improving university club fencing

[Pho]

Hi guys,

Wanted a bit of advice. The club that I have been fencing at has traditionally been a more recreational club with a whole bunch of beginners. Over the past year, we have been trying to move the club to a more competitive level as well as maintain the recreational atmosphere for those who want to do it part time. We've been able to hold some usfa tourneys and have begun attracting more experienced fencers to stay. We are begining to develop a core of competent fencers, but these guys often just fence among themselves creating a schism between the new and old fencers. I am looking for some suggestions on how to improve our club so that we can be more competitive. Some of the issues that we have been wrestling with are as follows:

Beginners - There is currently a debate on whether we should restrict beginners to foil. Currently, we require that beginners fence at least one semester of foil before moving on to other weapon. The problem with this approach is that some beginners see the sabre fencers and want to start on that right away (we lose some people because of this).

Coaching - since our club doesn't have a permanent coach, we are looking for some way to standardized the teaching of out students so that a decent level can be maintained year after year.

Practices - we currently have a two hour time slot given to us for three times a week. What would be the best use of these two hours? We have tried footwork and bladework (for foil) for at least the first hour for beginners followed by free fencing. I am inching towards having each night be specialized on a different weapon so that we get a variety of fencers.

Attendence - as with any recreational club we have problems with people attending. Some guys will show up maybe once every two weeks and then dissapear for a period of time. This plays havoc on teaching them basics. Many of the beginners often ask when they can fence each other. We were planning to have a in club tourney for beginners by the end of the first month to get them hooked but its difficult with inconsistent attendence.

Anyway, thanks for your time in advance

[Talyn]

1. Get a FULL time coach, this is essential for making you club mre competive. The coach should be there all the time and must be able to organise class lessons and individual ones. (Im assuming you can get more than 6 hours a week of fencing because thats just not enough...)

2. As for beginners wanting to fence saber... I think its best to make them try foil for atleast a semester but if they insist on fencing saber then you should let them.

3. Im not sure whats the best way to seperate the 2 hours but heres what my club does.

5 min warm up
10 min foot work
Then seperate everyone in to 2 even rows facing each other.
then for the next 30 minutes get them to do what you tell them

For example.

Row A: Lunge to the highline
Row B parry counter 6 + repulse to the low line.

stuff like that.

then for the next 15 have them free fence ( encouranging to use what you've just taught them )

After that talk to them about some theory for about 5 minutes and also answer any questions they have.

Next 30 minutes... Organise a board where everyone has a club ranking. Every week they either fence the person above them or below them this should alternate every week... If you don't understand then PM me. :P This will encourage people to turn up every week. If they don't turn up they automatically lose bouts and subsequently get moved down on the Ladder.

After thats over then let them free fence.

[wflaschka]

My university club was in a similar situation. Actually, they were content... but I wanted to coach, and wanted a more salle-like atmosphere that would build interesting high-level students. We have three instructors (myself and two others), and over the course of a year we've retrenched the club into something more serious.

Competitive / recreational schism - We faced the same problem, and decided that it's possible to be recreational in a competitive atmosphere, but difficult to be competitive in a recreational atmosphere. We've instituted routines (start with warm-up, then positioning, then footwork, then bladework, then bouting), and the recreational fencers are welcome to stand around an talk until something happens that they want to join. (Talking is an integral part of all fencing.)

Recreational fencers are welcome, but the environment is serious and built for development. The downside is that the recreational fencers often send the wrong signals to new fencers (why do footwork? why practice? why improve?). We use a TV/VCR combo provied by the sports center, and all practice it plays videos of high-level tournaments, so people know what's possible in the sport.

Beginners - Our problem is with walk-ins. I love them, but it kills momentum to have people starting from scratch, every practice. We intend to offload this onto the core of existing students, and assign "greeters" whose responsibility for the night will be to handle newbies and get them up to speed. Also, we're going to have a pile of hand-outs outside the (glass) door, with a heading, "You are looking at Fencing," to answer basic questions. We put a "sign-up" form outside the door to get names and emails, and then try to bring these people to practice all at once.

