How best to become a fencing teacher/coach?

[Durando]

Do you not agree that competitive experience and success can play a role in determining the ability of the coach?

And yeah, a lesson sometime would be great. I could learn stuff from you.

I think competitive success for a coach is overemphasized. It is a good indicator, but certainly not the sole one. Here I am talking through my hat, however. I'm not yet in a place where I can legitimately call myself a coach. I think for the original poster's purposes (wanting to become a coach) going abroad would kill about fifty birds with one stone. Warrensburg, MO is a backwater of a backwater. Even moving to Chicago wouldn't help matters that much in objective terms.

I actually think a lot about this question. I sense I'm coming to an impasse in my competitive life (such as it is) and wonder if some energy wouldn't be better spent in study. I do know of one guy in our region who is really no great shakes as an épée fencer, but who is turning into a rather good teacher. I wonder where his enthusiasm comes from, because as far down as I might be, he is that much farther down. Competitions cannot be gratifying for him.

Drop me a line any time you want to come to town!

[TooLoftheDeviL]

Rick - I agree on all points. As an "E"-ranked fencer in small-town Nebraska where nothing existed, I started teaching a year ago. Now we've got a club of around a dozen members - and yes, some of the guys can beat me now and are looking for the next level.

We're going to local tournaments and getting a lot of advice that we are using to improve. Only a minority of "real" coaches have shown anything less than a helpful attitude in regards to our efforts. They recognize that any effort to grow the sport is good for fencing.

Why discourage anyone from pursuing coaching, competing, refereeing or any fencing-related activity?

I don't think that anyone was trying to discourage anyone else from pursuing coaching, just suggesting that maybe the best thing a fencer without much competitive success might to do improve their coaching skills is work with more coaches to improve their own fencing.

This would be where I would put myself in terms of my development as a fencing coach. In the meantime, I get to work with the students here at school as well and so I do get to put in some hours of coaching experience. I would feel under prepared to establish myself as the coach of a club right now, though.

[AdamH]

How about join the armed forces, train as a PT instructor and you can teach/coach all sorts of things.

[Ordway]

I'd have to agree with the posters who suggested getting more competitive success first. This isn't an elitist thing; it's just that it really does make a difference to be able to explain why such-and-such works, or to know experientially what a correct parry-riposte feels like vs. when it's incorrect.

Even if you don't have a lot of competitive success, at least competitive experience will help - at high enough levels so that you can see what the top fencers are doing, and teach that, even if you can't do it yourself.

If you are a beginning fencer who wants to be a coach, I agree wholeheartedly with the posters who suggested working with an experienced coach. ABSOLUTELY! You can teach a beginner class or work with new people in the club, with the benefit of guidance and correction. Watch the coach give lessons; watch what he/she does for group drills; take lessons yourself.

FWIW, my experience has been that I cannot coach up to the level that I am at; that is, I can do more than I can teach. I have a B and I would say that I am capable of coaching someone up to an E or D level. My goal is to give my students a solid, basic foundation, with minimal bad habits, so that I can pass them along to other, better coaches who can build them up from there. (I coach a small club at a community college, and some of my fencers have transferred into club or NCAA fencing programs.)

[jjefferies]

I hate to break it to you, but a two year old E rating isnt anything to brag about. Its an accomplishment, but this whole thing will go better if you achieve some more competitive success. You don't want your students mopping you off the strip after 6 months..

I think this is a place where more information is necessary. As an aside my favorite coach's highest competitive rating was "C". But he makes an excellent coach. And many "A"s are not at all suitable for coaching. So much so that I would submit that coaching fencing and fencing are not the same thing. And an "E" rating while in college in Missouri probably is not indicative of a skill level. Collegiate fencers quite often do not participate at USFA sanctioned tournaments. So unless told otherwise I would assume the rating is more indicative of a lack of participation in USFA sanctioned tournaments.

[darius]

Fencing grows and evolves yearly (thanks, Rene!), so to understand that you need to learn how to watch it from as many perspectives as possible. Knowing what referees are looking for is a good start.

On the flight back from Koblenz, I was talking to a foilist about referee mistakes, and how fencers craft actions that convince the opponent that they're stopping, drawing the counterattack, whereas the referee sees the tempo change as part of a continuous attack. Seeing it from an outsider's perspective is important, but knowing how that action feels as a competitor should help in crafting a lesson that either teaches the student how to evoke the action or defend against it.

