really young fencers

[Ariela]

i have a niece who is almost two years old , and since i have realized she can understand almost evrything we say i thought i could get her started into fencing , what do you guys think ?

[zeidolon]

...

You might want to let her body develop a little more before subjecting her to competitive sports. I would recommend talking to a doctor before enrolling her in any sports program, particularly at that very very very young age. I don't know what the usual age is for youth fencers, but I would think it would be around 8-10 maybe.

Best of luck.

[drayke]

She may understand, or seem to understand, most of what you say, but has she developed the capacity to make discernment between action and consequence?

I did once know a 4 or 5 year old that had been learning a form of judo since he was two. He very capabily threw me also, however that didn't entail wacking with a long, thin metal blade.

[Ariela]

Originally posted by drayke
She may understand, or seem to understand, most of what you say, but has she developed the capacity to make discernment between action and consequence?

I did once know a 4 or 5 year old that had been learning a form of judo since he was two. He very capabily threw me also, however that didn't entail wacking with a long, thin metal blade.

yeah really when my brother was 3 y/o me and my cousins used do do some sword play but my bro would find some real hard metal sticks in the yard and wouldnt leave us alone untill hed actually hit one of us! may i shgould only teastch my niece the footwork !

[MyrddinsPrecint]

one of the coaches at my club has a daughter, i guess she's about 2 now, i'm not sure...

she enjoys visiting practice, and can even do a mock lunge...

my suggestion? get all the small children very used to fencing, and make sure they all think it's a real sport, at a young age...

but wait til they ASK if they can before you let them....

[corinna2u]

We have a two year old in our household. Just try stopping him from fencing.

Ah, but, he only uses his pointer finger. His favorite word sequence is parry-riposte. We have taught him that he is only allowed to use his finger. I expect when he is 4 or 5, we will get him outfitted with a plastic helmet and foam foil. We picked up a brochure at Nationals that had something like that.

Two things: Don't teach, if you can not enforce safety. And do not really teach the footwork, it is too asymmetrical and will alter the child's correct muscle growth.

[Eileen]

I believe most other competitive sports (except gymnastics) don't begin training until age 8. I think that's based on mental and physical development.

Another consideration is possible early "burn out" if you start them very young. I do like what another poster said about making sure young kids know it is a sport they are learning right from the start.

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

2 years old is kind of early. Fencing is a thinking man's game. Look at me, I'm a man, I fence, I think, it's a game... voila, thinking man's game.

At 2 year's old, fencing is just poking.

[Mo]

A two year old is a baby. Everyone including babies learn by play. Let the little princess pretend she is a fencer. Make her a fencing costume. Feed her fantasy.

DO NOT however try to make her be fencer. She doesn't need lessons or anything formal. She can just grow up knowing what fencing is all about. That would be a good thing.

Girls seem to develop sooner than boys so when she seems ready to really learn about it, maybe between 4 and 5, that would be an excellent time to start. I would not worry about uneven muscle development at her stage. She just needs to have fun. She has time to make choices!

[Zelda]

At my club in Brisbane we had an outbreak of babies a few years back. Most of these kids are now about 3 or 4 and their mums/dads play with them in a fencing way. I have seen a dad playing pirates with his son, but subtley change the way the child was holding the mock sword from the costume so it was correct. I have seen 4 year olds with size 0 foils/masks and padding playing. But at the same time I have seen those same 4 yo despite being told to stay in one place walk onto the strip while mummy/someone else was fencing and try to get their attention. 2 seems awfully young though. I like Mo's suggestion, feed them fantasy.

[nahouw]

Originally posted by Ariela
i have a niece who is almost two years old , and since i have realized she can understand almost evrything we say i thought i could get her started into fencing , what do you guys think ?

ABSOLUTELY NOT -- she is too young.

I know Jujie Luan, and when her son was that age, when she would take him to competitions, he would mimic stuff; she kept it to just mimicing footwork -- all the while she was watching. And as the tournament progressed, she did not want him watching her, and had me take him away and entertain him otherwise.

She is too young to understand anything about fencing -- especially the concept of consequences.

However, we have a family group that comes for lessons in our club. The eldest daughter is 16, the middle daughter is 12, and the youngest daughter is 7, and the father of the girls is a fencer who in the past has made USFA finals, so he works with them at home in between lessons. The two elder daughters have been fencing for about 3 years. The youngest has been around competitions for a long time, and does pick things up fast via observation. I am a proponent of starting young kids in fencing, as long as they have the attention span, the discipline, and are able to take correction -- a rarity amongst small children.

This 7 year old is able to immediately take correction when I point out something deficient in her technique. When I give her a a pattern to execute with the dummy, she executes it correctly, and when I make a correction, she immediately corrects herself. It is quite remarkable that she is such a perfectionist. We sometimes fence bouts in sabre, and have one of the sisters direct. Many times the sisters will award me a touch (one is an eppeist, the other a foilist) and I have to decline it, because the 7 year old clearly caught me a tempo ahead -- it is amazing that she has such a sense of timing -- I find it a real joy to fence with her.

If you are interested in your niece eventually getting into fencing, I would recommend only footwork games in which you tag each other with your hands. If by the time she is 8 years old, that she still likes playing this game, perhaps you can introduce her to a beginner's class with other kids. Psychologically speaking, the norm is that the mind doesn't develop the capacity for strategy until a child has reached 12.