Practices - We do warm-up, stretching and footwork all at the same time, and when it's time to grab a weapon, the group separates. I would advise against splitting the week into weapon nights, unless you have a LOT of people. The room would seem empty, and (for example) a Sabre fencer would only get one practice a week. With all the weapons going at once, you will have a nice, noisy, crowded room. You might designate an area for each weapon -- people enjoy boundaries and rules; gives the world definition. We have no Epee fencers, so we try to have one electric strip for Foil and one for Sabre.

To mix good and bad fencers, there's a simple protocol for getting onstrip. You must direct a bout before you can fence the winner. Sometimes, we do winner stays up to a maximum of three, but usually it's two bouts then down.

It's no longer fencing dogma to start beginners with foil, but I see a lot of value in doing so. You can make it a goal, which will keep your attendance up because people also like milestones. After doing N number practices and taking a practical, new fencers get a "Weapon Choice Day" or something.

Attendance - We've almost become reconciled to the fact that attendance will drop to 20% by the end of the semester. It is very easy for college students to drift into other interests, or to disappear into schoolwork. Some things we try: socializing, people like other people; movie nights, pick a night, and watch a fencing video before practice; team atmosphere, people don't like letting teammates down; goals, things people can achieve or earn, so they sense their progress in the sport; outings, more social events like movies; contributions, like manning the table at the Club Fair; routine, the same structure, stretches and drills, so people can master things.

In all, we've had good results but I wish they were better. We're adding about 3-4 serious new fencers per year. It's difficult to build a thriving fencing culture from scratch.

[R. Exnicios]

A college club can be a real challenge. Little or no budget, sharing space with aerobics classes etc.

It sounds like your club is in the position of many college clubs out there. I take it that there is no PE class to teach the beginners.

One thing is to decide what you club is going to be. Recreational, Competitive, elite or some combination of all three.

Your set up sounds very much like the program at Tulane University. We do have a coach (me) but they don't pay me : ( I'm in my 14th or 15th year there as Coach. (if anyone wants the job…) I was a student there for a long time as well.

Here are a few ideas in no particular order.

Beginners.

Have the beginners’ class only one night a week. Have the more experienced fencers teach the beguilers. We start everyone on foil and they only fence foil for the first semester. They get limited exposure to the other weapons since they mainly see beginners on their night. We also teach a lot of footwork first semester (not enough gear to go around)

As for continuity. Maybe a lesson plan and some basics written down as to what will be taught etc. Coaches College is a great learning tool and can teach you advanced fencers how to teach solid basics and not teach bad habits.

If they want to switch weapons they can after the first semester. We have several who fence two weapons

Maintaining a decent level will be a challenge without a full time (& paid coach). I know in our program I spend at least half my time teaching beginners so my time to give advanced lessons is very limited (I like to get a chance to fence as well)

Attendance:

The way we solve this is to make it FUN. Practice is fun. We have fun tournaments. We have social events, Picnics, Crawfish boils etc. We also travel to big tournaments as a group. Nothing pulls a group together than a 10 hours drive and getting lost in the middle of no where ("oh, that's the wrong map")

Granted we have never turned out anyone higher than a "C" level fencer, yet, but we always have fun. This makes all the time and effort worth it. I've always called our club a beer and Pretzels club (we do tend to drink a lot of beer) we fence and we have fun.

We do take attendance and when someone misses a few practices we send them an email or call them with a friendly "hey, we missed you etc."

I'm sure there are many other opinions and ways to run a college club but this what has worked for us. We are not the biggest college club out there but we have been around a very very long time and with very little budget and mainly beginners we hang in there.

Good luck

[darius]

Eric,

One of the best things to do is designate a "beginner coach". This person is responsible for the development of the beginners, and has to give up some time to work with them 1st semester. We usually have one of our more experienced fencers do that work, and pretty much pretend that it's a "class" that meets during the weekday practices.

(Note: females seem to work better at this - the boys listen more intently, and the girls don't feel intimidated)

On weekends, beginners are encouraged to come watch and do footwork/drills, but they know that the beginner coaches are training. The curious ones tend to seek out the more experienced fencers, who will drill with them between bouts.

Right around November, we have a dry tournament for beginners, complete with judges and all that hooey. Then, around that time, we start letting people try other weapons -- by then, the weapons have generally chosen them, and they get thrown to the wolves -- the more advanced coaches.

