self coaching

[EpeeQueen]

What are some experiences you have had without a coach/fencing opponents without coaches or clubs? I have coached myself for the past year after having my individual coach retire and have found it to be a challenging experience both mentally and physically. Are we "unattached" fencers considered to be of lower callibur? Just curious. Thanks in advance for your insight.

[wflaschka]

My view used to be that there was absolutely no chance of improvement without lessons.

I relocated away from my coach 5 years ago... for the first several years, I stuck to this belief, and allowed my technique to fade. When I started giving lessons, everything re-asserted, and I'm possibly better now than when I left my coach.

Now, I'm not so sure about anything. There are anecdotes and rumors about very high-level fencers without masters. Kolobkov may be self-training (others can confirm or deny this). The FIE report of the 2000(?) World Championships mentioned that Golubitsky "won, and then went back to coaching his dutch kids" (paraphrase), e.g., he wasn't training competitively. Epeeist Jim Carpenter retired, returned as a coach, and has started reclaiming his ratings.

Perhaps, after a certain level of mastery, it is possible for high-level fencers to improve their art independent of a coach. They have come so far that they know more than what most coaches can teach them. The problem becomes one of preserving technical skills, which an advanced fencer would be able to do while giving lessons or bouting.

Below that level of mastery, self-trainers need to be conscientious and driven if they're going to be competitive. In this regard, at least, they may be better than most other fencers I've come across. On the strip, self-trained fencers feel like any other fencers -- a mix of strengths and weaknesses. I don't know of any self-trained fencers who got very good on their own, however. Self-trained fencers who aren't already world-class probably plateau permanently at a certain point.

[noodle]

i don't have a permanent coach myself. i've had to run for 6 months off of two hours worth of work i did with a coach who once or twice a year helps out my club team (he lives a few states away but wants to help us out). with those two hours of work which were my first and, at the time, only epee lessons, i won my divisional championchips, got my C (only 4 months of experience) and coached my team's epeeists to a level that i was satisfied with given the situation.

anyway, my (often repeated) point is this: if you want to improve, you'll want to take some sort of regular visits to a coach, no matter the distance or how long between visits. everyone has problems that only coaches can fix. if you want to improve, this is vital. you can only take yourself so far before you need outside help. you'll also want to fence opponents. if you don't have opponents, fence in tournaments as often as possible.

quick edit to add this: before i fenced, i was a martial artist. i hit a level of skill that i couldn't improve as quickly by learning from someone else. i had to teach others in order to learn. it required me to break down my skills in order to convey them to someone who had no idea what was going on. a very good idea would be for you to try and teach other people.

[broncofencer]

I learned at a college gym class I took one semester that the instructor (lookinjg back) really didn't know much either. After that I joined Western Michigan Universities club which still and reallistically never will have a coach. It has always been fencers who had skill taught new people the sport for love of the game. I am now that fencer and my theory is this people know if you are self taught/taught by another low level fencer but they respect that you are here and trying. If you are not dangerous and have the basics I feel most you can pick up along the way in competitions and through fencing others.

I am not saying you can go to a tournament blind or learn completly by reading a book. But you can enjoy the sport and learn to be good at it over time. you may develop quicker with a coach and may go further faster but eventually it becomes less of a knowledge gap and more of a physical one.

I have found that in this country everyone (myself included) is an expert in their own mind (look around this forum and see what I mean) and they are always willing to give their sage advice.

I and the rest of my fencing club have always found people willing to give some advice or a quick tip. After losing 5-0 an A ranked fencer comes up and says "everytime you do this I did this and would score instead do this and that will stop me" That is what I lovwe about fencing your opponent wants to get better so he wants to make you better.

Not everyone acts this way but the ones that do leave a better impression than those that don't.

[corinna2u]

We are like some others...because of our location, we do not have a coach to some extent. We do drive quite a ways for a couple of lessons a month but do not have a coach that goes to tournaments. At Nationals our 'lesson coach' was there, but he coached those from his club (as is expected).

We do alot of self-teaching and self-training from books and from tips that we pick up from other fencers but we check in with those that we consider knowledgable because we don't want to learn something wrong and then have to break a bad habit.

We are considered 'unattached' but have not ever been considered of lower calibur even in the beginning when we actually were.

We listen to all opinions and then waddle through the muddle to the information we can use and apply. Some things as newbies, we just couldn't get. For example, right now we are working on correct footwork. One of us is having a bobbing problem on the advance that just won't seem to go away. The answer to this problem seems to ellude us...we will have to go to someone for help.

Kudos to you for self-training.

[Zelda]

Corrina2u, to stop bobbing, my coach made me imagine I was in a very low ceilinged room and every time I bobbed up I hit my head. He basically held his hand over my head so that I hit it every time I bobbed up. hope that helps!

[Catlady]

If you're good you can do moderately well. It was probably more of a viable option about ten years ago than it is now. One of my coaches was primarily self coached for most of his career and did quite well, but then he's a very good fencer anyway, someone like me, who had less natural talent probably wouldn't do as well. The drawback is he taught himself some things that weren't technically correct, or at least aren't the most effective so now that we have a really experience coach there are things he's had to unlearn.

Then it depends on how you define uncoached. I could technically call myself uncoached/self coached because I don't officially take regular individual lessons. but I'm far from being on my own and I'm not the most advanced fencer in my club so there are a lot of people who can and do give me advice. That's a different situation from when you either are the coach/best fencer, or you're too far away from a club to be able to practice regularly with and get advice from other fencers.