Best Coach/club in the Tri-state area?

[legendaryfoilist]

Who is it? my current club is rarely attended and its just very low beginning level fencers....

[mrbiggs]

We're going to need your locaion and the weapon you fence to even begin to suggest anything.

[dberke]

Who is it? my current club is rarely attended and its just very low beginning level fencers....

It depends on what weapon you are looking for, what kind of training style you respond to, what your personal goals are, and which three states your "tri-state area" is.

In other words, you need to be a bit more specific. You've asked the fencing equivalent of "What is the best car?"

Dan

[legendaryfoilist]

i am a D-rated fencer aspiring to be a B or higher. I am also a sophomore in high school and i fence foil. and by tri-state i mean NY Ct and NJ

[bob46]

i am a D-rated fencer aspiring to be a B or higher. I am also a sophomore in high school and i fence foil. and by tri-state i mean NY Ct and NJ

Lucchetti and Fencer's Club are both decent from what I hear. Then again, I'm on the west coast, so I don't really know.

[RebelFencer]

Fencer's Club and NYAC are both extremely strong.

[eac]

The question was "who's the best coach," and it sounded like he wanted to win the most.

What follows is something I have said in many threads, and I will try to say it succinctly here:

Coaches that make other people win will make you win too. Coaches that don't make other people win will not make you win either.

There are places on the internet that aggregate how much people win. These are called national and international rankings. The national ones for MF are here: http://usfencing.org/pages/4760
The international ones are here: http://fie.ch/Competitions/Ranking.aspx

To evaluate which coach is the winningest, go down the rankings in your gender and weapon and find out which coach deserves the most credit for each fencer's goodness. Sometimes this has an easy answer, and sometimes the answer is more complicated. The answer is easy enough enough of the time that this is a useful exercise.

I encourage you to go through the exercise yourself.

Offhand, some candidates for you to consider in men's foil are:
- Slava Grigoriev at Fencing Academy of Westchester
Students of note:
- Kurt Getz (top 8 at 2009 senior worlds)
- Lucas Lin (2nd at 2008 Junior Nationals)
- Jeremy Goldstein (Cadet MF worlds team)
- Igor Krivenko (top 8 at ~2 Div I NACs)


- Jed Dupree at Empire United (NYC)
Students of note:
- Race Imboden (good shot at cadet MF worlds team)
- Brian Kaneshige (same)
Normalize for the fact that Jed has not been coaching for very long.


- Simon Gershon at Fencers' Club (NYC)
- Miles Chamley-Watson (multi-time senior/junior worlds team member)


- Mr. Ma at Fencing Academy of South Jersey
- Ron Berkowsky (2005 Junior National Champion)

This is not remotely a complete list. You should find the rest by going down the points lists and googling for names. The division information on the points lists will help narrow your search.

[yearsofwisdom]

ahhh. i see. i happen to live in ct myself,so i will check faw out

[fdad]

i am a D-rated fencer aspiring to be a B or higher. I am also a sophomore in high school and i fence foil. and by tri-state i mean NY Ct and NJ

Fencers Club has very strong coaching staff and many strong foil fencers (National Team members). Empire United has more boys though. NYAC has relatively weak foil.

[eac]

im lookin less in-city. is FAW good?

Yes. (characters)

[MyrddinsPrecint]

im lookin less in-city. is FAW good?

So, you want to know where the best clubs are, just not the actual best ones.

Okay....

BTW, the only reason to live in NYC is if you're a "maximizer" -- (I think "optimizer" is the better word)

[flick n' roll]

If you're a guy I would strongly recommend Empire United. eac mentioned two of their top junior/cadet fencers in Imboden and Kaneshige, but they also boast 4 other Div. 1 Men's Foil finalists in Henry Kennard, Sam Wunderlich, Clinton Kershaw and Sherif Farrag. fdad is correct in that Empire United being mostly boys; however, Margaret Lu is Sean McClain's (the other foil coach at the club) top student -- she is on multiple national teams (Cadet, Junior, potentially senior). The club has many good quality fencers, and is almost always a foil night -- you will never have to fight other epee or saber fencers for strips.
If you're looking for a good taste of Empire United, I would stop by for their Friday Night Pool; you will easily get 25-30 quality bouts in.

In terms of location in the city, you're best off with either Empire United or the Fencer's Club; both are located within blocks of Penn Station. Fencers Club has a wider variety of coaches to choose from and a stronger girl's program for sure. If you're not particularly interested in going to the city, FAW is a great choice too. Slava is a great coach and has produced many top students. The only thing that I would comment on is that Getz (one of the top 10 fencers in the world) and Krivenko are both in college, i believe, meaning that they may not be around to fence too often. Still, the other fencers there are top notch. Mr. Ma is also a wonderful coach, but I wonder if he has as much time to coach at his 3 locations as he once did -- he is the head coach of the very strong University of Penn. team.