It's generally a pretty good screening process, and helps one person develop as a coach, while keeping the more advanced coaches free to develop the more advanced fencers, and keep them coming.

(Note: I use the term "coach" loosely here -- often, collegiate clubs don't have access to a professional fencing coach, so you just have to get committments from your better fencers to pitch in and help out.)

With regards to standardizing: the coaching group came up with a training schedule for the beginner class, with a bit of flexibility built in, in case one thing became a stumbling block. We all took a look, so we knew where the beginners would be at any point. That way, if I had to substitute for Matty or Jessie, I'd know exactly where they left off. I'd like to expand that with descriptions of the various exercises and potential trouble spots.

Practices: we always have a warmup (chaos ball or soccer) which goes a bit too long, some stretching, footwork, and then everybody divides up with their respective coaches to do whatever is on the agenda, whether it's fencing or drilling or whatever. The games and footwork are all together, which fosters a sense of "togetherness", and helps the newbies not feel alienated until they're ready to bout.

You'll always lose a few, but our retention rate this year (we just started with this) was great : of about 10 beginners who started the 1st semester, we've kept about 6, and I've roadtripped to tournaments with 4 of them!

darius

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

Beginners -
Yes, restrict beginners to foil for at least one semester. That's my opinion.
You need to map out a programme that the club follows. For example, class 1. one semester of foil fencing for all beginners; class 2. one semester of intermediate foil fencing with a prerequisite of class 1.; class 3. one semester of advanced foil with a prerequisite of class 1 and class 2; class 4. one semester of beginning sabre fencing with a prerequisite of class 1.; etc. You write the programme on a document that gets handed out to all beginners, new-comers, advanced members and people who want more information about the club. This way, you don't have stragglers wanting to start saber "their way". The programme allows experienced fencers to enter into the programme at the appropriate level rather than from class 1. There's a set guideline for everyone so they know what it will take to advance in a particular weapon.

Coaching Ask for help from a local fencing school. Otherwise - create a programme where advanced fencers must take on the role of coaching for beginners and intermediate fencers.

Practices With the programme I mentioned above, you create a lesson plan for each class for an entire semester. So, for class 1, you have x number of weeks in your school's semester. Split up the semester to cover all basics and map out how long you want to spend on each area and when you start teaching a particular thing. Write that down. Have all experienced fencers who are teaching follow that schedule. This way, you can rotate in or out teachers. Then, they don't have to come up with a lesson plan on the fly. They also will know what has already been taught and what hasn't been taught. Give that lesson plan to all beginners. This tells them that they need to attend regularly to learn all the basics in order to go on to the higher class. If not, they will have to retake that class. If they skip x number of lessons, they need to repeat that class. These lesson and class plans give your club a certain level of legitimacy as opposed to say an SCA grouping of nerds who poke each other all night long.

Plan group drills where beginners and advanced fencers do the exercise together. Like footwork, everyone does footwork for X minutes. Then, everyone does stretching for X minutes. Then, everyone can split up into beginner, intermediate, advanced classes. Near the end of the semester when fencers have learned more, have part of the lesson for beginners and intermediate fencers do drills together (i.e new stuff that beginners have learned). On other days, have part of the lesson for intermediate and advanced fencers do drills together (new stuff that intermediates have learned). Don't mix beginner and advanced for drills.

Attendence Read my stuff under practices.

Always follow the program, those who move up within the program know what needs to be learned. Then, they end up taking over the programme when you are long gone... selling tools in the hardware department of a Sears store at minimum wage in your hometown while you get to live in your parent's basement because you can't afford to live in your own place even though you have a college degree.

[rukovsoft]

well...there are several college coaches, ncaa or club on this forum other than me that will answer your questions.

illl just give my views on the beginner/choice of weapon thing...

Epee to start is a really good thing. it will make it easier for beginners, they will have fun very fast, the equipment has less constraint than foil...

remember, if you re looking for fun but at some points want your fencer to compete, even at a local level, if they take foil, it will be hard to have fun at the beginning...they ll lose 15-1 to better foilists...whereas at epee, even somebody not "physically" fit at all can score touches on somebody very good. we just had this discussion on another forum, and many coaches let their beginners start with epee...

but you re right, you usually start by foil....but times change...people gets lazy , they want to have fun quick, they ant something exciting....i d go woth epee...