[Wizardly]

Hmm, for a two year old...two words: nerf fencing. (I wonder if they still make those.) Definitely no blades or actual fencing, but I'm thinking footwork and foam rubber is pretty safe and harmless. And be sure to treat it like any other "sport" played by that age...like wiffle ball, or bumper-bowling for example.

[Cerian]

A rather good fencer at my club, who's ranked 1st, I believe, in U12 foil, started at 7. Seems like a good enough age.

[Mo]

Originally posted by nahouw
ABSOLUTELY NOT -- she is too young.

Psychologically speaking, the norm is that the mind doesn't develop the capacity for strategy until a child has reached 12.

Never ever be bound by this kind of information. Should have, would have, could have, ya know?

It all depends on the kid. It seems the kids are so often pegged into activities by their age groups that it is just plain moronic.
Kids develop everything at different speeds. Follow their lead and don't put them in any categories.

BUT!!!!!!!! USE COMMON SENSE
For some kids it is so much more comfortable for them to be older. They finally get taken a little more seriously and are allowed to do things they have been able to do for years.

If you want a kid to have good reasoning abilities. Pay attention to them, teach them chess and take them seriously.
Do mental math problems in the car.
When they ask a question ask them what they think the answer is.
Give them every opportunity to make choices and use reasoning.

[Louweasel]

Jesus Christ, she's TWO! Leave the poor child alone with some wooden blocks for heaven's sake. She's a toddler and belongs in a sandpit or a paddling pool, not on a fencing strip. It's not the age for competitive sport, surely?

On a more reasoned note, familiarity breeds contempt. If you push a child so young into fencing, she'll just rebel by the time she's ten and want to play rugby union or something.

Going with you to watch and playing her own little make-believe fencing games is one thing but I'd wait at least until she's at school to start real fencing.

[Talyn]

6... no less, and make her take it as a serious sport but still have fun.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

My older son (six now, about 2-3 then) followed me to training when his mother was week-commuting to an University 4 hours away. He learned to lunge quite well by observation. My younger son (soon 3) has learned to do a sabre parry quinte, he figured out the idea on his own when we were "fencing" with chopsticks. Now, he is really hard to keep away from various kitchen utensils (not sharp ones, they are kept out of reach) to "fence" with. He also gets into my sabre once in a while.

That, however is the extent of it I believe. So youg kids can learn to do single moves, but I don´t think that they can string them together or have the wits to figure out which move to do when in anything close to real speed. At that age, the attention span is too short for formalized learning.

Let the kid play and think that they are learning, but don't push it.

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[opinionated]

2 is way too young... if you want to get her one of those foam sabres to play around with, go for it, but even footwork isnt too good an idea at that age

at around 4 years old its ok to start with footwork... emphasize small advances, retreats, etc... this is the age when many kids in my area start soccer, but they just kick the ball around on a mini-field, and dont try for tactics that will develop at an older age... around 5-6 you can get a size 0 blade and start with bladework... footwork, of course is key, and many coaches for older fencers have them do footwork long before they pick up a blade

however, young kids have a much shorter attention span and lots of footwork can lose their interest in the sport (i've seen this happen with high school juniors, and they're supposed to have longer attn spans)... so maybe work on drills to gain speed and speed reflexes, and play a little bit with those plastic foils (the ones that make sounds when you hit) and plastic masks...

if you have your niece pick up a blade when she's really young and play with it, it can stint muscle development... so stick with footwork & toys till she's at least 5... take her to club/competitions though, so that starting fencing will be a natural thing, as you don't see little kids joining a fencing club nearly as much as they join little league, soccer, dance or gymnastics

[npkeith]

I also agree that 2 is way too young. I have a 21 month-old myself. He certainly understands basically everything I say, but has no (or very little) concept of cause and effect. Case in point: Don't pull on that (heavy) keyboard case or it will fall over on you......thump. Its not until about 12 that most kids have the intellectual and emotional maturity to be able to fence well. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but 2 is, as I said, way to young.

Also, kids grow so fast that their brains cannot keep up with where everything is. I have 12 year-olds in my class that have the same problem. One week they have a parry 4 riposte that nothing will get past, and the next week they can't find their backsides with both hands. Proprioception (the ability to know the position of the body in space) is learned over time, and can be vastly improved with practice, but not if the variables keep changing (Imagine trying to learn your lunge distance if every week your weapon grew longer by a random amount between .2 and 5 cm)

I think Leon Paul has a nerf-like junior fencing kit that is primarily aimed at teaching the early stages of discipline and following rules (while still allowing kids to whack each other in a safe environment), but I think that even it is aimed at 8 and up.

[remise]

My son started when he was 7. He was very tiny when he was seven, also........he looked more like a 5 year old. What I remember the most is that he picked up the footwork and the bladework quite well. Handling himself against older fencers who were not going to treat him with kid gloves was another matter.

It was traumatizing for me as a Mom to see him come home at night with welts from 'flickers' who had no sense of mercy on him or his age in foil. My son, was not bothered by these older kids, and told me as much. I was the one who winced inside when he took a particilarly hard hit. However, looking back, these 'older' fencers (10-14 year olds) did him a favor. They invariably taught him how to "kill" a flick quite effectively. (I'm still working on getting a vid-cam to capture that on film). They taught him distance, timing, and excellent footwork that he would not have learned had he fenced amongst his own peers.

But, just for the parents out there who would like to put their young kids out on the strip......be prepared to have them descended upon by older teens or older kids who will not have mercy upon their tender years. If you and your child can deal with THAT, then so be it. Otherwise, it could be a traumatizing experience for everyone involved.