Point in Line

Point in Line
A USFCA Email Newsletter
April 28, 2010
Volume 2, Number 2
IN THIS
ISSUE:
Anuual General
Meeting
and
USFCA Conference
Info
Halberstadt Fencing
Club Hosts USFCA
Clinic
Chuck Alexander’s
Epee Workshop
USFCA New England
Clinic Report
USFCA Awards
Committee Update
Lessons from History
Giorgio Santelli
Overcoming
Performance
Errors with
Resilience
“Improvement
begins with I.”
From the USFCA President, Abdel Salem
The competitive season is almost over. Each season gives us a
chance to learn and improve. One way to improve is to take advantage
of the benefits of USFCA membership by reading or submitting articles.
Another benefit is to attend the regional clinics and, of course, the
upcoming AGM and Conference.
I would like to thank everyone who has worked so hard to
organize this year’s USFCA Conference. We have an outstanding
program of presenters. I hope every member will be able to attend.
Please take advantage of these valuable learning and refreshing
opportunities. There is also the opportunity to take your practical exam
to earn or improve your level of USFCA certification. The USFCA is the
only internationally recognized accreditation organization for fencing in
the United States. In case you will not be able to attend we are planning
to videotape most sessions for vending later.
At the AGM we will thank our departing Executive Committee and
welcome a new one. I feel good about the accomplishments of this
Executive Committee but we still have a lot of work. As usual we look
forward to your help and support.
Have a wonderful summer and I look forward to seeing you in
Louisville.
2010 USFCA National Fencing Coaches Conference
& Annual General Meeting
July 30 - August 1, 2010
Louisville Fencing Center
Presenting Coaches:
Maestro Ed Korfanty, US National Women Saber Coach
Maestro Leslaw Stawicki, US National Wheelchair Fencing Coach
Olympian Mariel Zagunis, Two-time Olympic Gold Medalist & World
Champion
Coach David Littell, 1988 Olympian, Former Haverford College Head Coach
Maestro Abdel Salem, 1984 Olympian, Air Force Academy Head Coach,
USFCA President
Coach Tom Strzalkowski, 1996 Olympian, Air Force Academy, Asst. Coach
United States Fencing Coaches Association
2010 National Coaches Conference &
Annual General Meeting
July 30 - August 1, 2010
Hosted by Louisville Fencing Center, Louisville, Kentucky
Venue:
Louisville Fencing Center
1401 Muhammad Ali Boulevard
Louisville, KY 40123
(502) 540-5004
www.louisvillefencing.org
Contact at Louisville Fencing Center
(for local information):
Coach Orion Bazzell
bazzello@bellsouth.net
Host Hotel:
Hampton Inn Louisville Downtown
101 East Jefferson Street,
Louisville, Kentucky, USA 40202
Tel: 1-502-585-2200
Fax: 1-502-584-5657
www.hamptoninndowntownlouisville.com
For more information on the host hotel
and to make reservations please see:
www.usfca.org
Contact for Conference Related Information:
USFCA Conference Committee
Coach John Krauss – desfcg@aol.com
207-974-8461 (cell) or 207-469-8936 (home office)
Coach Elsayed Emera – peoriafencing@yahoo.com
309-868-2736 (cell)
Registration:
Registration, Conference & AGM Information at www.usfca.org
Please RSVP at www.askfred.net
Mail in Registration follows.
2
United States Fencing Coaches Association
2010 Annual Coaches Conference
& Annual General Meeting
Louisville Fencing Center - Louisville, Kentucky
July 30 – August 1, 2010
Registration Form: Please fill out legibly and send this form with your payment.
Name: _________________________________________________________________________
Address: __________________________________________________________ _______ _____
City: ______________________________________________ State: _______ Zip: ____________
Area Code and Phone: ____________________________________________________________
E-mail: _________________________________________________________________________
USFCA Level: Associate □ Moniteur □ Prevot □ Fencing Master □ Non-member □
Do you wish to take a USFCA coaches examination at the conference? Yes □ No □
Take your written examination on-line at www.usfca.org.
Please register in advance by 7/16/10 to take your practical examination. Pre-register at
www.usfca.org and www.askfred.org so that the CAB may plan ahead for your examination.
Do you wish to attend the Annual General Meeting Luncheon on Saturday, July 31st? Cost - $20.00
Yes □ No □ Please go to www.usfca.org for additional information on the AGM Luncheon.
Full Conference
Fees:
Please select from
following
USFCA Member - $200
Non-member - $240
Late Fee after 7/23 - Add $20:
$________
$________
$________
_______________________________________OR_________________________________________
Check days attending:
USFCA Member - $100 (x __ days)
$________
One Day Fees:
Fri. (7/30) €
Non-member - $120 (x __ days)
$________
Please select from
following
Late Fee after 7/23 - Add $20:
AGM Luncheon Fee - $20
Total Registration Fee:
$________
$________
$________
Sat. (7/31)
Sun. (8/1)
€
€
Mail this Registration Form and your payment to:
Carolyn Gresham-Fiegel
USFCA Treasurer
514 NW 164th Street
Edmond, OK 73013-2001
Please
Please make your check payable to the "USFCA.
"USFCA." PrePre-registration ends by July 23, 2010.
After July 23rd, late fees apply.
USFCA Membership forms can be obtained onon-line at www.usfca.org.
3
WAIVER/CONSENT FORM:
Name: __
________________________________________________________________________
All USFCA seminar participants must read and sign each of the following statements:
WAIVER OF LIABILITY:
Upon entering this training seminar under the auspices of the United States Fencing Coaches Association
(USFCA), I agree and understand that I am at my own risk and release the USFCA and its sponsors, presenters,
and training organizers from any liability.
___________________
Coach/Participant Signature
_________________________
Date
CONSENT FOR MEDICAL TREATMENT:
This is to certify that on this date I, ________________________________, give my consent to the USFCA and its
representatives to obtain medical care from any licensed physician, hospital or clinic for the above named
coach/participant for any injury or illness that may arise during activities associated with this USFCA sponsored
training seminar.
____________________________________________
Coach/Participant Signature
Date
If the said coach/participant is covered by any insurance company, then please complete the following (please
print legibly):
_____________________________________________
Name of Carrier
________________________________________
Address of Carrier
____________________________________________
Name of Policy Holder
________________________________________
Policy Number
EMERGENCY CONTACT:
Name____________________________ Relationship ___________________ Phone ____________________
CONSENT TO MEDIA:
In addition, I understand that entering this training seminar under the auspices of the USFCA, approved
photography, filming, recording or any other form of media may occur during training sessions which I may be
present. This media may be used by the USFCA for promotional and training purposes.
____________________________________________
Coach/Participant Signature
Date
Thank you for your participation in this USFCA training seminar.
4
Awards Committee Describes USFCA Awards
by Fencing Master Edwin Hurst, Awards Committee Chair
The U.S. Fencing Coaches Association has established two types of awards to recognize
noteworthy members of the organization. The first is the “USFCA Award of Merit,” and the second
is the “USFCA Coach of the Year” award.
