Competitive experience PRIOR to coaching

[Allen Evans]

Originally Posted by Garrison

If you don't see a point in responding, then please don't. If you find my questions too pedestrian, then please feel free to ignore them.

(laughing) but your complaint about the thread being ignored was why I responded!

Don't be discouraged...you made an honest effort to start a dialogue about something you were curious about, and that's what the forum is for. Just remember that there are some BIG questions out there too, and we'd all love to talk about them.

AE

[Garrison]

Hi Keith,
Thanks for the note and the clarification. I'm with you 100% in thinking that serious and competitive mean different things to different people.

Take care,
Mike

[Chafunkta]

I would say that being a serious fencer is a requirement for being a good coach; being a competitive fencer is not.

My definitions:

Serious fencer: One that has involved himself/herself deeply into fencing, that has put a lot of thought into tactical work and technique.

Competitive fencer: One that's getting good results in competitions.


Being a competitive fencer means you must be able to very quickly apply technical knowledge that you have about fencing, and you must be comfortable on the strip.

When a coach teaches they have to slow down what actions they know in order to explain them to students. Some competitive fencers have trouble slowing things down for students. Coaches have to understand technique and tactics so well that they can convey their knowledge to students. This understanding is what came out of them being a "serious" fencer.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Allen Evans

(laughing) but your complaint about the thread being ignored was why I responded!
Don't be discouraged...you made an honest effort to start a dialogue about something you were curious about, and that's what the forum is for. Just remember that there are some BIG questions out there too, and we'd all love to talk about them.
AE

Hi Allen,
Thanks again for your posts. Yes indeed, the BIG questions. You're right of course. Personally, I value few things more than a great conversation, so I'll keep an eye out for the big questions and important topics on fencing.net.

Thanks again,
Mike

[oiuyt]

Gary Copeland, by his own assessment, was never a successful competitor.

Joe Pechinsky was never a fencer and taught himself how to teach fencing. With some successes (granted no Olympic team member students in the past 15 years, but prior to that...).

Emil Beck was already mentioned by Allen.

Hardly unique to fencing. Charlie Weis (Head Coach ND football, earned 4 Superbowl rings before that (1 with the Giants, 3 with the Pats)) never played the game in college. Started coaching immediately after graduation.

I'd imagine that other sports have similar examples.

-B

[jBirch]

One other question to add...

Is it important to note your coaching pedigree? Who coached you to coach, as it were, rather then your competitive fencing pedigree?

James.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by jBirch

One other question to add...

Is it important to note your coaching pedigree? Who coached you to coach, as it were, rather then your competitive fencing pedigree?

James.

Hi James,
Thanks for the post. I think both coaching and fencing pedigrees are important. However, I think the importance of these histories decrease as you train more fencers.

Allen mentioned that Emil Beck had little to no fencing experience and no formal training as a coach, yet produced many great fencers. I didn't know that about Beck, but would tend to think that he's an exception, rather than the rule.

Brad, as well, considered fencing and coaching to be very different skills having little to do with each other. If my paraphrasing has been unfair to their positions, I'm sure they'll correct me.

I just wish I could get my head around how someone who’s never picked up a foil can teach someone else how to fence.

It's not like fencing is ubiquitous in this culture and some bits of fencing wisdom “rub off” on you. For example, I’ve never been arrested, but I know the Miranda rights from watching cop shows. In much the same way I know that when attacking a Borg vessel, you need to randomize your phaser harmonics. The Borg will still adapt, but it will take them marginally longer to do so. Perhaps Beck was Borg and he assimilated the fencing knowledge of George Santelli and Csaba Elthes.

Mike

[darius]

I just wish I could get my head around how someone who’s never picked up a foil can teach someone else how to fence.

I don't think anybody who's never picked up a foil can teach somebody to fence.

You don't necessarily need to be an elite competitor to coach well; having a competitive background in some sport probably helps.

Ultimately, a coach has to impart to their students "how to fence." There's a host of technical and tactical elements that go into that, but if you grok how the game is played at a higher level, you can probably reverse-engineer much of that. (This speaks to why the greatest fencers aren't the always greatest coaches; if the qualities that make one a good fencer just come naturally, it's harder to pass those on to others.)

In a way, I'm almost glad that I had no formal coaching training before I started coaching - it forced me to look very hard at the game, and reverse-engineer it on my own. That's a valuable thought process that actually made me a better competitor, even though I trained far less over the last two years than I did during the 3-4 years before that.

darius