A contemporary design concept.

The triangular crest which was eventually used by the school.

The color logo as it appeared embroidered on a towel.

Leaning more towards the traditional, LFA’s current logo features a two-headed eagle wearing fencing masks on both heads!

If you are interested in commissioning a logo, send me an email for a quote. Prices are flat-rate, reasonable, and include three concept designs to choose from.

MDR

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Spiffy!

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Today’s post is sponsored by All-American Fencing Academy. Dime-store toy swords are everywhere nowadays, but they tend to be either too stiff to use safely or too floppy to parry. Here’s a look at fencing toys, past and present.

Mashoonga

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a foam noodle used as a practice sword. There’s a local club that uses home-made ones for training kids, I believe it’s a plastic PVC tube with a half a noodle stuck on the end. It can be trimmed to the right size and is stiff enough to use as a point weapon. I haven’t seen their use in class, however, so I’m not sure of their specific usage.

The new Nerf N-force swords get points for style:

Possibly an improvement over the old Nerf Fencing:

Of course there’s always the good ol’ Triplette Wacky Wackers. Suitable only for sabre, however.

But the closest thing to the “real deal” has got to be the Leon Paul Mini Fence set. They have plastic masks, and weapons available in either foam or plastic.

(If you’re having video trouble, try clearing your browser cache)

MDR

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The day has finally come! Here are the designs. Please express your interest in the comments or vote in the thread at Fencing.net. The sticker with the most interest will be the one I order first! (Note: this is not an advance order, but just to gauge the sticker’s popularity. Actual stickers will go on sale at a later date.) All stickers will be approximately 4″ wide on heavy-duty UV resistant white vinyl, suitable for outdoor automotive use, and will have a white outside border.

PS, Please don’t “borrow” my designs. Fencing is a small community, I’ll probably find out. ; )

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Despite the premium on space, I can’t say enough nice things about Mid-South’s class and hospitality.  All of the referees were extremely professional, and there was the nice touch of having a selection of fruit, a plate of brownies and mixed nuts available for the fencers around lunchtime. For the refs, the armory became a miniature hospitality suite with fruit, water and soda, and lunch provided.

I was fairly happy with my performance in the pools. I felt good that morning and finished pools 4 and 1, only dropping one bout to B-ranked Adam Burkhart. I came out of that round seeded 10th, which bought me a bye for the first round of direct elimination. Next up was my friend Jim Kent. I watched Jim fence the previous round and felt that I had a good chance against him. I started out against him with a planned strategy, but found that Jim was ready for me. Seems he has an excellent memory for his opponents, and I was slow to respond. He got ahead early and I found myself fighting from behind. I tied him up at 14-14 and felt sure I could get one light to finish him off. Jim won 15-14.

Now I am more mature than I was when I first started fencing, and losing graciously, while still not a natural thing, comes easier. I was truly happy for Jim, he has worked hard at fencing and I was glad to see him move on. But of course I was disappointed, for a lot of reasons. I was hoping to at least break into the top 16. I also wanted to fence Michael Glapion, whom I know well as a referee but have not yet had the pleasure of facing on the strip. But something else concerned me. Can I ever really improve from my current level?

In the mid-1990′s, when I started fencing, I was a college student. What I lacked in money I made up for in time and dedication. Three days a week I made the half-hour drive from Athens to Atlanta to fence for three or more hours at a time and to take lessons with a world-class coach. I attended every tournament within a six-hour drive, and attended Nationals. I had strong fencers around me constantly. I had nowhere to go but up. But since 2006 I have been self-coached. I practice only one night a week, for an hour and a half, most of which is spent coaching.  I’m lucky to make one tournament a month. I doubt I will attend a national event. Now I have the money, I just don’t have the time. While my location limits some things, other sacrifices I have made willingly to reduce the stress on my family and leave time for my art. In short, I haven’t worked hard enough to earn the kind of success I want, and no matter how much I want it, it just isn’t going to happen without the work. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. But such is life: you can’t do everything you want to do. You have to make choices as to where to invest your time. Spend too much in one area and the others suffer. Fencing is tremendously important to me and will always have a place in my heart, but art is in my soul.

Thanks for reading. Peace,

MDR

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Upon entering the Open portion, one fences pools as usual, then faces a cutoff point. If you don’t make the cut, you then are entered for FREE in the D & Under tournament. There you get to fence another pool round followed by 100% graduation to direct elimination (DE). Despite my dismal showing in the pools, I made the cut and proceeded to fence in another round of pools before going to DEs. In my first bracket I faced a valiant teammate but managed to squeak by. At this point I had little hope. Facing the top-seeded B-ranked fencer in the tournament, I knew that I was about to be creamed. But a funny thing happens when you accept that you are going to lose.

“Don’t be so pessimistic,” my friends said. “You can do it! Don’t give up!” But I wasn’t giving up. On the contrary, I knew that I had nothing to lose and my opponent had everything. That’s a great place to be in. It’s when you are fencing those people you “know” you should beat that the insecurity kicks in and you make mistakes. In that bout I held nothing back, used all of my tricks plus tried out a few new ones. I didn’t really worry about getting hit. And I lost 15-7. But I didn’t care. It was a lot of fun.