The Merit award will be an 8”x12” plaque suitably engraved with the honoree’s name, the USFCA
logo, and the title of the award.
The “Award of Merit” is our recognition of extended achievement in the coaching and teaching of
fencing, and it can be presented either for (A) notable successes attained by the awardee’s
students over a period of years; or (B) career contributions, through solid teaching and good
coaching, to the growth of our sport.
The Coach of the Year award will be a broadsword with the honoree’s name and the title of the
award engraved on the blade. Initially, this sword will be named the “Deladrier Sword” and is
intended to recognize both Fencing Master Clovis Deladrier, the founding president of the
coaches association, and his son, Fencing Master Andre Deladrier, who was president from 1960
to 1962. Father and son collectively coached fencing at the U.S. Naval Academy for 60 years.
The sword is sponsored by Dr. Lawrence Crum, 1963 NCAA Epee Champion and former student
and later associate of Andy Deladrier.
The “Coach of the Year” will be one of our members whose students have enjoyed particular
success in a given year. That success will not be measured on any absolute scale, but rather on a
subjective one that takes into account the resources in support, facilities and potential students
available to the coach. It is intended to encompass all levels of our profession: USFA club, school
club, high school varsity, collegiate club, collegiate varsity, and, of course, national and
international.
In order for these awards to have any credibility, your Awards Committee very much needs input
from the membership. If you have a colleague whom you think worthy of recognition, please
inform me either by regular mail, e-mail or telephone. If you are unsure what type of award
would be most fitting, I’ll be happy to discuss it with you. In any case, be prepared to eventually
write a summary of the coach’s record and/or the reasons why you support your nominee. Also,
the committee actively encourages self-nominations. It is standard practice in the business world
to expect a candidate for employment to submit a resume, and in the academic world a
curriculum vitae, so we felt that the same standing should be extended to a coach’s own
summary of accomplishments.
Once nominations are received, the Awards Committee will consider all those within each
category and make final recommendations to the Executive Committee. When the final decisions
have been made, the honorees will be announced in both the Point-in-Line and The
Swordmaster, and the presentations will be made at the Association’s annual meeting.
Members wishing more information about the process, or who are prepared to make
nominations, may contact me at: cabrillosword@gmail.com or (619) 584-2478 or The Cabrillo
Academy of the Sword, 3339 Adams Ave., San Diego, CA 92116.
5
USFCA COACHES’ CLINIC
At Halberstadt Fencing Club
May 28, 29, 30, 2010
621 South Van Ness St. San Francisco, CA 94110
Masters, Peter Burchard, Rob Handelman, and Cole Harkness are hosting a three weapon,
USFCA Education and Training Seminar in San Francisco, on Memorial Day weekend. Burchard,
Handelman, and Harkness will instruct all three days.
The first two days include instruction, theoretical and practical lectures and demonstrations, and
lesson practice. The third day continues instruction and, if requested, USFCA certification exams
for Moniteur and Prévôt.
The primary goal is to improve the coach’s ability to give a lesson for any level student. To
achieve that goal, specific training lessons will be assigned Saturday morning. Coaches will be
video taped. After the lesson is completed, there will be individual review of the video, and
areas that need improvement will be determined. Coaches will then work in groups, according
to the coach’s skill level, to further develop each coach’s strengths.
For those interested, there will be instruction and preparation for the coach to take the USFCA
Moniteur and/or Prevot practical exams. The exams will be offered on Monday afternoon.
Remember, you must take and pass the online written USFCA Moniteur or Prevot exam, before
you can take the practical. Before you arrive for the seminar, please complete the online USFCA
exam and bring proof of your passing grade. If requested, there will also be training and
practice to prepare Master candidates to take their exams at a future date.
Information on the presenters, and travel & hotel information, is available at
http://www.halberstadtfc.com
Registration and information are available on askfred.net and fencing.net.
For more information contact:
Peter Burchard, Maitre d’Armes, Military Master at Arms
West Regional Vice President, USFCA
Phone: (510) 821-3689
Email: peter_burchard@hotmail.com
Rob Handelman, D.C.
Maitre d'Armes
Chairman of the Certification and Accreditation Board, USFCA
Phone: (415) 846-2443
Email: rhandelman@sbcglobal.net
Fees:
Full Clinic: USFCA Members: $175
Late or at the door: $195
Non-Members: $200
Late or at the door: $225
Daily:
One Day for Members: $95
Late or at the door: $110
One Day for Non-members: $110 Late or at the door: $125
NOTE: Deadline for advance payment is May 20, 2009
USFCA Examination Information:
Accreditation examination information may be found at the USFCA website:
http://www.usfca.org/usfca/index.asp?section=4
6
Proposed Coaches Clinic Schedule:
Saturday morning 8:00-8:30 AM registration
(There is the option for coaches to arrive at 7 AM and meet with the instructors for
breakfast at a local restaurant. Topics relevant to the clinic will be discussed.
Please inform us in advance if you are interested.)
Saturday 8:30 – 1:00 PM
Introduction of instructors
Video assessment of attendees’ lesson skills (training lesson)
A youth sabre training class, functional warm up drills for youth fencing classes,
games for fencing development, sabre footwork, practice teaching type sabre
lessons for youths 7-9 years old.
Sunday 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Classroom presentations on the Option (training) lesson
Balance and distance
How the new timing has changed foil and sabre instruction
Lesson skills for higher level students
Teaching the tactical wheel versus options
USFCA exam process
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM – Lunch break
2:00 – 3:30 PM: practicing the teaching type lesson
3:30 – 6:00 PM: practicing the training (option) lesson
Monday 8 AM -12 Noon
Practice developing a fluid teaching and training lesson
12 Noon to 3 PM: Moniteur/Prevot practical exam testing for the USFCA is offered
If no tests are required, there will be continued work on improving the Teaching
and Training lessons.
If you are an amateur coach who is interested in getting certified there are steps you
should do in advance to get the most from the clinic, these include:
Look over the Moniteur and Prevot Exam Study Guides at the USFCA website.
The study guides will help you prepare for the online Moniteur or Prevot exams. It also
has some suggested reading and an outline of what will be taught at the clinics. The
USFCA list of terms, footwork, blade work, and tactics listed in the study guide will be
followed at the clinics. If you show mastery of these techniques at the clinic, you may go
on to more advanced material. This will help you get the most out of the clinic.
Earn a USFA referee’s rating. Moniteurs are encouraged to learn to referee and to take
the USFA referee test.
7
Overcoming Performance Errors with Resilience
by Gloria B. Solomon, Ph.D., CC, AASP
A common occurrence that all athletes encounter is performance errors. All athletes make
mistakes; it is a natural part of learning to be competent at any activity. Since mistakes are
normal, it is beneficial to help athletes accept that errors will occur in sport. A unique approach
to dealing with performance errors is presented by Halden-Brown (2003). In her book, she
addresses the normalcy of making mistakes in sport and how coaches can use these errors to
train athletes both physically and mentally. I propose that teaching athletes about resilience will
facilitate their ability to accept mistakes and use these errors as a catalyst for optimizing
performance.
