Fencing Families?

[Heisenberg]

Out of the blue, my 8-yr old daughter (now 11) asked me to teach her to fight with a sword. Ok, not out of the blue. I had obviously passed on my love of fantasy literature and Legend of Zelda video games. We found a listing for the local club, but had problems making contact. Then, within a week of the original conversation, we ran into the local club giving a demonstration at a charity event we were participating in. I was hooked after my first lunge, and my daughter as soon as she scored a point on me.

The younger daughter, now 9, has participated, but does not have the fire. Mom has no sporting inclinations.

My oldest has no desire to be in any other sport. We are both foil, but anything could happen.

But, if you want family stories, you have to know our coach. She started fencing before she had kids. She now has 8 kids, ages 6-18 that all fence! At any given practice 3-5 of her kids are there. Every now and then, we have all of them. Several of our other teen fencers might as well be her kids, for the time they spend with her.

Our club also has 2 other parent/child pairs, and has had several brothers/sisters and cousins in the past few years.

I think family is a huge part of the fencing experience.

[Asprin]

Originally Posted by Dedigan

Wow! These are great stories. Thanks to everyone for sharing! With this much family participation I think there is hope for mine.

From these stories it seems like there wasn't much coercion or convincing needed. Is that indeed the case?

We're so busy these days it almost seems like there isn't room for another activity on my wife's or kids' schedules.

I just have to tell my Dad I want to fence him and find his kit and then get Mum to convince him to go get beaten. Having a family member who also fences can be really great since you can practice with them, its eeven better when they are left-handed (I'm right-handed).

[sleepyweasle]

My oldest had broken a bone in her foot and had to give up ballet - she saw a photo in the local newspaper of our girl's high school fencing team and said "OK - I want to do that!" 4 years later she was captain of the HS team and commanded my youngest (who, despite just earning her black belt in Karate, was becoming disenchanted with the martial arts - mainly because she was now in a class made up of all adults) "Start fencing sabre -all our good sabreists are graduating." (The oldest now fences for her varsity team in college and the youngest - well I brag enough about her!)

The rest is history...and my husband has become the default HS team armourer and runs our division's web site. Me? I've begged my kids to be able to start fencing - just for fun- but they are both STRONGLY OPPOSED!!! They need their own thing I guess.

[The Grim Reber]

My husband and I met at fencing club in college. When I was on a foreign exchange program, people kept e-mailing me about how they had this new cocky young fencer who needed to lose for his own good, and that they were looking forward to me coming back to take care of it. Fourteen years later, and I STILL can't beat him! Still trying, though.

[daveappr]

I've been involved with fencing for the last 26 years, I have two daughters who fence and a son who fences as well. My wife dabbles now and then- she really just doesn't have the time. I enjoy our time together at tournaments, both my girls fence epee so they have PLENTY of advice for me when I'm not doing so well, and my son fences sabre- he also has plenty of advice to give.......

[FencingKitten]

Risto, June, and Tommi Hurme.

Kelly, Courtney, Traci, and possibly other Hurleys.

The twins from Gold Blade in Dallas, whose names are escaping me, but will be provided by KD5MDK in the morning if no one beats him to it.

KD5MDK and I met in our college fencing club, went from meet to keep in under 7 days, and two and a half years later are still going

[KD5MDK]

Christa and Kayley French are the twins from Gold Blade in the above post.

[epeeinacup666]

Originally Posted by FencingKitten

Risto, June, and Tommi Hurme.

Kelly, Courtney, Traci, and possibly other Hurleys.

The twins from Gold Blade in Dallas, whose names are escaping me, but will be provided by KD5MDK in the morning if no one beats him to it.

KD5MDK and I met in our college fencing club, went from meet to keep in under 7 days, and two and a half years later are still going

Let's not forget about Edward and Kristiina Hurme,as well!

[schlager7]

I met my wife at our fencing club. I was a newbie and she had been fencing for a few years.

In my division:

August Skopik and his three sons come to mind first.

Daniel Trapani's father, Bill, rarely fences anymore but was attending veterans events only a few years ago. He still runs a small fencing club in our division in the suburbs northwest of Houston.

Oleksii Ivanov now largely just coaches and referees. His son, Dymtri, fences and referees.

Sabina Bazarbayeva coaches and her daughter is fine epeeiste and frequent competitor.

Dan and Liz Gorman both fence and Dan has been a referee. He has been focusing more on coaching of late.

Stephanie Wheeler fences nationally and her mom, Suzette, is a fairly active veteran fencer.

The more I think about it, I'd guess a large portion of the fencers in my division are related to another fencer somehow.

[Inquartata]

This is a trend of long standing. Santellis, Nadis, et al.