[rukovsoft]

oh yeah...i m coaching in an ncaa div1 program...some might think we don t need a "walk in' program.
however we do have one. 1.30 each week...not much but it can be useful:

this fencing for beginner shouldn t be neglected at all...
even if few will become 'fencers" it happens that some does...thgey might even try to enter the actual team the year after.
it also contributes to have your activity popular on campus...so might get additional funding if it comes to your athletic dept director....

[qatet]

Beginners
We didn't have much of a problem with walk-ins at Smith. We made a HUGE publicity push at the start of the year - tables at org fairs, posters, chalkings, announcements in the dining halls, demonstrations, putting people in a suit for a dollar and hitting them a few times - and at every one announced the first practice time. We took people for about 2 weeks and then didn't take anybody else until after the competitive season ended in the spring. We had three practices during the week where everybody practiced and one on the weekend with just veterans. Making a distinction between veterans and novices made a difference - made the vets feel responsible for the others. Weeknight practices usually started with working together. Some nights we divided off and vets and noives would each do their own drills for a bit after working together. Frankly, at the beginning of the semester it was a good idea to get distance and footwork back into the vets bodies before we let them have their blades again - I was usually the only one training over the summer. If we had a squad that really needed new fencers for the first meets we would switch a few people to that weapon if they seemed particularly inclined to fence it and would then invite them to fence on the weekend as well.
We did a lot of socializing outside of practice. As head of the club, I sent out copious emails to everybody letting them know about the events. That way the noives knew that there would be fun and social life around the club, but that practice wasn't the best place for just standing around and chatting. Some of the socializing was just fun stuff. Some of it was watching tapes of WC fencing and a bit more educational. It allowed the novices to see how the vets thought about the sport and that we did take it seriously. The vets tended to be more closely bonded (having endured each other in previous years, naturally) and took trips to meets (both official ones on the schedule and USFA meets, which also showed the social side of serious fencing. Everybody does want to find their niche in college.

Coaching
Best solution - get a coach. If that's impossible (where are you?) then make up lesson plans that people coming in later could follow. Encourage people to bring in drills that they've used at other clubs or even in other sports. The hardest part of running a college organization is knowing that the leadership will change so frequently (just try letting go once you graduate!). This can only really be solved by alums who hang around (an excellent coaching resource!) or leaving a written record.

Practices
For all the reasons that others have said, don't divide by night. But then, if you want to have a focus on one weapon (are you acting as coach? Do you want more structure to the program and to not have squads clamouring that you spend all your time with the other squads?) then give each squad drills but give one squad your main attention each night of the week.

Attendence
We were an increasingly competitive club and had relatively little tolerence for recreational fencers. We were nice to them, but most people didn't want to waste time drilling with somebody who would go away for a week or two and forget everything that you'd done together. Some recreational fencers trundled through in a state of oblivion. Some went away. Most became competitive. Our first meeting of the year was generally about 60 people (eep!) and the core group at the end of the year was usually about 30. Most of them drop after the second practice. I think that their legs hurt too much - weaklings!

This was for Smith College, an all-female liberal arts college of about 2,600, if that makes any difference.

[vegan]

hi all,
So . . . some advice- you can start people with any weapon; My old coach started everyone with sabre up until about age 16, and then started everyone with epee! no foil at all - he has interested theories; that epee is more fun to start, and that kids could start with sabre because there is no point, and ther is right of way- so they could learn that for foil, but the distance is similar to epee (wrists and arms).
My college club went pretty well without any "coaches" although we tried to send a bunch of people to coaches college, and our faculty advisor went and became quite good as a coach- as did some of the students. We were very structured. The average practice went like this:
Warm up
Stretch
Group footwork
"lesson" (bladework or tactics, some new "move")
Applied or limited bouting using new techniques
free fencing

The only thing that we did not do (unless you count going to eat and drink beer) was cool back down and stretch. We did some great things traveling together and having a real mix of competitive fencers and rec fencers.

