Making a living through fencing?

[Lee Yue Yang]

Hi all.I was just wondering,would it be possible to make a living by fencing?If's it's possible,then how would one progress through the career ladder all the way to the world championships and olympics etc.?Thanks.

Lee

[angriff]

You'd probably have to base yourself in Europe first. For us in Singapore, the probability of turning pro is remote.. you don't see any "professional" fencers around, do you?

Sorry if I've been a wet blanket but it's the truth, as much as I hate to admit it

[epeefencer74]

Angriff is quite right that if you want to be a professional fencer you have to go to Europe. Even then don't expect to be rolling in the dough. Fencing is not a sport that draws a lot of sponsorship or spectators.

Until we can popularize fencing to the mania levels of Soccer, golf, F1 racing or even the WWF, the money is just not gonna come.

There is however another path. Go to Europe, UK or US and sign up for a fencing Coaches course. Get an FIE recognized coaching cert, at least up till the intermediate level. Come back to Singapore and set up a fencing school or coach for the nation. God knows we could use some more local coaches. That way more people can be exposed to fencing. Then you can build your customer base, advertise with your qualifications and start making regular income. I'm not saying this is going to be easy, no new business is ever easy, but it is worth a shot and it is a more regular source of income than being a professional fencer. Of course it doesn't hurt if you've taken part in some major comps and won.

[Catal]

Make a living through fencing... Haw haw haw haaaaaaaaw! Oh, man...

[WJM]

I do.

[attila]

What a good question.

I've been fencing now for the better part of 25 years. In that time I have been able to meet only three types of fencing pro's that actually made money.

A. The Actually qualified through Personal success in the game followed by some sort of upper MASTERS learning from a famous school ( like in France). These guys make REAL Money either by owning their own clubs or coaching through Universities.

B. The second, third and or third string European or American fencers who don't have any good results but always tried hard enough to get some sort of respect. These guys make little money and live the lives of gypsies.

C. The complete frauds. they lie about what they know and or how they learned it. These guys tend to stay away from the FIE guys and bad mouth how they ( the FIE) had lost all direction in the true ART etc. These guys can make TONS of money on those fencers who suck at FIE fencing and need to make some excuse as to why they can't hack the pool system and end up high on the results list.


Ya this is a rant. But before I go let's shout out to the VAST # of those ( like me) who teach what we have learned-- pretty much for free-- to the fresh young faces who come to us to learn just because we are the only game in town. I'de write some more but I have a squirmy 10 month old who keeps grabbing at the board.......

[MikeHarm]

I'd like to hear more about those programs. Is there a website with info on it you can look at that you know of?

[quote]Originally posted by attila
[b]What a good question.

A. The Actually qualified through Personal success in the game followed by some sort of upper MASTERS learning from a famous school ( like in France). These guys make REAL Money either by owning their own clubs or coaching through Universities.

[MikeHarm]

I think a lot of the problem with popularity and media attention is how we do the tournaments. Its great for doing a lot of fencing and but not at all oriented towards being something to see for the people watching..

Lets take tennis which is a good example. Tennis is a sport where you can have one on one competitions and people can develop a high degree of skill playing it in way that is similar to fencing.

If tennis was run on tv like the way we do our fencing tourneys, you wouldn't see an exciting match between the Williams sisters or such. Instead you'd see 8 matches going on at once, with no announcer doing play by plays explaining what is happening to the crowd and making it exciting, and no way for anyone watching to see how anyone was doing relative to the other.

Noone who was watching who wasn't a tennis player themselves would have any idea what any of it meant to the people involved or would know anything about who the people playing tennis on tv that day were. They would never of even made it to the slots at 2am next to the infomercials.

All the goofy new outfits with flashing lights and lexan masks and fancy technical innovations won't make a bit of difference until that issue is worked out.

[quote]Originally posted by epeefencer74
[b]Angriff is quite right that if you want to be a professional fencer you have to go to Europe. Even then don't expect to be rolling in the dough. Fencing is not a sport that draws a lot of sponsorship or spectators.

Until we can popularize fencing to the mania levels of Soccer, golf, F1 racing or even the WWF, the money is just not gonna come.

[Lee Yue Yang]

Wow!Sheesh..I've been learning about making a living in motorsports and I thought that was hard(until I read all your replies)How much money are we talking about here?

Angriff,I had pretty much expected something close to what you've said..so it isn't much of a disappointment

Epeefencer,do you know of anyone here in Singapore who has actually done all that you have mentioned?And how much would it cost?I'm sure you've seen me fence a few times before.So do you think it would be worth a shot with my abilities?Thanks.

WJM,how are you making a living through fencing?Thanks.