In a book on mental training in softball, the authors delineate five principles of performance
excellence (Solomon & Becker, 2004). While set in the context of fastpitch softball, these
principles can easily be applied to any competitive setting. The fifth principle, Resilience, is the
key to overcoming performance errors. Simply stated, resilience is the ability to remain
composed, confident, and consistent in the face of errors. A resilient athlete is one who can let
go of errors and return to the present; s/he uses the error as an opportunity to learn and
improve. The athlete who is not resilient will dwell on the mistake, be unable to stay in the
present, and his/her performance will be inconsistent.
Solomon and Becker created a four-step process which athletes can use to deal with performance
errors. The sequence is as follows:
A = Acknowledge the error and the frustration it has caused
R = Review the play and determine how and why the error occurred
S = Strategize a plan to make the necessary corrections for the future
E = Execute and prepare for the next play
The ability to overcome performance errors is a skill that any athlete can learn. Teaching athletes
this sequence will give them a tool for managing the emotional response which comes with
making mistakes and help them to get their ARSE in gear!
Halden-Brown, S. (2003). Mistakes worth making: How to turn sports errors into athletic
excellence. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Solomon, Gloria & Becker, Andrea (2004). Focus for
Fastpitch (Paperback)
About AASP
The Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP) is the largest applied sport and exercise
psychology organization in the world. It promotes the science and practice of sport and exercise
psychology and provides opportunities to share information and research. AASP”S purpose is to
provide leadership for the development of theory, research and applied practice in sport,
exercise, and health psychology, to offer and deliver services to athletes, coaches, teams,
parents and other groups involved in exercise, sport participation, and rehabilitation, to establish
and maintain professional standards through the development of certification procedures, ethical
guidelines, and the promotion of respect for and value of human diversity. Visit them at:
http://appliedsportpsych.org/
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Editor Picks
Occasionally we find articles of interest. Below are this month’s links to those articles.
The Nine Mental Skills of Successful Athletes
http://www.sportpsych.org/nine2.html
Letters
As always Point in Line is happy to have submissions of articles and photos.
Even very brief commentary is welcome.
From a reader in Belgium:
“Looking always for information to improve myself, I became a visitor of the USFCA
website.
I’m a fan of all the articles you present on the USFCA website and especially in your
magazine “Point in Line.”
My attention was drawn to the dvd of Mike Pederson’s Foil Presentation….”
Werner HUYSMANS
Maitre d’Armes
Lessons From History
By Andy Shaw
There are still a good number of fencing men and women of advanced
years who actually knew Giorgio Santelli. Most fencers today have a
limited knowledge of a fencing equipment company in Greenwich
Village (Santelli, NYC) or a wonderfully warm old man who used to
teach fencing in lower Manhattan. Giorgio Santelli was a legend in
New York City for many years and was interviewed by scores of
writers, television reporters, radio hosts and even appeared on the Ed
Sullivan Show with Ed and Elsa Vebell, Joe deCapriles, Abe Cohen,
Paul Gallico (a member of the FC who regularly wrote on fencing in his syndicated
column), but managed to outlive his fame. At his death, there was little coverage of Mr.
Santelli. The world of sports reporting had stampeded to professional athletics.
Giorgio's story is too fascinating to ignore. We can all learn much from Robert Lewis
Taylor's wonderful 2-part profile on Giorgio in the New Yorker Magazine from 1953. The
photo below, by fencing Olympian Ed Vebell was taken in 1950. Mr. Vebell was my next
door neighbor at 490 West End Avenue in the 1950's. I started fencing at Santelli's in
1958.
9
January 1953
NEW YORKER PROFILES
TO TOUCH AND NOT BE
TOUCHED
(Part 1)
by Robert Lewis Taylor
George, or Giorgio, Santelli, a tall, rakish-looking Italian-American with an upperclass mustache and court
manners, is about the last of the great fencing masters. The race is dying out. In a world apparently
dedicated to assembly-line gore, swordplay has lost its original, punitive meaning. If Santelli and a few
colleagues can prevent it, however, the art will never fade. Travelling about among Y.M.C.A.s, athletic
clubs, colleges, and privately-run salles d’armes across the land, they strive to impart the sporting message
of parry and thrust. As the acknowledged leader of the American fencing cult, Santelli gives unsparingly
of his time, energy, and somewhat limited funds. He is believed to be among the most offhand and
easygoing men alive, and his responses to appeals for help have all but ruined him. Not long ago,
approached on the telephone by a Georgia university, he was asked to exhibit at a forthcoming gala. He
said he would be delighted. Then he bought a railroad ticket out of his own pocket, went to Macon,
fenced, and returned home perfectly happy, though around two hundred dollars poorer. According to his
friends, it doesn’t occur to Santelli to demand either a fee or reimbursement for expenses. “Giorgio puts
himself in the other fellow’s place,” says one of them. “He sees how awkward it would be to mention
money. He is very delicate in these matters. A couple of weeks after the bankruptcy junket to Georgia,
Santelli sprang forward when urged to exhibit in Detroit. On this trip, he drove his antique station wagon,
a remarkable piece of wreckage, and carried out his assignment continuously; that is, he drove straight to
Detroit, fenced, and returned without sleeping. His ride was complicated by the fact that he had absently
mislaid his car keys and was obliged to hire a mechanic to uncross and cross the ignition wires every time
he stopped.
Santelli is the proprietor of Salle Santelli, a fencing salon in the best European tradition, situated in a suite
of the Henry Hudson Hotel. There he gives lessons to around a hundred students, including theatrical stars
like Maurice Evans, Eva Le Gallienne, and Jose Ferrer, as well as a heterogeneous collection of
10
professional and business people and ambitious amateur athletes. Santelli has coached all the American
Olympic fencing teams from 1928 to the present, and in 1948 his charges managed to win third place at the
London Games. This was considered something of a triumph - even a slap in the face of precedent. The
European countries were crowded with ravening duellists before the first sword was seen on the American
continent, and fencing remains a major sport in most foreign seats of learning, while in American schools
and colleges it ranks somewhere between field hockey and quoits. Last summer, Santelli’s sabre team
took fourth place at Helsinki. He was not pleased.
“It was made up of the aged and the infirm, with but a few exceptions,” he recently commented.
“I gave lessons ten hours a day while I was there and the only one who showed any improvement was me.”
Owing principally to Santelli’s influence, the sport has lately taken a spurt in popularity. His students,
who call him Maestro, become activated by his single-minded zeal. Santelli’s deportment as mentor is
loose-jointed but resolute. With charming politesse, he may ask a student to make fifty consecutive parries
in order to correct some trivial flaw of execution. Only at rare intervals – perhaps every ten or twelve
years – do his associates observe minute cracks in his composure. Once, in the late thirties, while fencing
with a pupil of Olympic calibre, Santelli, who often says,
“In fencing the purpose is to touch and not be touched,”
was touched, in the fencing sense of the word, on the right arm. His first reaction, as always in such cases,
is pleasure, which changed to dismay when the fellow contemptuously lowered his sword for an instant.
