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Probulus · 10-09-2002, 04:45 AM

I fenced at a club that will remain nameless from the time I was 8 years old until the time I quit fencing at 15. I went to many, many NAC's and local tournaments. I was a very experienced fencer for my age, in my opinion. In all these competitions, I had never seen a coach yell so much as my own coach at competitions. He yelled at me for not eating enough at breakfast, he yelled at a friend for refusing food from his father, he yelled at me for losing a bout to an opponent with a handicap, he yelled and yelled and that is mainly the reason I stopped fencing. In the salle it was much of the same. I can remember a time when (seriously) he got very mad and cracked a bullwhip in the middle of the salle to get us running. He scremed at a 10 or 11 year old kid for attempting a flick in a practice bout. I was just wondering whethere or not this is common practice and that is what I should expect when I start up again (after 2 1/2 years) in a different place. I never asked to have a coach that was my best friend, but being reamed out as a 10 year old for corps-a-corps is a little much looking back. A question that one might ask was whether or not the yelling was effective? I don't know...but all the kids I grew up fencing with, all VERY promising fencers have since quit...many of them were ranked quite high, all of us were in fact, and it is a shame that most of us gave it up...some continued though. Maybe I'm making this out to be worse than it is...I'm not sure. It has made me very wary of fencing coaches though.

epeefencer74 · 10-09-2002, 06:38 AM

Probulus, I am sorry to hear about your experience. The coach I started out with, is now my good friend and mentor. I started at 13 and I am now 28. In that time I have had 3 coaches and not one of them yelled at me. I have had trainers who assist my coaches in terms of physical conditioning who were slave drivers, who yelled and profaned during training but were basically playing the devil's role in getting us fit. In competitions these trainers will never supercede my coach in any matter except cheerleading, and my coaches have very rarely yelled at anyone of us during comps except to cheer us or instruct us. Very very rarely in anger. Having said that I have seen instances where the coach does nothing but yell, male and female alike, yells at them for any infraction if he sees them, but I believe he is in the minority.

Now I have also become a coach, and I have to say that I don't have the patience of my own coaches, so I do yell at my students, but I try to restrict this as far as possible. Also after my outburst I'll take time to explain my frustration. During training I've taken to nagging

, it expands more energy, but it is more effective, just to shut me up my students will perform the exercise diligently

.

I do hope you'll reconsider your retirement and join us again in the fencing community.

Jason · 10-09-2002, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Probulus
A question that one might ask was whether or not the yelling was effective? I don't know...but all the kids I grew up fencing with, all VERY promising fencers have since quit...

You've already answered your own question about the effectiveness of that kind of "coaching".
Especially with children (though, really, with everyone), extreme negative reinforcement only demonstrates the ineptitude of the coach.

haggis · 10-09-2002, 06:45 PM

Hadn't really thought about it before but I'm pretty sure I've never yelled at any of the fencers I coach. I just can't imagine doing it. I know a few coaches that do and they mostly suffer the kind of drop-out rate that you describe.

edew · 10-09-2002, 07:35 PM

I used to do that once. I would never do that now. That would be economic suicide.

Purple Fencer · 10-09-2002, 08:10 PM

I would never scream at a fencer I was coaching. I don't do it in the beginning classes I run (Yes...Sam's teaching...foil & sabre. Scary, ain't it?)...I may get a little sarcastic (that's what I get for watching Derek Cotton teach), but screaming at my fencers is just not in me.

I may raise my voice suring a bout so they can hear me (as I did at LBI in the Sarah Bessel/Rebecca Moss women's foil DE), but that's another matter entirely.

Inquartata · 10-09-2002, 10:42 PM

But---by yelling that coach is only "relieving stress", "letting out tension", "focusing his chi", and "showing his emotions"! What could possibly be wrong with that?

135711 · 10-10-2002, 01:18 AM

your coach was horny and took it out on you. don't fence there. relocate and find another salle, there are many out there and you don't have to put up with his manic-depressive outbursts that were designed to draw you into an involvment. so, you're still very young and have a long fencing career ahead of you, you could put fencing on hold for a few years, believe it or not, it rests the muscles. all the information is there in the brain and can be retreived later on. take up running or something else for a couple of years, and then get back to the fencing 'grind'.

135711 · 10-10-2002, 01:34 AM

i'm not finished. you should have seen this one guy, whenever he described proper stances, he widened his legs and, using his hands in a spearlike, efficient motion, would point them in a 'v' like motion around his crotch. the screaming part was about another local coach, he would rant and rave and basically malign the other one so that no-one in the room could stand to listen anymore. i almost started a class action suit, but got busy with other stuff and didn't pursue it...

negative reinforcement vs positive reinforcement. negativae reinforcement enforces negative behavior by a system of reward. what you describe is beratement, and ususally it comes from people who don't know enough about their subject, or feel inferior about their performance and therefore they must act out violently in order to gain their control [gtc].

Mo · 10-10-2002, 03:31 AM

Prob,
There is no reason any time to put up with abuse to do a sport. Find someone who knows what they are doing. It can be difficult but it is well worth it.
No sport is worth dealing with an um (can we say "*******" on this board??)

Catlady · 10-10-2002, 04:22 AM

No screaming at students is not the norm. I keep hearing about people who have had abusive coaches, but the results is the same as you described. None of their fencers stick around. The coach my club has is a good example of the right way to do it. Before coming to the US he worked with the Ukrainian youth team and had a lot of success there. He's having quite a bit of success here too. He's just a great guy. He doesn't take goofing off, or attitude. He loves to wear his students out, but he is never abusive. To demonstrate how great he is. One of the junior fencers (10yrs old) , whose father is sort of a friend, and I were waiting to get on a strip. The only available one was where the coach was standing while giving a lesson. When he noticed us, he immediately moved so we could use that strip and was actually upset at us for not asking him to move sooner. We indoubitably got lucky.

