drills/games for kids

[Walrus]

I'm 20 years old, and been fencing for 13 years now. Recently I'm helping with teaching kids (age from 6 to 14). Personally I think 6 is too young to start fencing, but they're there, so better make the best of it

Training takes place on a friday evening, so most of them kids, are with their mind already on the weekend... So during training I need to find something to do to relax them a bit from the sometimes boring drills. Other youth teachers, play games in between.

I have a problem with that: the kids are their to fence, not to play games that don't rely directly to fencing.

So finally my question: Anyone got any ideas about "games" for those kids? So they practice during playing.

[JEC]

Friday is a good day for playing "glove" games. Do this only on Fridays, and they will be looking forward to this day. The glove games can be done on a one to one (wearing it on the back or side or sock level) or everybody against everybody. You can make them fetch a glove in the middle doing a sprint. You can make them drop it (or a tennis ball) and catch it while lunging in pairs (and with out blades)... In sum, you can make Friday interesting.

[Walrus]

Well off I go, play some glove games, when reading it, I remember doing that when I started fencing, thanx for refreshing my mind.

If anyone else knows some games, post them, cause there's always next friday, and the friday after.......

[edew]

Try my sabre roh-sham-bo! May not be physcially demanding, but it's a good mental exercise.

[Niceguy4186]

i'm not sure what this is suppose to help, but i've seen people in my class do it, get on the line with only your gloves in hand, and let them try to smack each other, just a way to teach distance i guess?

[Craig]

http://www.fencing101.com/drills/games1.php

Explanation of the glove game...

[Walrus]

The glove game was a hit Yes, they loved it, and weren't too distracted.

I know what to do this week, brainstorm about other variants, and if I find something interesting... I'll keep you all posted.

[veeco]

Any game that you played while you were a kid can be changed to accomodate some footwork equivalent.

There is the dreaded "Simon says", which becomes "Coach says"

"Coach says advance lunge!"
"recover!" --> All those people who recover, out!

Some variants of tag, but you need to move only with footwork.

Etc...

[Mergs]

As a warm-up I do "follow the coach" in which the kids follow me at a slow jog and I wander all around doing circles, a tight spiral, crossing back on the line, etc. The object is to have them following the person in front of them. Another one is to have everyone jog in a circle with about 6-8 feet between kids. You start off by tossing a ball backwards over your head. The next person is supposed to catch it on the first bounce and then toss it back over their head, eventually you are supposed to make it all around the circle. If someone misses or doesn't catch the ball on the first bounce, you start over from the first person, or you reverse direction and start over. All kinds of variations.


Have fun!

[Zelda]

Our coach used to play lemmings. Everyone followed a leader doing footwork in a conga line except he used to make us go up and down stairs and fleche and lunge and stuff. The younger kids used to end up on the floor in hysterics becuase they thought it looked so odd.

[veeco]

Another variant of the circle thing that my coach does sometimes:

Everyone stands in a circle, with their right hand in the center.

In everyone's right hand, everyone holds a foil, or an epee, or a sabre, so that the tip is on the floor, and the handle in their hand.

When the coach says "go", everyone must do an advance lunge, leaving the weapon they were holding dangling (and to the point where it's going to fall on its side). The object of the game and of the advance lunge is to catch the weapon of the person who was in front of you.

If you did not catch the weapon, you're out, but the circle doesn't get any smaller, so there's more distance to cover next time ;-).

[Catlady]

My club does the glove game all ready mentioned where you try to hit your opponent with your glove. I think anyway. We line up at the distance of guard lines, then one side starts they get three moves (three advances, three lunges, two advances and a lunge, etc.) to hit the opponent who can take as many actions as he/she wants to get out of the attacker's way. Once the attacker's three actions are up, then the defender becomes attacker and gets three actions. What it does is teach distance and also fencing with absence of blade, or so I've been told, We do this with the kids and the adults. Another glove game is to divide the class into two teams, you send the teams to opposite ends of the strip, have them sit in a line accross the floor, not single file, and set a glove on a mask set in the middle (One for each member of a team e.g. if each team has six members, there are six gloves). Each person on the team has a number, -- I know this isn't making a lot of sense, but I'm trying basically there's numbers 1-6 or whatever on each team. You call out a number, say six, then six from each team stands up and runs to grab the glove from the center. The person who doesn't get the glove can try to tag the person with the glove until they get back to their line. Another thing is to do relays. You divide into equal teams again and have races. The object can be to advance then retreat the length of the strip. The first person advances to the end, then retreats, then tags a teammate to do the same thing. You can change it up with different things, like putting a lunge at every other line, or advance and retreat between every other line and things like that. Then there's a variation on follow the coach. The coach stands in front and does various footwork. The class mirrors what he does. The coach watches to see who is the slowest, or takes extra steps or isn't paying attention, etc. whomever he catches is out, this keeps up until you get down to two or three fencers, then you start again. The kids seem to like doing this.

Just generally, don't do anything for too long, especially with the little ones. You can do the same amount of stuff but instead of doing ten minutes of footwork at once, you do five minutes of footwork, work on parries for a while, then five more minutes of footwork. then more parries, or maybe disengages instead. Basically, just don't give them time to get bored with doing one thing.
When you do free fencing or for that matter partner drills, have them change partners, this changes things up and lets them get used to adjusting to the styles of different people. You can sort of do a ladder with free fencing that goes some thing like this: everyone has a partner, they keep track of touches, the person with more touches moves up one, the other person stays there. The idea is to get to the "top" end of the line and stay there. The person at the top loses, then they go to the bottom end. For that matter you can just have one side move up one partner regardless of who wins, again, to let them get used to fencing different people. I hope I've made some sense and been somewhat helpful.

After any game it can be useful too to ask about what worked and what didn't ask them if they know why. For instance with the first glove game I mentioned, they should notice that while you can take many actions to get away from the attacker, if you get too far away it won't help because you won't be able to get close enough to hit when it's your turn to attack. What they should find out is that it's best to get just far enough away so that the attacker is just barely not able to hit you, so that you can then immediately start your action and hit them. This applies to fencing in general--you want your opponent's attack to fail, but not by much, so that you can react and get them before they recover, right?

And yes, six is a bit young, but it does depend on the child. There are some six-year olds who are especially physically and emotionally mature, and there are some ten-year olds, around the age I'd recommend soemone start fencing, who are most definitely not ready emotionally and physically to start fencing.