“Giorgio was at the end of the fencing strip,” says a witness, “but he made a leap and a lunge that must
have broken all outstanding records. It was impossible, but he touched his opponent directly over the
heart. Then, drawing himself up, he delivered a mild lecture.
‘In the future,’ he said, kindly never lower your sword for as much as a tenth of a second while fencing
with Giorgio Santelli.’”
Now fifty-five years old, Santelli is regarded as the world’s ablest performer with the sabre. (As a
professional, he is, of course, barred from amateur competition, but the members of the fencing clique,
both professional and amateur, practice continually with one another and have an accurate notion of allround rating.) He finds little difficulty, for example, in administering regular spankings to all the members
of his last Olympic sabre team. “Over a long period, one or two youngsters might wear him down,” says
Nickolas Muray, a former national champion, “but Giorgio sleepwalking can outfence anybody on earth
for ten or fifteen minutes.” Santelli teaches not only sabre, a flat-bladed weapon that has two cutting
edges, but foil, a flexible sword that depends on its point for scoring, and epee, a rigid version of the foil,
formerly used for duelling. In addition to performing these backbreaking chores, he functions as the head,
and owner, of the United States Fencing Equipment Company, a position that he loathes with the full force
of his sprightly Latin spirit.
“My God, how I hate to be a businessman!” he often cries as he stamps about the establishment’s uniquely
dishevelled rooms in an old loft on Spring Street. The company consists of Santelli, whose activities are
centered on putting beautifully balanced swords together; a positive, sixty-seven-year-old assistant, Duilio
Vignini, who irritates Santelli into doing his best work; and Betty Dedousis, a secretary, who manages the
business and with it Vignini and Santelli.
11
A normal day for Santelli sees him toiling in his shop from around 10:30 a.m. till 5 p.m., when he scrubs
up, steps into a nearby drugstore, at Miss Dedouisis’ explicit instructions for him to eat something, has a
quick snack, which consists of anything at all – perhaps two or three cream puffs and a pint of coffee –
and repairs to his Salle to give lessons. In the course of these, he fences, off and on, until nearly
midnight. For a career athlete, Santelli’s eating habits border on the outrageous. To start his morning, he
has a dish of stewed prunes from a large kettleful he cooks in his bachelor apartment at 125 Christopher
Street. While downing these, he goes through painful contortions, with grimaces and expletives, and
finishes by vowing that he’ll never touch another damn prune as long as he lives. The fruit is
exceedingly distasteful to him; he eats it only because he thinks he must. Once the prunes are
swallowed, he turns his attention to some eggs he has put on the stove. Upon finding these burned, he
tosses them into the garbage can, claps on a Borsalino hat of reckless contour, and goes out to another
drugstore, where he completes his breakfast. At lunchtime, he and Vignini and Miss Dedousis usually
have sandwiches and coffee in the office. Every two or three days, Miss Dedousis informs Santelli that
he needs red meat. Then he buys a large steak and takes it home to have another wrestle with the stove.
The operation ordinarily goes rather badly. Santelli is considered to be one of the worst cooks in
Greenwich Village. His friends, who enjoy visiting him, get up and fight their way to the door when a
home-cooked-meal look comes into his eye. “The mind slips,” he says. “I grew up in a large European
house filled with servants. I discover that it is very difficult to wrap one’s thoughts around a gas stove.”
Santelli’s background was so imposingly patrician that it might have floored a fellow of less character,
leaving him to stagger in purple nostalgia through the Age of the Common Man. As F. Scott Fitzgerald
said of Amory Blaine, in “This Side of Paradise,” “He had the kind of childhood that may never be
possible again.” Santelli was born in Budapest in 1897, of Italian parents. His father, Italo Santelli, the
foremost fencing master in Europe, was also a popular figure in the Hungarian social whirl and in Balkan
court life generally. Fencing masters were of traceable lineage and by tradition found themselves much
sought after, as being somewhat zippier than the average exhausted aristocrat. Touching on this
situation, one of Giorgio’s best friends in New York, an émigré Hungarian count, recently said, “The
fencing masters were, ah, recus – you know, impeccable standing everywhere.” Italo and his wife,
Paolina, had moved to Budapest from their native land in 1896, in response to importunings of the
Hungarian government, which felt that Italy, because of Italo, was trouncing Hungary unmercifully in
sabre matches. Hungary’s action was remindful of the well-known political doctrine: “If you can’t lick
‘em, join ‘em.” Soon after Santelli opened a subsidized salle d’armes in Budapest, the Hungarians were
licking the Italians, and the Santellis stayed on, since Italy did not seem to come forward with any
counter-offer.
The near-barbaric social splendor of Hungary, a land settled in the main by invading Asian tribesmen,
did not greatly appeal to Signora Santelli, a relative of one of Garibaldi’s lieutenants, and she felt an
increasing Italian chauvinism as the years went by. Italo, too, had his area of maladjustment. Try as he
might, he failed to slice very deeply into the tricky Hungarian language, with the result that he developed
an Italian-Hungarian patois that was remarked with amusement throughout Central Europe. By good
fortune, the Hungarian gentry, a customarily unruffled group, were content to have the mountain go to
Mohammed, as it were; they adopted his compromise tongue, which was spoken exclusively around the
Salle Santelli, a center of stiff and punctilious training. Giorgio’s childhood was divided chiefly between
grammar school and the Salle, where he began to fence in earnest at the age of seven. He was an outsize
youngster, with exceptional speed and coordination, and he soon became known as a kind of prodigy at
sports, concentrating on fencing but with successful sorties into soccer, tennis, and sculling.
Life in Budapest in the winter was filled with diversions for an inquisitive child. The Hungarian
grandees, who oversaw their gigantic farm estates in the summer, came into the capital for “the Season.”
12
There began a sapping round of entertainments, which were observable by the children of families like the
Santellis from a modest distance. Giorgio had a brother, Gian Paulo, and two sisters, Maria Pia and
Fiorenza, and in the company of domestics the four children absorbed the flavor of Budapest high life.
Italo travelled widely in connection with fencing, and Giorgio, who was assuming the stature of a boy
wonder at the art, often accompanied him. In Ostend, where he went with his father and the Hungarian
sabre team for a competition [1922 World Championships], he witnessed an odd incident on a boardwalk
beside the sea. The formidable Captain Erwin Meszaros of the Hungarian team, smoking a cigar and
gracefully waving his cane, came face to face with a small, inconsequential-looking fellow at a narrow
stretch of the passage. “Aside, my good man,” said the Captain, in French, gesturing with the cane.
“Indeed?” replied the other man.
“I am Captain Meszaros of the Royal Hungarian Hussars,” the visitor said. “I’m here for the fencing.
Kindly make way, Uncle.”
“I am King Leopold,” said the small man. “It was I who arranged the competition. Have the goodness to
fall back.”
Santelli, who, with his father, was a few feet behind Meszaros, was particularly struck by the King’s
breezy camaraderie when he said,”And who do you think will win?”
“I, of course,” replied Meszaros, not at all dismayed at having lost the right of way on the promenade.