Good luck
Do coaches college and try to get a faculty member to go as well
b.

[rvergara]

Originally posted by R. Exnicios
... sharing space with aerobics classes etc....

That annoys me...

[wflaschka]

Originally posted by rvergara That annoys me...

The other day, near the end of fencing practice, the door whooshed open and about 40 nubile young women rushed in, wearing sports bras and short-shorts. (I hate it when that happens.)

They proceeded to set up stretching mats on the floor, around the fencers. It was strange. I finished giving my lesson, tossed my mask and blade to the side, and bellowed, "Where's your instructor!?"

I was (guiltily) gratified to see that the instructor looked frightened and defensive. But I didn't want to argue with anybody. We figured out that there was a problem with the schedule. This yoga class had been standing outside the door, slowly getting more and more angry, until they just decided to walk in and take over. (I've wanted to do the same at times with the Karate class before us.)

We fencers agreed to reschedule our time with the building, if the yoga people agreed to not blunder like idiots through the flashing steel blades of a bout.

I like the shared space, because there are a lot of walk-ins -- but that's the only reason. I'm dying for a dedicated fencing salle. I promise the fencing gods that I will promote and recruit like crazy if we get our own room.

[qatet]

We resolved most of our problems of this sort by getting as chummy as we could with the building manager. Then our biggest problems came from Varsity teams kvetching about the "fencing club" not using its assigned times or space and getting into the middle of their practices. Turns out that it was a group of SCAers who were giving us a bad name.

I realized that my earlier post sounded kinda hardcore with regards to when we took newbies. The reason for this was that taking people on in the middle of our season both required one-on-one coaching by a vet who needed to be doing her own training. And every time we took time out for this attention the interloper would stop coming after a few practices. It made more sense to take newbies all at once and let them complain to/ bond with each other about how much their legs hurt.

[Artisan]

Originally posted by wflaschka
The other day, near the end of fencing practice, the door whooshed open and about 40 nubile young women rushed in, wearing sports bras and short-shorts. (I hate it when that happens.)

They proceeded to set up stretching mats on the floor, around the fencers. It was strange. I finished giving my lesson, tossed my mask and blade to the side, and bellowed, "Where's your instructor!?"

I was (guiltily) gratified to see that the instructor looked frightened and defensive. But I didn't want to argue with anybody. We figured out that there was a problem with the schedule. This yoga class had been standing outside the door, slowly getting more and more angry, until they just decided to walk in and take over. (I've wanted to do the same at times with the Karate class before us.)

We fencers agreed to reschedule our time with the building, if the yoga people agreed to not blunder like idiots through the flashing steel blades of a bout.

I like the shared space, because there are a lot of walk-ins -- but that's the only reason. I'm dying for a dedicated fencing salle. I promise the fencing gods that I will promote and recruit like crazy if we get our own room.

Promises, promises. I will venture that the fencing gods would most likely respond to a more noble sacrifice...perhaps one or two of those "40 nubile young women .... wearing sports bras and short-shorts." --sign them up, get 'em in whites teach 'em to fence, and a hall with 10 grounded strips, overhead bungie "reels," Super dooper air conditioning, mirrors on one wall and subsidized rent and utilities will be yours....Sign up three or more and get a bona fide eastern bloc coach who works for free for the love of the game as well.

[Inquartata]

Odd how so many of the same people who are so fervently "pro choice" on the issue of colored uniforms, painted masks, war cries and the like are so anti-choice when it comes to letting the individual choose which weapon he or she prefers. "You VILL start mit FOIL und you VILL conform!"

IMO it's not unlike telling prospective tennis players that they will have to spend a year playing ping pong first.

Learn whatever weapon calls to you. There is no real advantage to learning foil first...unless you want to fence foil.

We have had some success with beginner classes within the club. This keeps all of the novices at the same approximate skill level and lets them bond with other newcomers, instead of each of them being the sole "fish out of water" just walking in. Of course the attrition rate is high---we may get 2 or 3 out of a class of 15 who keep on after the class ends---but high attrition is a fact of life in University clubs. Like one coach I know says, "If fencing were easy everyone would be doing it."..

