Hey all,
In the year that I have been helping out my own instructor
by teaching new students basic Foil, I have found it to be
a rich experience that has helped developed my own fencing
as well as helped others (I have trained quite a few
terrific students that are still with the club to this
day). It's been real challenging too, to say the least.
Since we run out of a local fitness/recreational center,
we tend to get people of all types...not always ones
particularly interested in fencing all the time (for
example, uninterested kids whose parents put them in there
as "day care" while they go work out, or passing fad types
of people). I've learned to deal with many types of
course, and of those who refuse to learn, my teacher told
me to humor them for the time being and they will lose
interest eventually.
I've had an interesting challenge, recently. Not always,
but I tend to get one or two males in the group that get
the sudden urge to "sword bash" (too much) to get past
defenses and get that hit. Now I remember my very first
match years ago, and I certainly remember how awkward it
was and can certainly understand their point of view of
why they want to clang swords (even though it's not
right). Typically, these people would take advice and work
themselves out of it rather quickly, so it never became a
real problem.
But my most recent batch of students has two male
students, both teenagers, that refuse to grow out of it.
We've gone through the "fencing is an art and science and
not a marathon" speeches, and many control exercises and
technique refinements, but they start to turn fencing into
baseball when they start. Naturally as the other students
fenced each other and was doing well (and I was extremely
impressed how thoughtful and clean one of the younger
children was for his age), I noticed that the two sword
bashers were fencing against one another and I realized
the mistake in the pairing. I immediately halted them and
called them on what they were doing and to relax, then
told them to resume so I could access the situation. Once
again, they were up to their old habits quickly. I figured
that perhaps one of them was being too rough while the
other was adjusting to this in a means of panic, so I
broke the pair up and assigned them (and everyone else) to
different opponents in rotation.
I don't remember too much about how one guy did
immediately after that moment, but the other still had my
ire (to the point that club fencers noticed the grimace on
my face when I watched him fence). This rather tall guy
was being extremely rough with his female opponent, and
she wasn't at all impressed when he nailed very hard in
her assets (which quickly prompted her to wear protectors,
which I wasn't aware she was without).
I finally got fed up and stepped in myself to fence him to
demonstrate how blade wacking and force isn't necessary.
In a very short bout, I got a few hits on him while using
his excessively wide blade movements against him and using
his "whack" as a means to draw him with a feint followed
by a degage. Everything seemed to rub off on him and even
landed a very nice, clean hit on me by using his distance
and long reach. I complimented him for using his "true"
strength against me and went through my usual lectures,
and went on my way.
Later, I pitted everyone against experienced fencers and I
believe he drifted back to his old ways (perhaps out of
fustration from being unable to get through their
defense), but the fencers knew how to effectively deal
with this.
There's more to this story and I will say that he did
begin to fence a little cleaner, but I need not go on. As
for the other student, he lapsed in and out of his ways,
and I had a rather awkward moment when his father who
wondered in approached me with a hopeful face and asked
how he was doing. (This reminded me of a line from Miss
Bliss on Saved By the Bell about report cards, "parents
expecting the best, students expecting the worst, and
teachers having to put it all somewhere between")
For those who teach out there, what have been some of your
experiences with rough students and bringing them under
control? I'd like to take this opportunity to learn from
this, and though my own instructor is correct in saying
that some people refuse to learn, I don't really like
giving up on anyone if I can help it...especially if it
means turning them on to classical fencing.
--
Patrick Shannon
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