“Then permit me to congratulate you now,” said the King politely. [Mezaros ended up 4th]
In the case of Giorgio, it was soon apparent that he had a sort of inborn negligent dash that would
contribute variously to formal sporting fetes. His encounter with the viands in France is still recalled in a
small European circle. In his teens, he accompanied Italo to Paris for an important competition between
French and Hungarian fencers. The setting was the banquet hall of a ducal family, the occasion one
marked by unusual pomp and ceremony. Across the wide chamber lay a fencing strip, at one end of which
a gigantic but spindly table had been set up and loaded with the choicest foods and wines of prewar France.
Liveried attendants stood nearby to keep things moving and to keep the thoroughbred energies from
flagging. Santelli, conspicuously young, was pitted against a quite elderly Frenchman, a master, who had
developed a psychosis in regard to his advancing age. His wrath was fanned by the sight of his beardless
opponent. When the judge cried “Allez!” the antique launched a rush of such unbridled ferocity that
Giorgio was taken completely aback. He was, in fact, taken aback so far that he struck the banquet table,
made a species of back dive, with a half twist, and landed in almost the dead center of the magnificent
spread, which caved in with a terrible crash. Never one to cry over spilt champagne, Giorgio lay there
peacefully, in the hope of being assisted from the ruin. To his surprise, the French servants rushed over,
trembling with agitation, and began picking up the gurgling bottles, meaning to salvage as much as they
could. After stripping himself of anchovies and sturgeon, Giorgio was compelled to crawl out under his
own power. The incident gave him a permanently jaundiced view of sporting France.
Santelli’s education was divided into three main parts: he attended a grammar school for four years, spent
eight at the Royal Gymnasium in Budapest, which was a private high school and junior college, and then
entered into his third phase, over which he still suffers nightmares. It was Italo’s contention that his
family, or any family, ought to have a businessman among its members. He decided on Giorgio to fill the
role - a selection that remains a mystery, since the boy was already accumulating a reputation for absentmindedness that has sprouted and bloomed through the years. “We will place you in my friend Wilhelm
13
Suppan’s business academy,” said Italo to his son, and Giorgio took up the new duties with resignation. It
was a hellish period. He had trouble with everything, but particularly with balance sheets. Like so many
others, he was unable to see why capital, if it was an asset, should be stuck on the liability side of the
ledger. His attitude toward the other facets of commerce was in about the same vein. Even so, he
completed a course, without distinction, and then, with a heavy heart, sought a niche suitable for a man
with interchangeable concepts of assets and liabilities. At this point, his problems were temporarily solved
by the coming of the First World War.
The Santelli’s reaction to the war, and the reception of their viewpoint in Budapest, sheds light on the
singular tolerance of the Hungarian gentry of that period. In the bristling European alignments, Italy was,
after a space, at war with Hungary, and the Santellis, while loving their new home, nevertheless felt a
military devotion to their fatherland. Giorgio, upon being prodded by his Garibaldian mother, decided to
make his way to Italy and throw in his lot with the forces of parliamentary government. His patriotism
was sincere, and, for another thing, the trip looked like a surefire way to avoid getting mired down in
business. The Hungarians hailed the idea with a number of very filling dinners. Italo was roundly
congratulated on having a son of such splendidly inimical tendencies. On the eve of Giorgio’s departure,
he was tendered a monster banquet by some of the people that he intended, at least theoretically, to kill,
and the next morning he boarded a train and headed, in his vague style, toward the border between Italy
and Austria-Hungary. He got off the train at length, walked awhile, hitched a ride on a donkey cart, and
then, quite unexpectedly, found himself at the border, where he was seized and thrown into jail.
The jail was, in effect, a concentration camp conducted by the Austrians, who were naturally reluctant to
have people sift across the frontier and then shoot at them. However, when Santelli established his
identity, and got in touch with some high-flown friends in Hungary, the Austrians released him with
apologies. They wished him Godspeed in his new adventures and sent him on into Italy. Because he was
able to speak Italian, Hungarian, French, German, and a variety of other tongues, the result of his
cosmopolitan upbringing, Santelli was commissioned and made a censor. He spent an extremely gay war
in cities like Rome, Milan, and Florence - a life not unlike that of Hemingway’s Rinaldi in “A Farewell to
Arms”- and then, after Caporetto, he accompanied the mass migration south to the Piave.
When the Germans finally tossed in the sponge, Santelli returned home to face reality. He was an alumnus
of Suppan’s business academy, and his family felt that he ought to get moving. Before doing so, he
performed an important service for his propertied associates. A bizarre situation had arisen in defeated
Hungary. Rumania, which could scarcely have been less troublesome while the Germans menaced, turned
into a raging lion once the armistice was signed. Rumanian soldiers burst across the border into Budapest
and began to pillage above and beyond the call of duty. Things had got to the point where aristocrats had
practically no bric-a-brac left when Giorgio made a decision. Some time previously, he and his father,
after giving some exhibitions and tutelage at the Rumanian court, had each been presented with a
decoration. “It was an object of some description that dangled from a piece of string,” Santelli says now.
“I have since lost it. I believe it had something to do with fleece.”
In his modest way, he explains further that such decorations were a commonplace, because they were
cheaper to hand out than compensation for services rendered. Smarting over the abstraction of bric-a-brac,
he made a quick trip to Bucharest, called again at court, and succeeded in getting action. While not
contracting to return anything already filched, the Rumanians promised that they would quit stealing from
Santelli’s friends. He regarded the agreement, and still does, as among the more significant postwar
settlements.
Professionally, Santelli now made what must be considered a businesslike maneuver of a very high order,
14
justifying all the anxiety and expense of his going to the business academy. He was sporadically courting
one of the daughters of Baron Manfred Weiss, the wealthiest industrialist in Hungary, and he signed on as
a statistician in the balance-sheet division of the Weiss enterprises. By good fortune, his responsibilities as
a balance-sheet expert revolved around his teaching fencing to members of the Weiss family. The
connection turned into an exceptionally suitable socio-business position and one that he worked at for
nearly two years, by which time the romance had run its course. Not long afterward, late in 1920, the
appearance of another romance in Santelli’s life resulted in his getting married. His introduction to his
bride-to-be was not untypical of his eventful and rather odd young-manhood. It hinged on a neardrowning. One afternoon, desiring some mild exercise and quiet meditation, Santelli took a small scull
and set out up the Danube. As usual, his thoughts vacated the premises, and he was left rowing along
mechanically. After a while, he came to with a start and noted that he was in the treacherous raceway of a
notorious bend and that the weather gave intimations of a tornado. A violent squall struck as he was
fighting to trim his boat in the swift current. The scull went over, dumping Santelli into the cold water.
He had just recalled, a little belatedly, that he was only a fair swimmer when he heard the melodious notes
of a young woman’s voice. Such visitations, he remembered reading, were common to pedestrians in the
great American deserts; what he was hearing was an auditory mirage. Then his head unexpectedly cleared
the waves and he saw plainly a handsome, if rain-soaked, girl in a skiff. She hauled him out and
introduced herself as the Baroness Gizella Buskas, like him a seeker after exercise. Thus thrown together
on the stored Danube, even though in a meteorological mess, Santelli and his new acquaintance felt
romantically attracted from the start. She was acknowledged to be one of the reigning beauties of titled
Europe. Santelli, for his part, presented a sort of D’Artagnan figure to the opposite sex: gallant, partyloving, genial, broke, an accomplished swordsman, needful of management. Encouraged by their friends,
they were married only a few weeks later.