Thanks for all of your replies...They really helped

Lee

[WJM]

I run a fencing club in the Midwestern section of the USA, and teach as many fencing classes as I can, which does two things for me...#1: I make a small amount of money teaching the classes, and #2 it keeps me around fencing. If I didn't teach, and instead chose some other flexible job that gave me time to train, it would certainly pay more money, but there isn't a ton of fencing in my area, contrary to popular belief, so I have to create my own training partners. The better job I do as a coach, the better level of people I train with, the better I do as a fencer. Everything is on a shoestring, there's not much funding, but together we do a pretty good job, and field a pretty good number of fencers to competitions, and including beginners with the club members, we have about 150 people right now, fencing all over my county. This is our 3rd season as a competitive club (it was entirely recreational before) and we get stronger every month. I work very hard in coaching, and constantly try to update and improve my skills by staying in contact with as many of the top coaches in the US as possible, and I work very hard at my fencing as well, since it's WHY I do it to begin with, although knee and ankle injuries haven't helped that. I've learned a lot from coaches like Mike Marx, Paul Soter, Laurie Schiller and others in the USA, and a few others overseas. It may not be much of a life, but then again, it's all I really need, and it won't be forever. My results have been constantly rising (as are those of my students), and my body is really the only real opponent at times, and I'm working hard on that too...

[CrystalBlue]

I say we get that announcer guy from the world cup soccer games who yelled out "goal!!!" to come to fencing games and yell "fence!!!" (we all know he was the one who kept us excited while watching the world cup for days) lol jk.

Seriously, I think the reason why fencing isnt very popular is because of the way the media shows it to be. Whenever its on tv, its always seen to be played by the aristocratic rich kid, that just turns people off and makes them think that fencing is what many people told me "the rich kids game".

If you want to make a living with fencing, one thing you could do is become a coach, I dont know how that works though.

[Boo Boo]

Professionally qualified coaches in this country can make a reasonable amount of money.

They take courses, earn professional qualifications and diplomas, build up their reputations, cooach at a number of clubs (not always owned/ran by themselves), coach at a number of schools, take on private students, make money by buying in and selling on equipment. organise competitions (and take a cut), organise or coach at weekend courses etc.etc.

I would guess that a good, enterprising, professional full-time coach could make £20,000/£25,000/£30,000 per year (between $32,000 and $50,000). Some will make more, some will make less.

Boo

[135711]

making a living at a sport is probably a risk, any sport. the only way i can think of doing a good job at this is to expand on the theme:

1. produce a good technical manual, either a repair book or a book about technique, or history of fencing book.

2. produce a good weapon, or protective gear thing and have it mass produced

3. open an armory for the general public and charge significant rates

4. produce a video of instruction or repair and market it for mass production.

with the profits, you can:

expand your salle;
travel to france and get beat up for a few months, then come home and teach the kids.
[anyone? anyone?]

[MikeHarm]

I think I saw someone selling fencing lessons on the internet with webcams and such once when I was surfing the net a few years back, I thought that was a pretty creative way to make a buck

[epeefencer74]

Originally posted by Lee Yue Yang

Epeefencer,do you know of anyone here in Singapore who has actually done all that you have mentioned?And how much would it cost?I'm sure you've seen me fence a few times before.So do you think it would be worth a shot with my abilities?Thanks.

Lee

I do know someone who did go to UK to get his intermediate certification under the British Acadamy of Fencing (BAF) but he's an Australian. I got my basic epee coaching cert under the BAF as well, but that was because a couple of UK coaches were hired to come to Western Australia to train coaches and I signed up for it while I was studying there. If I remember correctly the whole cost for the basic cert was about AUD$500. I think it was heavily discounted for us poor students. There is one professional local coach, Jeffrey Lopez. He has his own school and coaches full time. As for myself I coach SJI for the love of the sport and school, i.e. for free.

As to your abilities; Hiya fren, I spend the most time during the comps running around after my own teenage students. Even if I did see I won't be able to comment because I still haven't met you in person. Anyway you are still young, who knows how you will develop. You may think you are lousy now, but hey we all have to be lousy at some point in time. Fencing is not what you would call an easy sport to learn. My advice is to learn it well and keep working at it.

[Lee Yue Yang]

Which club do you fence with angriff?And do the clubs in Singapore pay their fencers?

Lee

[magma]

mr lee, we want you to succeed. take one refresher course every summer for 4 weeks somewhere.

[Lee Yue Yang]

Hey magma,are you in Singapore?

Lee

[magma]

instead i offer this, use the salle as a second income, or just as an advocation, because you really like teaching what you know.
if you're dependent upon the salle for a livlihood, you'll struggle too much.
cheers.

[angriff]

Originally posted by Lee Yue Yang
Which club do you fence with angriff?And do the clubs in Singapore pay their fencers?

Lee

I'll answer the second question first: To the best of my knowledge, most if not all fencers in Singapore pay their clubs instead It's to keep the club running.

I'd like to keep mum on the first cos' I prefer to remain anonymous