The West Coast Fencing Scene...coming up

[edew]

As some of you know, the west coast (of the USA) has some of the best organized, best attended, and most colorful tournaments.

Here are some exciting expectations for the upcoming year(s).

The Pacific Coast Section tournaments will continue to offer the current group of offerings:

* the Long Beach Invitational with its fabulous trophies (they really are cool) and sometimes cash prizes;

* the Couturier Saber, one of the original PCS event;

* the Duel In The Desert, which runs a tight ship plus a fantastic staging (compared to the rest of the USA's event staging). The Duel is expected to draw some top international fencers next January, since it's no longer an Olympic year. Expect to see fencers on the caliber of Milanoli and such coming over.

* the Hawaii Open will make a move to bring in more asian-region international fencers. I spoke with the tournament organizer who has been communicating with the Australian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese national teams for an attendance next year or the year after. Keep your fingers crossed for a possible Hawaii Summer Nationals.

* the Sierra Nevada Open still stages a great event and offers the spectators a great dining/entertainment experience.

* The Piller Epee by GGFC brings in a lot of the top epeeists from across the country to the tournament.

Outside of the PCS circuit events, the Pacific Regional Youth Circuits next season (for Youth-10 and Youth-12 only) will be more manageable and will still offer all youth fencers some great fencing opportunities.

The Bay Area's Bay Cup will continue to provide fencer-friendly, well-organized fencing competitions.

Southern California will get into the act by providing a similar program for their youth fencers. Maybe one day, they become better than the Bay Area fencers (hah).

However, the big news are two new events coming into the scene. The first is not so new, but will be making a quantum leap from previous years. The Kendall-Jackson Winery Invitational will be truly international as they will be inviting (and invitation have been accepted) the top international fencers from Italy, Germany, and France. That's Sanzo, Vanni, Bissdorf, Wessels, and such. They'll be flown in for the week of training with local fencers, and then attend the competition for a cool cash prize.

Another is the plan to bring a Men's Foil Grand Prix to Las Vegas. (Gives me three reasons, now, to go to Vegas...hope those poor suckers sitting at table 3 have money for me.) That plan is in the works and will begin in 2004-2005 season.

Near future goals will be to bring more top-saber level competition to the area to help bolster the west coast's currently weaker saber programs. First it's Kansas, then Ohio, then New York, then the World (of saber).

[Army Fencer]

Somebody needs to get on the college fencing scene on the West Coast. Since the CS Long Beach team died a few years ago, I think the only schools left are CS Fullerton, UC San Diego, and Stanford. It'd be nice to see that grow, because that would bolster fencing overall in the region.

[dberke]

Don't forget us up here in Seattle! While we may not have as many fencers as the Bay Area or Southern CA, there is a very active and growing fencing scene up here.

Over the past couple of years, we've been trying to grow our major division tournaments by attracting people from other areas. We routinely draw top fencers from Vancouver, B.C. and Portland, OR to our events. Last weekend, we held the annual Mid-Winter Open, which drew 65 foilists to make a B3 event. Open epee was an A2 with 50 fencers (which would have been larger had we not scheduled the event opposite the Superbowl!)

Fencing here in the Seattle area continues to grow and we're hoping to attract people from around the country to our larger division events. We especially would like to see more folks come up from CA since it isn't too arduous a trip. (We're also encouraging our fencers to head south whenever possible.) Many of us dream of hosting something like "The Battle in Seattle"... unfortunately we don't quite have the appeal of Las Vegas!

Even if you're just visiting, there often is some kind of tournament every week. Check out the Western WA Division webpage for an up-to-date schedule: www.wwdfencing.org

Dan

[edew]

Originally posted by Army Fencer
Somebody needs to get on the college fencing scene on the West Coast. Since the CS Long Beach team died a few years ago, I think the only schools left are CS Fullerton, UC San Diego, and Stanford. It'd be nice to see that grow, because that would bolster fencing overall in the region.

I say, let the schools realize the need to bolster their athletic offerings with fencing. We are generating tremendous number of fencers in the Bay Area (not as many as in NJ or Boston, but we try). They don't all want to go to east or midwest schools because there is fencing available there. When enough schools here hear that their accepted students would rather go to Ohio State than UC Berkeley, they'll think twice about keeping the sport as a club activity.

