Michael Marx Developmental Exercises DVD

[darius]

For those of you who might be interested, Michael Marx has a developmental exercises DVD available at Summer Nationals for $25. It contains a bunch of exercises that Michael uses to assess and improve physical and mental skills for fencers - from divisibility of attention to muscular endurance, these exercises are at the core of the Homeschool Physical Education program at NWFC, and are a lot of fun.

If you're at Nationals, they are available at the Marx Enterprises booth. If not, feel free to PM me and I'll try to figure something out. They may be available through traditional vendors such as f.net or Absolute at some point, but I'm not privy to the details...obviously if the first run does well, it opens the door for more material.

darius

[RoninX]

I'm not a Summer Nats, but I would be very interested. Please PM me if something can be worked out. Otherwise I'll wait for f.net to get it up

[academe]

Posted "teaser" might help to spur sales for those not at Nationals.

[Allen Evans]

...uses to assess and improve physical and mental skills for fencers

Hmmm...you mean if I buy this, I could get smarter? I'll take a dozen. There are quite a few people I want to give them to. :-)

[Craig]

I haven't had a chance to watch the DVD that I got from Michael, but I did get to talk to him for a while about the exercises in the DVD and got put through a few of the drills.

I thought that I hadn't totally embarassed myself but then Cody did some of the drills and made them look easy. (Darius was witness to some of this.)

Once I've had a chance to actually watch the DVD, I'll be talking to Michael about distribution.

Craig

[catwood1]

Will you have them available at the summer camps?

[RkfdFencer]

Interested, but likely having to wait for purchase (other expenses currently eating my income).

[darius]

To answer: Yes, we'll have them available at summer camps.

Unfortunately, it won't actually improve fencers' intelligence, merely stimulate the parts of the brain involved in making and changing decisions.

I will see if I can create a clip or two, but it won't be until I'm back in Portland.

darius

[qatet]

I picked up a copy of the dvd at nationals and just got to watch it today. Lots of fun. It has a strong Czajkowski influence (no shock there, although I may also be a bit more attuned to that influence, since I got to do the Czajkowski clinic in New York a few years ago). It has a mix of material. There's some general fitness stuff (cardio, balance, core strength - none of which is ground-breaking, but far too much of which is completely ignored by coaches). He also talks about using some of these things for evaluation purposes. He also talks about how they can build up some healthy rivalry between students.

The exercises that I love, though, are the choice response exercises, which require lots of focus on the student's part. The student gets a series of stimuli (often in the form of tossed beanbags) that should provoke different responses. We did a lot of stuff like this at FAP, much of which my coach/boss got directly from Czajkowski, but a lot of these were new variations or new exercises entirely. They tend to involve a lot more movement than the exercises I got at the Czajkowski workshop a few years ago. My body and my mind both crave the chance to try them out!

Anyway, definitely a good buy. I can't wait to start mixing some of this stuff in for my students and I'll be jealous of them for every minute that they're playing and I'm supervising.

[jfarmer]

What's the word on making these available?

[Peach]

Yes - I'd be interested too.

[Capt. Slo-mo]

I don't want to speak out of place here (in lieu of Michael), but since I'm not sure he has a fencing.net presence, here's what I understand:

The DVD and an attractive set of color coded bean bags (as used in the in DVD) are available at the MarxFencing website.

The order page can be found here.

I've also tried to get Michael and Craig together to see if it makes sense for fencing.net to also carry the DVD.*

*Disclaimer: I shot, edited and produced the DVD for Michael as an impromptu video project which eventually became fairly significant. I don't have any financial stake in the DVD sales.

[RoninX]

Awesome. Ordered.

[Peach]

Same here.

Thanks.

[darius]

As far as I know, the $30 price point does not include the bean bags (which is why I wasn't driving people to the website), but Lisa was having some problems editing the Paypal button text; it does cover costs for the DVD and shipping.

darius

[Capt. Slo-mo]

Oops. The website order page does lump the DVD and the bean bags together...

[RoninX]

Noooooo! How can I possibly duplicate the beanbags! It was the Marx branded beanbags that I really wanted.... I feel so used.

[catwood1]

In all fairness, the beanbags he uses are very good. If I could get a set of those for $5, I would buy about 15 sets...

[wakeup]

My 12 year old thinks these exercises are a blast!

I'd like a source for the bean bags -- we've got both juggling balls and standard issue kindergarten (flat/square) beanbags and neither seems optimal (although each works fairly well with some of the exercises). It also be nice to have just a single page sheet with dimensions for some stuff (e.g. the checkerboard foot drill).

All in all, a really neat CD and it was all stuff she hadn't seen at her own club or at the summer camp she went to.

[RoninX]

FYI All, this DVD can now be (purchased with or without beanbags) through Marx's site: http://www.marxfencing.com/www.marxf...rcise_DVD.html