There are at least 3 Zagunises fencing sabre. The Jaconsons have been mentioned already, and there is also a cousin in that clan fencing sabre. And if you search the FRED referee database for "Loomis" you will get about 6 or 7 names, all from the same Division so almost certainly the same family.

My experience seems to be the opposite of most detailed on this thread---I am the only fencer, and my brother does or has done almost every sport you can name but carefully avoids fencing...I think because I do it...

[hello?]

My oldest daughter fenced sabre just for one season in high school and didn't really like it. My youngest daughter started fencing sabre a bit later, in her sophomore year, and I started fencing epee a bit over three years ago. At my current club, there are at least four or five fencing families with at least one parent (in two cases, both parents) picking it up after their kids did and getting competitive (NAC-level). I am amazed at how many names I recognize at veteran's events from having seen them in junior events. I fenced the 'elder' Hurme in Richmond at vet we and then watched her son fence against my daughter's school a couple of weekends ago at the Ivy Championships...I think it's great.

[BrianH]

[quote=Inquartata;535874]There are at least 3 Zagunises fencing sabre. QUOTE]

I have fenced Merrick, Martin, Mariel and their father Robert, all in sabre. I've also fenced Michael, Robert and Bill Marx, and their mother Colleen Olney.

[Grasshopper]

I've never fenced a whole family, but if I did, I would probably use a sabre. They could come at you from all angles so slashing would work better than thrusting, IMHO.

[Pauli]

My brother used to be an excellent fencer (sabre) at University.
I never saw him do this, there's a bit of an age difference between him and me.
My dad used to do it when he was with the marines.
Other family members I don't know - am not that much in touch with them to know. Too many of them and I'm too far away (well, not really.....but.......)

And now it's me.
Though, my decision to start fencing sure came up independetly from influence of above family members. Unless this happened unconsciously. Hypnosis would proof.

[KD5MDK]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

I've never fenced a whole family, but if I did, I would probably use a sabre. They could come at you from all angles so slashing would work better than thrusting, IMHO.

Well, they'd be somewhat confined by the 1.5-2m wide strip...

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by jenna930

My grandmother fenced in college, but then quit. When my dad was little, his dad was a firefighter, and one of the other firefighters happened to be a fencing coach. He asked if my dad and his two brothers wanted to try it, and they've been fencing (on and off) ever since...

Fast forward about 20 or so years.. and you get me and my brother and sister. My dad decided to come back to fencing after a hiatus, and brought us along. Now he's our coach and opened his own club with his two brothers.

So I guess we qualify as a fencing family... =)

Speaking of fencing families... The coach mentioned in this story is Joe Pechinsky, and his story is actually a family one, too. He never actually fenced, but rather taught himself to coach fencing at the request of his niece, Sally. In 1968, she became his first Olympian. He went on to put a student on every team from 1968-1992.

-m

[fencerbill]

[quote=BrianH;536042]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

There are at least 3 Zagunises fencing sabre. QUOTE]

I have fenced Merrick, Martin, Mariel and their father Robert, all in sabre. I've also fenced Michael, Robert and Bill Marx, and their mother Colleen Olney.

Bill Marx was probably the hardest to collect. Did you fence the Marxes in Sabre? I know Michael and Robert have fenced both Foil and Epee nationally, wouldn't be surprised if they were on Gold Medal National teams in both weapons. By the time I started to go to Nationals, Bill was not active there.

Robert Hurley is another. Primarily a Pentathlete, he has been to a least one Vets Worlds in Epee.

[fencerbill]

The Chang family from Lexington, Mass. Greg was alternate in Foil at Athens, Tim represented Stanford and Heidi represented Wellesleyat the NCAAs, and Fritz has recently been at Veterans NACs and SN.

[shinekomi]

Other families that come to mind:

The Amelis (Nevada) who were featured in an American Fencing Magazine article a while back. Cynthia and Sean are Vet fencers, while Kian and Nik-Nik are competitive in the national and international level. It's funny that the latter also fences foil in an otherwise dominantly epee family.

The Pathis (also from Nevada) who are close friends of the Amelis. Kathleen is a Vet fencer, Ashok is fencing for UCSD and Narayan also a competitive Cadet fencer. I believe the story behind this is one of the kids got interested and sucked the rest into it.

The Runyans (San Diego). Heidi was a WF vet team member, Josh was a Vet 40 National Champion and Jason and Jeremy represent UCSD. Josh and Heidi met in college and haven't stopped fencing ever since.

I've heard stories of students falling for their instructors and hooking up. That's how my friends hooked up and now they're engaged. Good times, good times.

[Katman]

My girlfriend and I both fence and we're living together in sin. Do we still count?

It's so nice having someone close to you that's also interested in the sport.