Meanwhile, Santelli pursued his fencing. He had become a sabre fencer of national importance, one of
whom great things were expected when he reached his full maturity. Italo’s establishment offered
instruction in foil and epee but concentrated on the sabre, probably because the Hungarians were, by
inheritance, attracted to the more wildly swung weapon. Giorgio was emphatically qualified to be a sabre
fencer. The double-edged art requires somewhat more ruggedness than does the merely pointed form of
fencing, and the young man had the sinews of a bull. Urged on by his rich heritage from the fencing
Santellis, he began to bear out the predictions of his admirers when, in 1920, at the age of twenty-two, he
tried for and won a place on the Italian Olympic team. His decision to join the Italians was influenced by
the circumstance that he had fenced throughout the war and felt an athletic rapport with his brotherofficers. As before, the Hungarians applauded this move and gave him the usual dinner.
Italo was delighted. He himself, before turning professional, had won second place in the sabre
championships at the second Olympic Games, in Paris in 1900. (An interesting aftermath of his Hungarian
move is seen in old records of the Olympics. In the 1908 Games, held in London, the Hungarians, who
who had been obscure in fencing, finished first, second, fourth, fifth, and sixth in the sabre trials. Third
place was won by a Bohemian named De Lobsdorf, who had learned to fence in Santelli’s establishment in
Budapest.) Giorgio’s showing in 1920, while spectacular, was not perfect. Italy won the team
championship, but Giorgio lost a sort of freak match to one of the Americans who, though virtual novices
at that time, had hit on a pretty cunning device to overcome their deficiencies. It is a remarkable truth
about sabre play that any husky, well-coordinated fellow who cares to wade in swinging his sword in a
reckless, medieval fashion has a slight chance of scoring a hit before being smitten by an expert thrust.
Giorgio was pitted against an American who threw caution to the winds and walked into the match like a
reaper advancing through a field of hay. Momentarily stunned by the novel technique, Giorgio suffered a
number of unorthodox but disastrous whacks.
15
By 1922, Giorgio had so far recovered his poise that he took first place in the Hungarian championships,
the most important sabre competition in Europe. This was a triumphant year in his athletic development.
After winning the Hungarian title, which carried with it the implied No. 1 sabre ranking in the world, he
went to Vienna and won the Austrian sabre and foil championships. All in all, he was beginning to pick up
titles with such comfortable regularity that he decided to turn professional and pick up a little money.
Giorgio was not altogether in tune with the dizzy round of exhibition and instruction that had proved so
beneficial to his father. For one thing, his absent-mindedness was such that he could scarcely ever
remember when he was to exhibit. And if he remembered when, he was apt to forget where. He turned up
one day in 1923 at the Sportspalast in Berlin only to find out, somehow or other, that he had been expected
at the Kur-Salon in Vienna. He wired an apology and went to the movies. Another trifling drawback to
his new business was that, although perfectly innocent of any kind of unamiable act, he was forever being
drawn into disputes. He fought a serious duel in 1924, as the result of a fuss involving several other
fellows, the details of which he never has gotten entirely clear. The European custom of duelling, at even
as late a time as the nineteen-twenties, is worth of scrutiny. Santelli explains it with logic and lucidity.
“The duels do not mean so much, as a rule,” he says. “They settle small points of disagreement, perhaps
contrary opinions about a game of whist. For the nonserious duels, one puts thick strips of black silk over
the vital parts, and the result is a scratch. But everybody is happy and at peace. It makes things so much
easier for hostesses. Over here in America, a woman making ready to give a party will say, ‘Now, I must
remember that So-and-So is not speaking to So-and-So, and I must not put Mr. Smith near Mr. Jones,
because of the quarrel,’ and so on. In Hungary, if two men are not speaking in the morning, they will fight
a duel in the afternoon and thus will be available for the entertainments in the evening.”
Santelli’s serious duel was the climax of an international incident – a row that turned Europe practically on
end in 1924. Its origins were about as trivial as those of the American feuds of the eighteen-hundreds.
Huckleberry Finn, asking his friend Buck about the row between the Shepherdsons and the Grangerfords,
was told, “It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along there. There was trouble ‘bout something, and then a
lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit –
which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would.” Santelli’s trouble began at a starchy fencing
competition in Paris, where the Italians (including most of that country’s Olympic team), the French, and
the Hungarians were having it out. Both Santelli and his father attended the matches, the elder Santelli as
coach of the Hungarians, Giorgio as an observer. During a hot match between Puliti, a famous Italian foil
and sabre champion, and a Hungarian, Puliti took exception to a decision of a judge. His disapproval was
expressed in a passionate and lengthy utterance in his native tongue. This excited the curiosity of the
judge, who spoke no Italian, and he solicited a translator from the audience. Italo Santelli had been sitting
idly nearby, watching the match. He now rose dutifully, without guile, and gave a working version of the
remarks, which turned out to be moderately offensive, verging on the profane. The Italians’ reaction was
extraordinary. Announcing that they had been insulted, they all went back to their hotel, where they held a
brief conference and then broadcast the incredible news that they had decided to throw the blame on Italo,
because of the deadly accuracy of his translation.
The elder Santelli was vastly set up. Although some years past sixty, he was still hale and fierce, and
besides, he said, he needed a stimulating workout. Sure enough, a courier arrived from the Italian
contingent and presented the compliments of one Adolfo Cotronei, a crackerjack sabre man, who had been
selected to protect the southern nation’s honor. Italo was in the act of leaping forward to accept with
pleasure when Giorgio stepped in front of him. “By the code duello,” he cried,
“I claim the right to fight for my father! He’s past sixty - it’s in the books.”
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As Giorgio had expected, his act of filial devotion wrung a dreadful cry from Italo, who literally danced
about the room in rage. Nevertheless, Giorgio stood firm, and plans for the contest got under way. The
European press was abuzz with numerous versions of the “insult,” nearly all of them inaccurate, according
to the locality and bias of the paper in question.
The government of Italy was then in the hands of Benito Mussolini, who had recently decreed that duelling
was illegal for his countrymen. Repeated appeals to his common sense, however, persuaded him that this
situation was unique, and he gave the meeting a special sanction. It was considered “serious” and would
specify sabres and no protection except light gloves. Giorgio, meanwhile, had retired to Hungary to await
the final word. It came at last: The ruckus was set for August 28th on a barge in the waters off Abbazia,
between Trieste and Fiume. It should be remarked that while Santelli felt not a particle of animosity
toward Cotronei, he was disgruntled over the choice of Abbazia, which was a good long way from
Budapest, involving a tiresome train trip, with expenses, and he was in a mild pet when he arrived for the
blood-letting. The duel was short and decisive. Santelli, regarding it all as a thundering nuisance, was
toying with the idea of cutting off Cotronei’s head, but he landed a tremendously telling whack on the
man’s left cheekbone instead and cut and authentically picturesque gash near his eye. Usually in duels, the
principals make up affectionately after a puncture, with hugs and kisses, but Santelli and Cotronei walked
off without being reconciled. Italo’s translation had been too expert to forget easily. Some years later,
though, Santelli and Cotronei met again, at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. There they became
good friends. Cotronei even expressed gratitude for the gash. To his intense joy, it had severed an
important nerve, giving his left eye a slight squint and providing him with a long-sought excuse to wear a
monocle.
