FIE Plans on creating a Fencing Master's School on every continent?

[Jason]

I just thought....this would still be an improvement over the recent past. How many active American-born Fencing Masters have European certifications?

I can only think of a handful...

Michael Marx
Greg Massialas
Wendell Kubik
Jason Sheridan
Rob Handelman

...am I missing anybody?

Sankofa spent a few months in Hungary getting his certification. Akhi Spencer-El is there now doing the same.

[MdA]

Do we actually need more than one or two a year? I suspect not. It would be awesome if we could get dozens to go train in Europe every year, but our continued development and improvement as a fencing power suggests that we don't actually need it.

Along with the foreign coaches who are here, and those others who seem to arrive daily, a gradual increase of Americans who've trained at top schools abroad will form a very strong foundation for continued US fencing growth.

What the US more likely needs is a better infrastructure to facilitate the spreading of that foreign knowledge amongst domestic coaches. That would certainly accelerate US fencing development.

I agree we need the infrastructure...that is what we have been working on. I was thinking of this number as an indicator of how many Americans go all the way thru the training to the top level. Instead we have been relying on an influx of European coaches to fill the top levels...for the most part.

[Allen Evans]

I beleive Dave Littell also spent some time in Hungary, though I am not sure that he was ever formally certified as a coach.

I also know of one other coach from Oregon who spent some time in France, but I don't believe he's teaching any more (his name escapes me).

I'm certainly with Jason on part of this. I think we could stand to use more professionally trained coaches in the US, certainly more than 1-2 a year. I do agree that there is a lot of fencing information in the US, but getting access to this information is hard. I have made a concerted effort to seek out these opportunities, and it's difficult. I have, in the past, just ponied up the money and the time to hire people to come to me. It's not cheap, and it's not efficient, but that's what it sometimes takes.

[MdA]

....I have made a concerted effort to seek out these opportunities, and it's difficult. I have, in the past, just ponied up the money and the time to hire people to come to me. It's not cheap, and it's not efficient, but that's what it sometimes takes.

Rather than setting up clinics for multiple coaches....I have been thinking about your idea...setting up private apprenticeships....having coaches come in for one-on-one weekend sessions.

I think I would come out ahead financially....and certainly less stress.

[Jason]

Something that seems to have more allure for US coaches are 6 mo. European training programs. Many of the full fencing master programs in European countries can be 2 or 3 years. Some schools, however, offer 6 month programs for experienced international coaches to come train and get their FM diploma.

I don't know how these different accelerated options compare to each other--and I've certainly heard of programs that require little more than some cash to earn certification--but a 6 month commitment is certainly easier for many than 2 years.

[RITFencing]

Here's a rough idea for an apprentice coach system:

Instead of one long commitment of 6 months, 2 years or whatever, break it up into smaller, one month courses focusing on a few key concepts. Group footwork lessons, foil line drills, sabre tactics, club management, sports psychology, lesson structure, business, club structure, whatever. If you want to stick with the current moniteur, prevot, maitre system, it's not hard to draw up requirments for each one, and it's also no difficult to come up with "post grad" or "extra-cirricular" things like a set of course on teaching the Beck system or what have you. The hard part of this set will be deciding on exactly what skills need to be taught, and how to go about doing so. My own personal thought is that there should always be a focus on flexibility in the coach, learning new ways of looking at things and always being aware that there is no one golden path to fencing success, and in the same vein learning to teach students to "find their own voice," so to speak. At the end of each course, the student could be graded on their ability, either with a formal test, observations of their performance over the course, or both. There could also be some courses meant to tie more disparate things together, perhaps as a sort of final exam for each level.

Once these courses are set down, I would try to get different clubs around the country, instead of individual coaches, to run these courses. This can help serve different areas of the country, help standardize things for coaches who have to move about, foster contacts within the coaching community, teach new coaches to work with an entire club, not just one instructor, and intgrate into that club, and also help defray costs all around by having the student coach giving lessons, running classes and helping around the club.

There will be a few major issues to overcome for this sort of thing:

1) It will be difficult to get different high level clubs and coaches to agree on any sort of standard cirriculum.

2) Along with this, it will be hard to keep things more or less standard between clubs.

3) Frequent audits and revisions will have to be made as fencing grows and changes to keep things current.

4) It will be difficult to convince people already in the system to re learn everything, so some way to test out of a course might be necessary.