I've ocassionally had coaches say something negative--one of the favorite phrases of the person who taught me to fence (I've gone through the whole thing before about he both is and isn't my coach, but anyway) is that you're going to be sore the next day whether you get first or not, so expend the effort and win. He did remind someone of this after she lost a bout, but to me that's more in the category of being firm. Knowing the difference between being firm and abusive is what makes a good coach. I second Mo, if your coach is treating you like dirt, move on. You don't have to take that kind of garbage from anyone. Generally the abusive ones are the ones with the problem, not their students. They feel, and in some cases are, in adequate. They are not mature enough to deal with it so they take it out on someone else.

So yes, please come back to fencing.

epeefencer74 · 10-10-2002, 05:13 AM

I probably shouldn't be telling you this but I have heard of National coaches being extremly abusive, to the point of not just yelling but hitting as well. A friend of mine went to the Asian under 20s a year or two ago, and she came up against another fencer from a north asain country (which I will not name). The other lady was really good and the score was something like 15-5 against my friend. Later on after the bout, my friend witness something that shocked her. The other girl was being yelled at by her coach, not only that she recieved quite a number of slaps from her coach as well. She just stood there with her head bowed and took it. Apperently the scolding was for letting my friend get 5 points!!! Now that just too much.

sombrero · 10-10-2002, 10:09 AM

hehe,

yeah.... i heard of that.... anybody wanna know why the koreans are one of the top fencing naions in the world? Apparently, they train saber without suits or shirts (only the guys) and everytime they miss or mal parry, the coach's blade would slice into their skin....... causing scars no doubt.

That being said, i doubt many are as extreme as that. I personally have found playful chidding a very effective tool to reprimand students. It builds a rapport w them that is good for any r/s. After this rapport is built, it is very easy to just scold students once w a "that was very disappoining... pls tr again". Students are apparently so conscious of such -ve remarks from friendly coaches that they end up working doubly hard to appease u again.

hehe mind manipulation maybe... but still very useful .

Purple Fencer · 10-10-2002, 01:39 PM

Yeah, I've found the friendly chiding bit works...I make comments about them parrying the other strips, deer in the headlightsm etc. When it sucks, I'll simply tell them so ("Ok, now that was awful" or "Ugh! You should be embarased at that action! Do it again.") It seems to work, because all my students KNOW I'm not really being abusive.

Peach · 10-10-2002, 02:28 PM

My young fencing students like and trust me in spite of the fact that I whack them on the head with my sabre (masks on), threaten them with horrible deaths (drawing and quartering, having them eaten by starved gerbils, making their ears into necklaces), make them do push-ups when they fall down, and, yes, raise my voice to them (but almost never in anger--only in anger when someone does something dangerous). I find a loud voice gets attention if you don't use it often, if you never humiliate a child, and if you never scream in a child's face.

I also save lectures for training. The most I'll say to a kid after he loses a bout at a tournament is "What did you do right? What did you do wrong? What did you see someone else doing that was good? What will you change?" It is possible to have an obnoxious coach like me and still feel good about it. Mostly, of course, they think it's funny (I'm "the evil Dr. T." to them, to my face) but they know what I want from them and they trust that I will not cause them emotional pain.

My coach (and my daughter's coach when she was young) will raise his voice VERY LOUDLY when someone is really screwing up. Everybody in the room freezes and waits for it to be over, and everybody learns, and oddly enough, the kids take it in stride. That's because it's clear it isn't personal. It's aimed at the behavior, and it's controlled, and it's intended to teach.

Purple Fencer · 10-10-2002, 04:17 PM

I hear ya. When my sabre student was doing something potentially dangerous in a foil class recently (putting her foot behind a guy she didn't get along with to almost trip him), I gave her some push-ups and then told her in a low, calm voice standing so close my face filled her entire field of vision (got that trick from my wife), "I don't EVER want to see that in my class or in this salle again. That behavior is totally unacceptable."

She got the message.

Peach · 10-10-2002, 07:00 PM

By any chance is your wife an elementary school teacher? That sounds like one of our little tricks.

Purple Fencer · 10-10-2002, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Peach
By any chance is your wife an elementary school teacher? That sounds like one of our little tricks.

Nnnnope...she's just married to me!!! She's not the type to yell anyway...the more upset ste gets, the quieter and more controlled she gets...which is actually more frightening than if she exploded!

Sara · 10-10-2002, 11:36 PM

i think that perhaps a little yelling is good when one needs it, but not crazy like your coach was doing, that is just abuse. I am glad i have a really great coach is very patient and kind, and i have seen a ton of other coaches who are great on strips and in lessons, so just keep looking around for different salles. you'll find one, and the best of luck to ya.

135711 · 10-11-2002, 12:01 AM

has anyone ever taught in a classroom or taken any coursework for teacher certification? part of the curriculum is about classroom management. it's very important for the instructors peace of mind. i really don't believe anyone needs to be screamed at for practicing fencing with another coach. When I was 7 years old I had a piano teacher who was very good, when I got to be about 11 years old he spoke with my mother and said he had taught me everything he could and I was well advanced and she needed to find me a better teachr. He was a very modest man from germany, Mr. Kunz [he passed away though] and within their means, they found me Mr. Smalley - a very nice fellow who applauded me everytime I played anything correctly, then he ran off with a drummer and we found Mr. Hedgecock, a jazz musician, who called me "flash" and taught me 86 chords in one week. I still remember my chords, that is the difference between a good and bad teacher. I can draw from 20 years ago, everything that my first fencing teacher ever showed me.