Critical events followed in close succession for Santelli in 1924, which was the year of his emigration to
America. He came over by default, in a manner of speaking. The New York Athletic Club, which had
decided to elevate fencing to the status of a major club sport, was on the prowl for a worthy fencing
master. The name of Santelli being foremost in fencing Europe, the club officials somewhat brashly sent a
cablegram asking Italo to drop his Hungarian connections and come to New York. The elder Santelli was
a polite and thoughtful fellow, and he gave the invitation every consideration. Then he called in Giorgio,
to whom he said, “Here is a spendid opportunity for you. Let them give you at least a trial. Go at once,
with my blessing.” Notified of the switch, the club expressed satisfaction. Then the Santelli’s decided
that, if everything went well, the Baroness (from whom he is now divorced) would follow her husband a
few months later. Giorgio recalls the emotion with which he pulled up his fashionable roots and headed
for the raw, new land. To his surprise, he found a sizable delegation waiting on the pier to welcome him.
The club had gone all out to make the noted visitor feel at home. Leading the shore party was Dr. Hugo J.
Ernest Gignoux, the American sabre champion, who announced that he and Santelli were to exhibit before
the assembled club members. In several limousines, the group then drove to New York Athletic Club,
where a pleasing ceremony was held to introduce Santelli formally.
The match itself got off to an eccentric start.
“I look up at my opponent and see that his mask is moving up and down very alarmingly,” Santelli says.
“I thought it was some form of psychological warfare. I was for a moment paralyzed.”
It was his first exposure to chewing gum. In the moment of paralysis, Dr. Gignoux seized the initiative
and swung a whistling roundhouse blow that struck Santelli on the head like a thunderbolt. As it worked
out, the Doctor would have better stuck to his chewing. Giorgio’s wits were restored by the shock, and he
was galvanized into the famous fighting Santelli that Budapest knew. He proceeded to give Gignoux one
17
of the worst beatings in the history of bouting. The Doctor sportingly congratulated him, the other club
members joined in, and he was publically proclaimed the permanent fencing coach of the New York
Athletic Club, a position he was to hold, with considerable honor to him, to the club, and to the land of his
adoption (in which he soon applied for citizenship) for the next twenty-five years.
END OF PART 1 – See the next issue of Point on Line for Part 2.
USFCA New England Clinic Report
The following are two reports of the clinic, one by the Prevot leading the clinic and the
second by a clinic attendee. Prevot Paul Sise coaches at Pioneer Valley Fencing
Academy. He is certified by the USFCA and AAI and is a graduate of the USFA Coaches
College. He is the author of A Basic Foil Companion, available at:
http://www.shop.swordplaybooks.com/product.sc?productId=11
by Paul Sise, Prevot
John Krauss and I have come to realize that the New England area is in need of high quality
clinics for coaches, especially for those coaches who are not associated with the larger clubs in
the Boston area. Last October we held a clinic in Skowhegan, Maine, which was very well
received by the local coaches. In April, John and I taught a coaching clinic at my club, Pioneer
Valley Fencing Academy, in Easthampton, Massachusetts. It was attended by seven coaches
who drove from various parts of the state, as well as from New York and Maine. Our current
plan is to hold a clinic each spring and each fall in the New England area.
Unlike the clinic we held in Maine, this springtime clinic was divided into an evening of material
that was not weapon specific (professionalism, risk management, teaching methods, how to
design group lessons, and footwork) with the weapon specific material covered the next day.
This format worked well and offered a unique opportunity to help the greater fencing
community. In addition to several sport coaches, the first evening was attended by a few
classical and historical fencing instructors who were interested in developing their pedagogical
skills but weren’t necessarily interested in modern fencing. I think our clinic was especially
beneficial to them because formal coaching educational opportunities are normally hard to come
by for non-sport swordsmen.
by Ken Mondschein, Moniteur
Massachusetts saw Prevôts John Krauss and Paul Sise successfully navigate between the Scylla
and Charybdis of fencing-coach clinics in what proved to be an immensely informative night and
day of instruction. So great was the lure that even representatives of the historical-and-classical
contingent were drawn from the eastern reaches of the Commonwealth to take a seat at
Saturday evening's banquet of risk-management lecturing, footwork-drilling, and individual
lesson-giving. Having learned from their previous collaborations that to attempt to cram
everything into one day is to tempt the god Somnus into visiting while one is attempting to
navigate one's way home on the Massachusetts Turnpike, Sise and Krauss then dismissed the
participants, who retired for a slightly more substantial feast of the local delicacies. All agreed
that, whatever their particular orientation towards the handling of swords or taste in footwear,
the evening had been a most informative one.
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The following day saw the return of but one of the strange visitors from the Land of People Who
Treat Foils As If They Are Sharp, but no matter: There was work to be done! Seminar attendees
traded off giving foil and epee lessons, interspersed with informative after-lunch discussion of
sports psychology and demonstrations of the best methods for giving foil and epee lessons.
Here, the elegant classicism of Krauss provided a delicate counterpoint for the raw modern
power of Sise as the students beat time upon one another’s' plastrons. There was, alas, no sabre
to be had, but no matter. To concentrate on the two weapons in which the two instructors were
most expert was quite enough, and filled the whole day with joyful and productive exercise.
Sunday's festivities concluded with Moniteur exams, which saw one happy candidate inducted
into the ranks of certified fencing professionals. Overall, this was a very professionally run,
productive, and informative seminar, and I believe I speak for all attendees when I say that we
look forward to another.
Editors Note:
Charybdis is a sea monster from Greek mythology
Somnus is the Roman god of sleep from the Greek Hypnos
(Prevot Charles “Chuck” Alexander, coach of No Fear
Fencing Club, recently held an epee workshop. This article
covers a portion of what he discussed. Subsequent
portions will be covered in future issues.)
The Competitive Pyramid – Part 1
by Mary Annavedder
Purpose of Workshop:
•
Training Methodology – how you go about it, and the mind set.
•
Competitive training requirements – what level you want to be at, differing commitments
at different levels.
•
Overview of physical fitness, footwork, blade work, tactics, and strategy and how they
relate to being on the strip and getting the job done.
The goal of the workshop is primarily for you to gain ideas of what you can do and what you
shouldn’t do on the strip, in terms of critical thinking. How many of you have gone on strip and
said the coach told me to do this, and I’m thinking so much about what the coach said to do,
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that I get hit? There is a balance here; when competing, you must keep it simple, but when
training you have to push the level of your capabilities.