Wherever you go for foil, the New York area is probably the strongest concentration of top foil fencers in the nation, perhaps only matched singlehandedly by Greg Massialas and his club in San Fran. Good luck

[eac]

The question was coaches, not clubs. Dupree is the main MF coach at EUF, if I understand correctly, and Kennard/Dupree/Kershaw/Wunderlich/Farrag do not fall under the category of 'fencers whose winnitude owes significantly to Dupree's coaching.' Imboden and Kaneshige do.

I submit that coach is a better predictor of winnitude than strength of the other fencers in the club. Empirically, bad coaches with good fencers around produce losing students, and good coaches with bad fencers around produce winning students. Good fencers around might slightly speed up the rate at which good coaches produce new good fencers, but that's about it.

Also, WF and MF are separate sports. Goodness at one does not predict goodness at the other, and the same for coaching each, so Margaret Lu's extreme arse-kickery doesn't help the MF-goodness of EUF.

[flick n' roll]

The question was coaches, not clubs. Dupree is the main MF coach at EUF, if I understand correctly, and Kennard/Dupree/Kershaw/Wunderlich/Farrag do not fall under the category of 'fencers whose winnitude owes significantly to Dupree's coaching.' Imboden and Kaneshige do.

I submit that coach is a better predictor of winnitude than strength of the other fencers in the club. Empirically, bad coaches with good fencers around produce losing students, and good coaches with bad fencers around produce winning students. Good fencers around might slightly speed up the rate at which good coaches produce new good fencers, but that's about it.

Also, WF and MF are separate sports. Goodness at one does not predict goodness at the other, and the same for coaching each, so Margaret Lu's extreme arse-kickery doesn't help the MF-goodness of EUF.

Wasn't the question "Best Coach/club in the Tri-state area?"
When I visited the club on a friday night, both Sean and Jed were giving many lessons to men's foilists, i believe that both are considered the main coaches there.
And to your point about better coach vs. better fencers, it helps when you have both. I think both Empire United and Fencer's Club share this scenario; Gershon, Leach, etc. have been fantastic coaches for years, and it appears that Sean and Jed are quickly joining the list of top coaches as well. Nothing beats getting a quality lesson and then having a good number of quality fencers to fence with afterwards.

[eac]

Wasn't the question "Best Coach/club in the Tri-state area?"

I can't read.

[catwood1]

Wow is this thread disappointing.

Its not that a "good coach" will make you good. Its really not that simple. I assume coaches such as Slava Grigoriev at FAW have more than the 5 students mentioned. They aren't all good. Overall strength of program is a better predictor than individual students. Granted, strength of program isn't necessarily the best predictor for 1 coaches ability.

Also, some coaches will be a better fit for some fencers than others. I might be a great combination with fencers X, Y and Z, but fencers A B and C hate me. Same with ALL coaches.

But yes, if you're looking for really short answers, FAW, FC, EUF are all very strong foil clubs, and have a number of good foil coaches at them. Mr. Ma is a great coach, although doesn't have a whole lot of free time, and he's also very far away from you. NYAC is strong, but they aren't in the market for developing foil fencers from the ground up; they look for developed fencers.

You could also look into RIFAC (Rhode Island Fencing Academy and Club) as they are probably the strongest foil club in New England. The coach there is Alex Ripa.

[prototoast]

You could also look into RIFAC (Rhode Island Fencing Academy and Club) as they are probably the strongest foil club in New England. The coach there is Alex Ripa.

That's really quite a drive if he's in the New York part of Connecticut.

[fdad]

Wasn't the question "Best Coach/club in the Tri-state area?"
When I visited the club on a friday night, both Sean and Jed were giving many lessons to men's foilists, i believe that both are considered the main coaches there.
And to your point about better coach vs. better fencers, it helps when you have both. I think both Empire United and Fencer's Club share this scenario; Gershon, Leach, etc. have been fantastic coaches for years, and it appears that Sean and Jed are quickly joining the list of top coaches as well. Nothing beats getting a quality lesson and then having a good number of quality fencers to fence with afterwards.

Too be fair, EUF is a strong club due to the number of top males (you want a good coach and strong bouting opportunities), but EUF has existed for only two and a half years. Most of those top males started at FC under Bucky Leach, Simon Gershon, and Michael Petin.

[fdad]

Who is it? my current club is rarely attended and its just very low beginning level fencers....

If you are in CT, you might also want to consider NAFA North (Port Chester), they have good coaches, but probably fewer strong fencers to bout with.

[heretic]

If you are in CT, you might also want to consider NAFA North (Port Chester), they have good coaches, but probably fewer strong fencers to bout with.

Who coaches there?