[DHCJr]

Originally posted by Army Fencer
Somebody needs to get on the college fencing scene on the West Coast. Since the CS Long Beach team died a few years ago, I think the only schools left are CS Fullerton, UC San Diego, and Stanford. It'd be nice to see that grow, because that would bolster fencing overall in the region.

You missed one NCAA team in California. Considering what a 'Power House' in NCAA. OOPS, fencing is their only NCAA team. The school is of course Cal Tech, the scourge of West Coast Armorers, much like their archrivals MIT is the bane of East Coast Armorers.

There are other club teams, but I wish my almamater had the team again.

[TrojanMD]

Certainly, while the loss of the CSU Long Beach team a few years ago (and the CSU Northridge team prior) was unfortunate for collegiate fencing on the West Coast, there are a few programs still active aside from the 3.5 NCAA teams. In SoCal, USC, UCLA, UCI and UCSB regularly field teams to Intercollegiate League tournaments, and the NorCal league includes teams from Cal Poly, UCB, and UCD, to name a few. There are also programs active at College of the Desert and the Claremont Colleges in Pomona, I beleive.

I think it would be a mistake to overlook these, since a few are not club by choice, but rather due to circumstances beyond their control. (such as unfortunately capable football teams...)



BTW, thank you, Eric, for posting that list of West Coast events - it's nice to get a sense for the (ever increasing) number of upper level events out here!!

[Almightynoitall]

Originally posted by Army Fencer
Somebody needs to get on the college fencing scene on the West Coast. Since the CS Long Beach team died a few years ago, I think the only schools left are CS Fullerton, UC San Diego, and Stanford. It'd be nice to see that grow, because that would bolster fencing overall in the region.

Actually, there is a collegiate circuit (of sorts) running in Northern California, the NCIFL... it includes UC Berkeley, CalPoly SLO, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa Junior College, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, USC, and U of Nevada Reno/TMCC.

here's a link:
http://nadi.calpoly.edu/~fencing/icfencer/index.html

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by edew
Near future goals will be to bring more top-saber level competition to the area to help bolster the west coast's currently weaker saber programs.

"Weaker"? "WEAKER"? Man, I would KILL to have half as "weak" a sabre scene as the West Coast in MY area...

( OK, well, maybe not kill, but maim, certainly! )

[DHCJr]

What Eric meant was weaker in comparision to Epee and Foil. The Long Beach Invitaional for Sabre was only an A2 this year. Every month at the Orange Coast (local) division tournament is always an A2 and Foil is at least a B and sometimes and A. We're very happy if we can get a D tournament in Sabre.

[edew]

That's what I meant. Foil and Epee are very strong in the west coast. Certainly, we're not drawing the Tiomkins or the Kellners, but we have people who can go head-to-head (and ultimately lose, of course) against them. We also have good numbers for the foil and epee contingent.

The saber contingent is about 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the foil or epee, and we would be lucky to have two A fences attending. And if there are two, one's a washed up has-been and the other is an untested newbie who got it somewhere lucky. (Sarcasm mode was just on.)

Seriously, aside from just a small handful of saber fencers, the vast majority are all C-classified and below. Part of the problem is that once the fencer gets good, he or she seem to disappear from fencing locally. The reason? No other strong fencers around.

Why would an Alex Wood or Tim Chang attend the Long Beach Invitational and the Duel In The Desert? Because there are five to ten other decently strong fencers to go against. Why wouldn't a Jason Rogers attend a DITD? (Well, besides the fact that he moved out of the area.) Because there's no one else to fence against.

Prior to Alex Krul and Ilan Chernov and several others "graduated" to College, they also didn't bother to attend regional competitions like the Long Beach Invitational or the Duel In The Desert. There has to be a program in the west coast to force them to attend. Getting their coaches to push the fencers will be a great help.

[Sabresque]

Originally posted by edew
The saber contingent is about 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the foil or epee, and we would be lucky to have two A fences attending. And if there are two, one's a washed up has-been and the other is an untested newbie who got it somewhere lucky. (Sarcasm mode was just on.)

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by edew
The saber contingent is about 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the foil or epee,

Alas, this is a problem in most places. Damn that "teach everyone foil first" attitude!

