Grassroots Fencing

[jBirch]

Hey All,

So I had a very illuminating lunch with some of the guys from the office here and they had three comments I thought were insightful about growing fencing from the grassroots levels.

1) Around here there really isn't anything but the provincial circuit to compete on. One of the guys mentioned that we should just start up a recreational circuit that runs in parallel with the "real" circuit but that involves a lot of extra work, and I really hate work. In response to that, one of the guys mentioned the concept of "Poule Tournaments". Where the process of fencing the poules creates a set of different divisions. Fencers who get wiped out get to fence in the bottom division while fencers who clean up get to fence in the top division. Sort of like Double Elimination, but not.

2) I play World of Warcraft. One of the most insightful analogies I got was when I asked why the Tae Kwon Do guy played as much as he did (he was competing nationally). His answer? "To get the next ding." In Tae Kwon Do, a lot like in Karate, there is a belt leveling system with students having to pass tests to move up. Getting your belt was a non-competitive way to get your "ding" (get a reward) and thereby show some progress for your effort. The CFF has an armband program that nobody uses. I've started our own leveling system at the club and plan to hold tests once a semester. I'll let you know how it goes.

On that same analogy, one of the other features of WoW is the PvP experience where players compete to see who is better. There are rewards given out for success over time roughly analogous to the classic "fencer ladder" at the club (where all the bouts are recorded and the top fencer by virtue of adjusted victories is crowned). I plan to implement this as well.

3) In Tai Kwon Do one of the guys was mentioning that they used to sort the various categories in competitions fairly arbitrarily: ie// all the fighters that looked about equal were in the same category. What this ended up with was that about 75% of the participants got a medal of some sort. More medals = more retention. Hmmmmm. In WoW you spend a lot of time fighting monsters hoping for a "great drop". If you get a good seeding and get a good medal as a result of this sorting, it's a great drop isn't it? And it makes you want to keep going to competitions. Couple this with #1 and you could improve the competition experience substantially by simply giving out medals for Poule placement. Ie// You get a gold medal for coming in first in the Poules and another gold medal for coming first in the tableau.

Thoughts?