5) There must be a way to decide which clubs get to participate, and there must be some sort of incentive that makes clubs want to participate (charging the student is the obvious one here.)

I'm sure there are others, but that's what comes to mind right now.

However, there are a few benefits:

1) The big one: It's much easier to go somewhere in the US for one month every year or so than it is to put one's entire life on hold for 2 years and go to europe.

2) This will help foster contacts and communication in the coaching community, and will provide a more clear path for anyone interested in coaching.

3) Learning by working in a club will generate income to help defray the costs for both the student coach and the club.

4) Splitting things up into smaller courses will help whomever is designing the final system pull together an actual syllabus of skills needed.

Any thoughts/comments/concerns/hatred about this to share?

[riceboy]

I just thought....this would still be an improvement over the recent past. How many active American-born Fencing Masters have European certifications?

I can only think of about a handful...

Michael Marx
Greg Massialas
Wendell Kubik
Jason Sheridan
Rob Handelman
Walter Green III

...am I missing anybody?

Just Locally to me (Davis, CA),

Simon Pitfield, Davis Fencing Academy, (France)
Stuart Kaufman, Marin Fencing Academy (Italy)
Anthony Joslin, Coastside Academy of Fencing (Hungary)
Michael Pacheco, Sonoma Fencing Academy (France)

I think there's one or two more in the area, but I don't remember who they are off the top of my head.

[MdA]

Here's a rough idea for an apprentice coach system:......to share?

Looks like a lot of work. How much are you willing to pay for a month of training?

[RITFencing]

Looks like a lot of work. How much are you willing to pay for a month of training?

Damn right it's a lot of work. But then, so is any sort of serious training.

If you include money I'd be earning for the club by giving classes and lessons and any other work around the place, then I'd probably be willing to pay about one, one and a half thousand, IF I know the education is worth it.

[Allen Evans]

RIT:

This reminds me of a sf book I read in which the characters sit down to solve the crises in the story. They made a list of things they needed to do, and it looked something like this:

1. Invent anti-gravity....

I think your first point is a hurdle that is much bigger than you think. When I talk to coaches about teaching, everyone agrees on the elements (mostly), but no one agrees on the standard. I think that a few people could sit down and come up with a list of things to be taught, but I think it would be much harder for those same people to decide to what standards that cirriculum needs to be taught to, and to some extent how to appraoch the actual teaching of the material.

Still, I think your idea would work, but would have a higher chance of success if done internally within a club. I know that the NWFC is working towards something like this (if in a glacially slow fashion), and they are the rare club that approaches teaching both its students and its coaches along somewhat parallell tracks.

Think of some of the big clubs you have been a part of. It's almost impossible to get the coaches within the club to cooperate on a unified approach to teaching and communicating, to say nothing of getting coaches from seperate clubs to do so.

I think successful coaching education in the US is going to end up being quite "cellular": in that it will be focused inside of progressive clubs that are thinking about their long term future, and take it upon themselves to train their own coaches.

[RITFencing]

I think your first point is a hurdle that is much bigger than you think. When I talk to coaches about teaching, everyone agrees on the elements (mostly), but no one agrees on the standard. I think that a few people could sit down and come up with a list of things to be taught, but I think it would be much harder for those same people to decide to what standards that cirriculum needs to be taught to, and to some extent how to appraoch the actual teaching of the material.

Yes, I am aware that this is the really big hurdle, and that we also won't get everyone on board. However, it's my understanding that this is one of the main priorities of the USFCA (MdA can correct me on that) so it's not like this isn't something that has to be dealt with anyway.

[MdA]

Yes, I am aware that this is the really big hurdle, and that we also won't get everyone on board. However, it's my understanding that this is one of the main priorities of the USFCA (MdA can correct me on that) so it's not like this isn't something that has to be dealt with anyway.

This is done.....this is done.....this is done.....this is done.

Don't need to reinvent the anti-gravity device.

http://escrime.org/english_version/criteria.htm

Just need to do the training,

["Fence like a Cat"]

I can't put my finger on it at present but a past edition of the SwordMaster, going back a few years, had the organization name, address and contact information for a couple of European Schools for Fencing Coaches. I'll post that in the near term unless someone beats me to it.

Marty Tetloff

[MdA]

Marty,

Here is the webpage for the German Academy (ADFD). They just started a new series of courses for 2009. Contact info and dates are on the page below.

http://www.fechtkunst.org/adfdkurs.htm