MDR

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Merry Christmas! This was a fun little experiment to make. I hope you like it!

Update: After a few reports of not being able to view the illustration, I went back and changed the picture from CMYK to RGB mode. OOPS! But at least now the background color looks better, more of a grocery-bag brown than a sickly green. If you still can’t see it, try deleting your browser cache and refresh.

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We provided the following equipment:

• 1 scoring machine, 2 reels, and 1 extension cord
• 4 masks (2 for display)
• 4 right-hand jackets in various sizes and one left-hand jacket
• 4 plastrons in various sizes
• 3 right-hand gloves and 2 left-hand gloves
• 4 dry sabres
• 2 foam sabers
• 1 electric foil, 1 french epee, 1 dry saber (for display)
• 2 fully-dressed electric epeeists
• Foam display board and literature
• Duct tape (for attaching the weapon to anyone with a weak grip)

The organizers supplied us with:

• 2 wheelchairs with brakes
• 3 tables
• 6 chairs

One table was used for the display and literature, and another to put the equipment to be used by participants. We used the last table to set up the scoring machine and reels. The weapon-side armrests of the two wheelchairs were removed and the brakes locked, to simulate fencing while locked in a frame. The two epeeists were hooked up and fenced several five-touch bouts (with myself as referee) at the beginning of our timeslot until we had drawn a small crowd of onlookers. I then took a moment to introduce myself and explain what we were doing.

With the 6 chairs set up in pairs, participants could choose to bat each other with foam swords without dressing up, or to give “real” fencing a try with the assistance of the two other volunteers. The fencers would give their students a brief lesson (from the seated position) in attacking and defending, and then give them the chance to fence a three-touch bout with their teacher. We used saber for its easy grip and light weight, but right-of-way language was left out for simplicity. The event was a success, and it exposed fencing to a diverse group of students, participants, and onlookers.

My great appreciation is extended to Salle New Bern and the ECU Fencing Club for their material support, as well as volunteers Kyler Zary and Philip Allen. I also had long-distance assistance from Gary Vanderwege of the USFA Wheelchair Fencing Task Force and Jim Murray of Johns Hopkins Fencing. Last but not least, thanks to our host Dr. Jim Decker of the ECU Department of Exercise and Sports Science. I would encourage every club to give consideration to wheelchair fencing and perhaps even to give seated fencing a try sometime. While the regulation equipment such as the wheelchair frame is cost prohibitive to most clubs, this is a simple way to give athletes with a disability a place to practice.

MDR

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This past weekend I had the privilege of attending a fencing clinic with five-time Olympian and coach Michael Marx, hosted by Raleigh Fencers Club. Michael recently left Oregon to take on a coaching position with Alex Beguinet at Duke University here in North Carolina.

Glove distance demonstration

The weekend started with a night of casual bouting. In addition to regulars from RFC, we were lucky enough to have two outstanding epeeists down from Northwest Fencing Center, Adam Maczik and Helen Jolley. Following the bouting we sat down for a discussion about our goals for the weekend, mine being primarily to take back as many training ideas as possible to our small club.

The following day started at 9 am with another discussion. Topics included:

• The importance of a proper and consistent warmup routine
• Terminology
• Weight distribution while on guard
• Footwork drills

The footwork drills were particularly enlightening, and introduced three maneuvers that were completely new to me: check forward, check back, and forward slide. All three are strategic moves which effectively mask your intentions, and will make a welcome addition to my classes and personal repertoire. Michael’s method of leading the footwork was as entertaining as it was educational, and made what is usually the most dreaded part of fencing practice much less of a chore.

After a bouting session and then lunch at a local pizza joint, we returned to discuss the morning session and introduced new topics.

• Individual motivation
• Weapon-specific drills
• Proper attack distance
• Bout problem solving
• Developmental drills with beanbags

The beanbag drills were simply outstanding. I had heard of a few of them, but there were many new ones as well, and he only scratched the surface of all of the possibilities. I frantically scribbled descriptions in my notebook to take back to my club. If he comes through on his intentions to publish a video of these drills, I’ll be first in line for a copy.

Sunday began another day with more bouting and new topics of discussion:

• Situational bouting
• Footwork training methods
• Making each drill action count
• Finger development Exercises
• Decision making drills

It became clear that many of the drills are designed to develop the elusive skill of split-second decision making. By the end of the clinic my head was spinning with information and my body was starting to catch up with me. But I have a full notebook of ideas and renewed inspiration for both fencing and teaching!

In summary, a clinic like this would be well worth your time and money if you have a free weekend and hope to improve either your fencing or your coaching methods. Michael is a welcome addition to the fencing talent already present in North Carolina, and I hope there will be future opportunities like this one. Keep your eyes glued to Ask Fred!

MDR

Update 1: For the needle-and-thread challenged, here’s a quick way to construct your own beanbags: Fill party balloons with 1/4 cup of rice or dry beans using a kitchen funnel and tie off. To make these more durable, cut the necks off of 2 to 3 more balloons and stretch over the first. Voilà! Your own beanbags!

Update 2: Picture added.

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