Starting fencing

So, I am sure that most beginning fencers ask themselves at some point, “Why can’t we just fence instead of doing all this STUFF?” Well, frankly, at some clubs you can. These clubs tend be either the REALLY good clubs, or the REALLY bad ones. For example, I have been told by members of the club that when a beginner walks into Nellya he or she is dressed out and told to go fence. One of the mid range fencers there takes him over to a strip and they start to fence. This works because there is such an abundance of talent available that the Coach, excuse me, Maestro, is absolutely confident that The beginner will be steered away from any bad habits and, if he gets those habits he is confident that he and his coaching staff can break the beginner of them. Judging from the fencers that come out of Nellya, it seems to work for them. On the other end of the spectrum, some small clubs, generally those without any real coaching at all when the get a beginner tend to dress the fellow up and let him learn from osmosis and he fences the others in the club. This tends to turn out pretty scary fencers. Not scary because they are good but scary because they do really wild and crazy shit on the strip. If the beginner is athletic and coordinated he can often get good enough to earn at least a D, sometimes a C (in foil) or even better in Epee if he is really fast too. But once he hits the point where his wild and crazy stops intimidating his opponents, he stops winning. And unfortunately, once those wild and crazy things get embedded in a fencers psyche it is VERY hard to get them back out. Bad habits are real easy to pick up and REALLY hard to lose. It can be done if there is a good coach available and the fencer has a lot of time and desire to change. But it is hard and time consuming.

Now, in my case I will not let someone “Just fence.” In fact I will get annoyed with you if you start to do it on your own. In our club I unfortunately do have the time to give every fencer the individual attention needed to overcome those bad habits picked up by early bouting. And there are not (yet) a strong enough cadre of senior fencers back fill the time. And in a college club we will rarely get a lot of members who can do that much because about the time you get good at it you graduate and leave.

So the best bet to become a competent fencer in the situation we are in is to learn all the basics first and then start to put them together. I know it isn’t as fun, but it is a system that works for us.