Best foil club in New Jersey

[doctahn]

Which fencing club would you guys recommend for young foil fencers? I have two sons who've been fencing for about 5 years and they are both nationally ranked in their age categories. We are planning on moving to central New Jersey area pretty soon. Any inputs?

[edew]

Well, this thread sorta fizzled out.

To put my worthless $0.02 in, I think the best thing is to see what is nearest to you. There are a number of very good clubs in NJ and joining almost any of them will do your kids a great bit of help. I think the better consideration, in that case, is location. Also, don't forget to look into Philadelphia, northeast Pennsylvania, NY and event possibly Delaware or Maryland (although I don't know of any great clubs in either of those states...that are close to NJ).

[dridge]

Recently there has been a tremendous increase in the number of fencing clubs in central New Jersey. As a result, there are many opportunities.

However, new outfits (even with coaches of distinguished pedigree) will necessarily have a short "track record" with respect to fencer development. While some new people have been recruited, there has been some "dilution," so some of the clubs seem pretty small.

There are true "foil clubs" as well as three-weapon salles with strong foil instruction and competition cadres.

I'd look around.

[sabermom]

We live in Central Jersey, in the Princeton area, and divide our time between FASJ in Cherry Hill and Mr. Ma Fencing in Hillsborough (you can learn about both clubs at www.fasj.com). There are a ton of really terrific clubs here, and you can find links to most of them at njfencing.org. I'd like to think that most of our fencers (mainly foil and saber) are happy with our club; Medeo in Bridgewater and BCAF in Lambertville are other good clubs to try. I think one good way to choose would be to visit each club to get a feel for the personalities and the program. Each club also has a winter camp program (the week after Christmas). If you're interested in observing the program at Hillsborough, stop by on MWF from 7-9pm; for Cherry Hill, visit Tues or Thurs from 5-7pm or Sat from 1-4pm.

Hope this helps, and welcome to Central Jersey!

[rsy]

doctahn -

A lot depends on what town you will be moving to.

"Central Jersey" is not so much a specific area of the state, as a concept relative to where you live. It can therefore end up referring to a large area, north, south, east & west, and there are perhaps 10-20 clubs in that area. If you can give us a better idea of what town you will be moving to, I am sure that there will be a number of recommendations that can be made.

I am the tournament chair for the NJ Division, so please feel free to email me if you wish.

-r