That said, competitive experience is just one more tool. It can be a useful tool or a crutch.

Ultimately, the goal of coaching is to teach people to fence. You can get there in a lot of different ways.

darius

[c3l2vantes]

How about join the armed forces, train as a PT instructor and you can teach/coach all sorts of things.

PT is over-rated. most ppl in the army are slackers and dont do squat in PT. (i got a 274 on my last PT test so :P ) and anyone can lead PT, most platoons rotate it

[OROD]

Competitive success is certainly not everything when it comes to coaching, but it really does help. As a coach you need to be able to understand how your students will learn and what problems they might have. These are things you will learn yourself as you try to get more competitive success. Also, it's going to be hard to get students and other fencers/coaches to respect you if the best rating you ever earned is an E. Hell, I'm not sure I've ever even seen an E that could do a proper lunge. It's hard to teach it if you cant show a student how it's done.

.

[bjacobs]

It's possible to coach people to a higher level than you have reached yourself competitively. I'm sure we can all think of examples of that, Yury Gelman is the first person to spring to my mind as far as that's concerned. There are lots of personal attributes that go into competitive success that are not necessary for coaching.

But you can't coach to a level higher than you understand fencing. And to a large extent your past competitive experience will define how well you understand fencing. You don't have to place in the top 8 of national tournaments, but you need to be at the national tournaments, competing with some top competitors so you know what it looks like to fence them, what your students are going to see and experience, or at the very least train with them at their clubs. You need to know what actions work at the level at which you'd have your students reach, how the referees make their calls, what they see and think. You need to know what the coaches with successful students are teaching their students, what they're telling them on the strip, what their lessons look like, and so on and so forth.

It's been mentioned before and may sound mean, but this is reality talking: if you're proud of your E, you probably don't know a lot about fencing yet. You don't have these experiences. If you're really committed to coaching, go and get them. Is there a particular weapon you want to coach in? Move somewhere there's a strong club (by national standards) and start training with a top coach. If you can't qualify to compete nationally, work hard on becoming a referee and get paid to travel to NAC's and keep your eyes open. Tell the coach at your new club of your ambitions and see what advice he has for you, perhaps he might be willing to give you lessons on giving lessons.

I don't know the first thing about coach's college, perhaps that's useful, perhaps it's not, poll people here who have gone. At the least you can get a certification to hang up somewhere one day.

My advice is based on the assumption that you want to be a GOOD coach, not that you just one day want to have a club out in the boonies and get some students. I'm sure there are easier ways to become some sort of fencing coach somewhere. I mean, I used to teach beginner classes at the Boston Fencing Club sometimes, so believe me anyone can do it, but I'd never have dared call myself a coach.

[Timberwolf_CY]

I think competitive success for a coach is overemphasized. It is a good indicator, but certainly not the sole one. Here I am talking through my hat, however. I'm not yet in a place where I can legitimately call myself a coach. I think for the original poster's purposes (wanting to become a coach) going abroad would kill about fifty birds with one stone. Warrensburg, MO is a backwater of a backwater. Even moving to Chicago wouldn't help matters that much in objective terms.

I actually think a lot about this question. I sense I'm coming to an impasse in my competitive life (such as it is) and wonder if some energy wouldn't be better spent in study. I do know of one guy in our region who is really no great shakes as an épée fencer, but who is turning into a rather good teacher. I wonder where his enthusiasm comes from, because as far down as I might be, he is that much farther down. Competitions cannot be gratifying for him.

Drop me a line any time you want to come to town!

This is it exactly, only, if I REALLY wanted to compete, I could practice some and renew my E, and go considerably farther just on tactics alone (my indirect ripostes destroy people). It isn't as if I haven't renewed it before; I have: I first got it in 2005. I renewed it in 2006, but failed to renew or advance in 2007 because I spent most of my time teaching and coaching beginners of the sport in my university's club, of which, as I have mentioned, I was the president for years.

I think ratings and competitive experience is important; I mean, how am I supposed to coach someone in/for competition, if I haven't been there myself? On the other hand, I don't think it's overly important; there IS a real need for coaches to teach beginners, as has been mentioned.

And specifically to the armed forces idea: god would I love to do that. In fact, I have four years of JROTC in high school. Unfortunately I also have three chronic diseases, all of which bar me from service: asthma, diabetes, and bi-polar. So unfortunately, I can't do that.