Part of the problem is that once the fencer gets good, he or she seem to disappear from fencing locally. The reason? No other strong fencers around.

But where do they GO? Do they move away, or just quit fencing?

Why wouldn't a Jason Rogers attend a DITD? (Well, besides the fact that he moved out of the area.) Because there's no one else to fence against.

Yeah, I hear you...Jason Paul is another that seems to have disappeared. But Curt Andrus is at Stanford; where is he these days? Max Williams? Do they just get to the point where it's travel to big meets or nothing? Hey, I travel too---but I also fence in all my Division tournaments. It seems the responsible thing to do: after all, there were good people fencing all these guys when THEY weren't much of a challenge, enabling THEM to get better, yet they feel no need to "give back" now? Pretty sad if you ask me...

[afc fencer]

Yeah, I hear you...Jason Paul is another that seems to have disappeared. But Curt Andrus is at Stanford; where is he these days? Max Williams? Do they just get to the point where it's travel to big meets or nothing? Hey, I travel too---but I also fence in all my Division tournaments. It seems the responsible thing to do: after all, there were good people fencing all these guys when THEY weren't much of a challenge, enabling THEM to get better, yet they feel no need to "give back" now? Pretty sad if you ask me...

I use to feel the same way.
But now i go to about two major comps a month. Weekends are my only time off. It sucks giving one up to go to a local. Especeialy when you are not treated very nice.
Now I go to very few locals.

[swordsen]

Originally posted by afc fencer
I use to feel the same way.
But now i go to about two major comps a month. Weekends are my only time off. It sucks giving one up to go to a local. Especeialy when you are not treated very nice.
Now I go to very few locals.

Not treated very nice? Now I am curious as to what you mean by that? Being from the same division you are I have not generally noticed that being a problem.

[Inquartata]

I don't know about you, but fencing is what MAKES my weekends.

If fencing has come to be an obligation, an imposition on your time off, a nuisance...maybe you ought to take some time off or something.

[Sabresque]

I also used to feel this same way. These few weekends are your time to take off to KEEP from burning out, Inq. Plus, at many local events you get nothing from them anymore as a fencer. I still fence some local events (and still get things out of them), but I can see where afc is coming from. It's not an obligation, but once you get to that level you need to save your energy, have time to regain your strength before other tournaments that count for national point standings. Fencing makes their weekend, but they have to also take care of themselves. Those weekends are times for vegging out, doing normal things like watching movies, not thinking about fencing, etc. As my coach would say "rest! sauna! watch movie! I don't care what you do, don't think about fencing!". You need this so you can continue to focus when necessary.

[edew]

Jason Paul joined the other Jason at OSU. I'm not blaming him now. And he did attend the regional events for the most part.

[afc fencer]

Not treated very nice? Now I am curious as to what you mean by that? Being from the same division you are I have not generally noticed that being a problem.

I have been made to ref at every local I go to. Wich I dont mind except i always get yelled at by people who dont know what there doing. Get huge bruises from big men who get angry and hit harder and harder with every touch.(i dont think he was hiting me hard on purpose)Ive had to spend an hour waiting for people to find equipment so they can bring in 5 foilists to make it a D comp. Ive Been told people will be at a comp but when I took the two hour drive no one was there.
For the most part the comps are run ok but other fencers arent always that nice.
But if a comp had a nice prize or was really well run and at a good time I would probally go.
Thanks Sabresque thats exactly it.

[swordsen]

Hmmmm I see. More a lack of decent competition and a few old schoolers who haven't caught on to the new game and never will. (and I can make pretty good guesses as to who they are) the unfortunate thing of course is that without a few skilled people coming out to play the people who fence there think that old school is still the way to go. vicious circle. And no way to really break it.

[Inquartata]

I can only shrug and lift my palms and recognize that some people love fencing more, ah, insanely than others.

Work prevents me from fencing during the week at the moment, so weekends are all I get...but even when I was fencing three times a week I wanted more. And I don't get a whole lot out of local comps, either, but they are like practices: opportunities to work on aspects of your game ( including coping with refereeing idiosyncrasies---or is that idiotsyncrasies! ) with people other than my clubmates. Too, it isn't always about "getting"; sometimes it's about giving back. Or at least it used to be.