber]

Wow... that's a lot. Largest for me was just over 50. I agree with most said here though... work them hard. And the stations idea works really well, at least with the group we had it did. Although, until they get the hang of it, rotations can be a bit confusing and a pain.

Standing around time in this sort of situation is absolutely deadly. You can't have any for any reason or things will get out of hand quickly. The key to making this work is that for however long that you have them, they never stop moving or doing.

Agreed. Them doing nothing is absolutely no good. At all. Which is why the station system works pretty well... it's hard work, they are working constantly, but they get to do different things. Be sure they are always doing something.
And I do agree they will, and should, hate you... at least at first. But later, it normally turns into more of a respect (or should) or maybe even admiration than sheer hate alone. With a smaller group, it may be different, but such a large group...
Also, as previously said, any advanced students, or if you have a few with previous experience, they should become sort of student "leaders". Use them to help you out... most of the time, as long as you keep a tight rein on them, they will not only be helpful, but gain some sort of loyalty for trusting them with the responsibility.
Not really much new to say... but good luck, and let me know if I can do anything to help.