Thanks again for all the viewpoints, ideas, and thoughtfulness everyone. Please continue the discussion if you can.

[Ordway]

This is it exactly, only, if I REALLY wanted to compete, I could practice some and renew my E, and go considerably farther just on tactics alone (my indirect ripostes destroy people).

You sound like you have a great attitude about this topic, which is good. Based on that, I am going to be kind of tough!

"If I wanted to, I could..." is no good. There is no way to know if that "if" is accurate unless you try. I mean, I can say all I want "If I really wanted to get my A, I could go to camps and train more," and that doesn't make it true.

Next, your statement about how much farther you are going says to me that you are probably in a very weak area or don't go to tough events. If your indirect ripostes destroy people, and you only have an E, you are not fencing good people. Sorry, but that's true. An E is not a very high rating. You can get an E by beating 5 unrated fencers. It is a stepping stone and if you are a beginner fencer it is a good thing to be earning and renewing your E, but it is not a high rating. I mean, back a few years ago I had an E in foil (I am a sabre fencer) and one of my teammates earned an E in epee on a lark (she is a sabrist who fences some foil).

Ratings don't tell the whole story, because of a variety of factors. So - are you competing nationally? Where do you place in Div III and Div II? Even if you are an E, if you are placing in the top third or so of Div II, consistently, then you're displaying that you are a solid competitive fencer.

If you want to see the best of the best, you need to earn your C so that you are eligible to fence in Div I. Div I is a learning experience par excellance. I have not performed well there, but I go to all the Div I NACs that I can, because to go 100% against the best in the nation helps push me to that next level.

It isn't as if I haven't renewed it before; I have: I first got it in 2005. I renewed it in 2006, but failed to renew or advance in 2007 because I spent most of my time teaching and coaching beginners of the sport in my university's club, of which, as I have mentioned, I was the president for years.

If you are only an E and you spend most of your time coaching beginners, you are in danger of falling into bad habits that you will pass on to your students - because you will only be seeing beginner fencers, and not the high-level fencing. You should always keep the high end in mind even when you are coaching beginners - otherwise you will be teaching them things that they have to unlearn later on.

I reffed a collegiate event this weekend, and one of the clubs got absolutely destroyed by another club, because they just didn't understand tempo or the fact that the attack ends when the foot lands. I felt a little sad for them - it was hard to see them trying the same thing over and over, and having the opponent consistently do one or two simple actions to defeat it - and I explained it to them afterwards. (They were very appreciative). If you aren't in an environment where the coaches and fencers know these things, teach them correctly, and call them correctly in bouts, when your students go out of that immediate environment to a more challenging one, they won't just get defeated - they'll get creamed and not even know why.

It is also important to know what high-level fencing requires, so that you don't accidentally let students develop bad habits. There are many little things that don't make a difference OR even give a slight edge when they are fencing other beginners, but as soon as they start to move up, they have to be unlearned. Unlearning bad habits is HARD and unpleasant. Trust me on this one. I had 12 years of bad habits when I started working with my current coach. It took a year, of weekly lessons with an outstanding coach, to get to the point where he could start teaching me new actions - first we had to get rid of all the junk. And, mind you, I had some small competitive success before I got there.

So it is with your students in mind that I am emphasizing the need for you to compete, improve, travel, get lessons, and work with an experienced coach. It may be that you don't end up having a lot of good results, but the experience of trying, over the course of a number of years, will help give you what you need to help your students.

[Timberwolf_CY]

Above.

You sound like you have a great attitude about this topic, which is good. Based on that, I am going to be kind of tough!

Thanks, I've been trying!

All points well-taken. Indeed, I have thought much about almost all the topics you have put forth before you ever wrote them down. Tempo is probably the thing I need to work into my lessons more, actually, but even then I don't think I'm too far off.

I am not bragging on my E rating; indeed far from it. I just wanted to give those that were posting some idea of my skill level.

And ifs are right. It is proving to oneself and everyone else that counts.

And no, my area's skill level is not that high. At KC's biggest tournaments, which MAY turn out 40 people for a given event, we MAY have one or two A's; this was only just last Spring. St. Louis is far worse. Having said that though, I earned my E at a D and Under tourney, and then renewed it at an Open tourney in KC, so like I said, it's not worthless, just not worth as much as other, greater hubs of fencing.

I probably do have bad stuff I need to work out, but as you say, without a good coach, there's no way to know what those things are.

Thank you for the shining critique, it was very valuable.