Our schisms, such as they are, seem to be centered around weapons rather than newcomer/veteran or competitive/novice.

[annacattiva]

Just to add to what qatet said about Smith (I'm a slightly more recent grad)...
This past year we actually took people at the beginning of second semester as well; Smith has a three week long Interterm in January where all sorts of people from the community teach all sorts of things. The fencing team taught a beginning foil class- 10 students, 2 hours a day for a week, then let those students join the team in the middle if they wanted. One did, and she turned out to be a great addition to the team. It worked out pretty well; got paid by the school to teach it, practiced teaching people, got a new recruit. And it mitigated the problem of having to take time out to work with newbies in the middle of the competitive season, since we were still having our own club practices in the evening, independent of the class during the afternoon. In response to darius, who suggested having one person appointed as novice coach- I don't know how well that works out for you, though I do know of other clubs where that works. For myself, I think I'd go crazy if that's what I had to do for a semester to the partial exclusion of my own training. We've worked it out so that, as qatet said, we dedicate part of our weekday practice (first 2 of 3 hours) to teaching novices (and all the vets are expected to help out) and then we have vet practice for the last hour and on the weekend. It works out pretty well, so that the vets remember their footwork while helping the novices, but nobody feels put upon or mad because they have to spend all their time teaching newbies.

We have been having trouble of late with practice space and times; we were scheduled along with an aerobics class that took up the whole room and was scary enough that we weren't going in there at all, not even with swords. We're also going to have trouble this year because the building is going to close two hours earlier than it used to every day, and our practices used to be scheduled right at the end of the day to minimize conflicts with people's classes. I'm not sure what's going to happen, but I'm pretty pessimistic. We used to lose time and space to another college's track team, who used Smith's facilities, so I suspect that we aren't going to be considered first with the new schedule.

As far as which weapon to start people on; I'm a sabre fencer and never did more than pick up a foil for a couple minutes at the beginning of my fencing career (I picked one up for longer later on). We fence in New England Collegiate Individual Championships (The Big One) in early November every year, where we have 5 slots in each weapon that we may fill, and not necessarily 5 competitive vet fencers in each, so we have novices fence relatively early on in their training (I fenced my first competition one month after learning to fence). We tend to have more novices interested in weapons with fewer vets because it will mean they have more chance to compete. Once they've chosen a weapon, the squad looks after their continued training in that weapon.

And we do actually have a coach and an assistant coach when we can get one.

[Dragonfly]

Creating a whole athletic program is a big undertaking. Many coaches don't welcome fencing in their arena they don't want it to supercede their current programs and they vie for space.

Plan A:
But, if your area has a fencing 'history' ask some of your coaches for lists of former students and throw a party at your University, you can rent Alumni houses for about $40/hour, and have each person invited make a small donation. We do fancy dinners after some of our fencing; why not skip a few and throw a fundraiser.

Plan B:
You could approach the Alumni Director to see if there's a way to create a Scholarship a year for a fencing student. This may attract some incoming freshmen who have some fencing experience already from highschools. Major gift soliciation takes some planning. I participated in a major campaign to raise $500 million dollars over a five year period. It was very aggressive. We almost made it. One of the hallmarks of it's success was the planning. There were several people on board who made sure that every detail was planned out before hand. One project for example was the Art Project. It took about a year to develop the entire plan, including production of display boards, and so forth; then the Major Gift Director met with key people to raise the funds. They are experts and can help you develop a plan.

[wflaschka]

One thing NYU does each year is host an "Alumni Tournament." Past team members can return and fence against the current squads. I've made a few, and it's a fun way to have continuity from year to year.

After the tournament, there are refreshments where old and new fencers are supposed to mingle.

[rvergara]

Originally posted by wflaschka
... have continuity from year to year.

My coach says that about our group, apparently we are the first to fence regularly. Before us fencing was the class the all the people that needed sport credits took for a semester. We are a team now, and some of the old fencers are coming back, I think they want to be part of it.

[rukovsoft]

as wflashka said there s atradition in college of meeting alumni. tournaments or fencing banquet are opportunities to build "a common culture" and keep the memory of a fencing program in a college. usually they give some awards every year to this banquet, show pictures of the year, elect captains, sum up the results...