I’m going to be talking about competitive fencing in standard pools and direct elimination. There
are different goals between a five-touch bout and a 15-touch bout. Be aware of that because it is
very important in terms of finishes. In actual competition, lf you are in the top 32 you get
national points, if you are 17th you get a lot more points. What does that have to do with the
first round of pools? It is very important, because that is where your seeding comes from. If you
are number one coming out of the pools and you are knocked out in the round of 32, you will be
17th. If you are the bottom of the list and are knocked out in the 32 round, you will be 32nd and
your points will be much lower. It is important for your finish, and you should be concerned for
that. From a competitive perspective, there is only one winner, and everyone else is a loser. You
have to think like that if you want to win. There is only one winner. We are not talking about
recreational fencing here, beating up on Chris, or having Hal beat up on me. We are talking
about what you have to do to achieve competitive goals. My approach is competitive and not
recreational.
Three things need to be worked on:
1) Hunger, Passion, Heart and Desire. That is your fuel, that is what drives you to do all this
work. Fencing to be number one is a full time job, a four letter word, it is work. You can’t get
there unless you have passion and desire. Your coach can’t kick you all the way to first place in
the Olympics. You have to want that. You want to take from your coach as much as possible.
You want to take from other fencers as much as possible. By the way, most breakthroughs are
done by fencers. Coaches just notice it and use it.
2) Physical fitness, strength, speed, and coordination. That is a big piece of it too. If you
aren’t physically fit, tactics and strategy become very narrow and very limited. As one gets
older, one has to think smarter, and use the tools in one’s kit. If I were 25 and knew what I
know now, I’d be fencing instead of giving lessons.
3) Mental discipline and training to control emotion and body. Mental discipline controls
the bout, not the heart. Passion fuels and motivates you.
For every touch, every bout, every round, every meet, there is only one objective – to win the
meet. We will talk about setting goals. At the end of the day you go into a meet to give it
everything you’ve got, to win. You won’t have that if you don’t prepare at the club.
My competitive pyramid. At the bottom is physical fitness. If you are not physically fit it
absolutely limits your tactics and strategy on the strip. It will give you endurance, strength, and
the ability to get in and out, to sustain yourself for the full day. How many hours is a normal
meet? Six to eight hours. What is the most important bout in the meet? The gold-medal bout. It
happens at the end of the meet when you are tired. Physical fitness allows you to fence your
best game at the end of the day when you need it the most. If you are going to fence to win,
there are no prisoners. If you get to the final eight, you have to be ready to fence for first.
Footwork. Your ability to maintain and go to the distances you need. Fencing is a sport of
centimeters. If you are off by a centimeter, too short or too long, you are not going to hit, or
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you will be hit because you are too close. If you have perfect distance control, you will have
perfect blade work. It makes everything so much easier. How many times have you found
yourself leaning deeply to make a touch? The lean should have been an advance.
Blade work and point control. If you have really good footwork and distance control you can
be a world champion. You’ll be where they can’t hit you and you’ll be where you can hit them.
Tactics. Defined as having a plan (strategy) and tactics is how to execute the plan. An simple
example is fencing someone who is posting with a French handle, and may have three inches
more reach than you have. You wouldn’t attack (the plan), but would make the opponent come
to you, by pushing and getting away. There could be four or five ways to execute the tactics to
support the strategy and you may use all. It could be a boring bout. You want to stay away from
his longer reach and he may roll off your take. You want to be the counter attacker. Others may
use different tactics if they are faster.
The competitive pyramid is divided into physical areas (physical fitness, footwork and blade
work) and mental areas (tactics and strategy). When you are practicing, your coach will give you
mechanical moves that will work. They have many elements. What distance are you at? Will you
be fencing a French- or German-style opponent? One may want to beat the blade of a Frenchstyle opponent, then beat it again because it will come right back. You practice these things in
the club, but you don’t want to think too much when competing. You won’t want to get far out of
your comfort zone of what you can do. Use a trainer to help your physical fitness focus. Physical
fitness starts at the finger tips and goes back. If you don’t have a strong hand, then the thumb
and index finger aren’t going to work for you. You can work on building your hand and forearm
up in terms of muscle.
Flexibility, speed, strength, coordination. We will be working on these. You can’t get to
tactics and strategy unless you understand the underlying concepts. What is physically fit? It
doesn’t mean you are in athletic shape. It means that you meet some standards. Like the
President’s Council has a standard, and if you aren’t there, you are in no way an athlete. That is
the starting point. You can do other than just weight train. You can weight train and cross train,
which helps your coordination.
Physical Fitness Options
•
Running, weight training, cross training
•
Soccer, basketball, ultimate Frisbee
•
Speed drills (lines)
•
Sometimes you can’t get there with what you have. What do you do?
•
Seek your coach’s advice
•
What do you do to stay fit?
Plyometrics will not only increase strength and speed, it will increase your coordination. It will
help you change when you need it. In a bout, you have to change your mechanical actions just
slightly, or you lose control. You are limiting the tactics that you can apply to your strategy.
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Your coach is there to support your goals, which you must have. If you don’t have goals, why
are you working so hard on the strip? Why are you taking lessons? Goals also give you an end
point to some project which allows you to take some down time so you don’t get burned out,
too.
If you have a trainer and a coach and discipline, you have to figure out what you need in terms
of being physically fit and to work on all the deficits you may have. A trainer will build you up
symmetrically. Fencing is an asymmetrical sport. You don’t want all your physical conditioning
to be on the strip. You need to go outside the club, and build yourself up equally across the
board. It will also help you prevent injuries.
Watch for the continuation of this article in future issues.
The Competitive Pyramid:
Goal Setting
by Chuck Alexander
Purpose:
The purpose of this document is to help fencers develop competitive goals and to
provide the understanding, the motivation, and to accept the responsibility of selfdiscipline in achieving their goals. This epee workshop was an introduction and a simple
overview to local area fencers of the broader competitive landscape, providing them with
a base knowledge of what it takes to be a competitive athlete at any level, local,
national or even international.
In today’s hectic world we tend to overextend ourselves and over commit. Rather than
assume that a fencer is committed, and understands that commitment to himself, his
coach and his family, I believe that making the fencer aware of what it really means to
achieve his/her goal is imperative. A serious competitive fencer must commit to goals,
must commit his time, effort, and sweat and understand that good enough is not good
enough. There is only one winner per event, and getting the gold is why they train. For
many fencers this is their first sport, and although these concepts are consistent with
most sports, this is the first opportunity for them to learn about what it takes to be a
winner.
When I have an athlete that wants to attain a specific goal, I have a favorite metaphor
that I call the “competitive pyramid.” It is a simple multifaceted look at competitive
requirements, providing a holistic view of training needs. The pyramid is an overarching
metaphor that provides a grouping of skills and abilities, and applies prioritization.
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Although this approach can be used to address a group class, a more effective use is in
the definition of a specific athlete’s custom-training regimen. It takes into consideration
physical, mental and psychological aspects of training as it applies to a specific athlete.
Setting goals and executing against those goals is critical in attaining a successful
competitive outcome.
At the end of my workshops the fencers will understand why setting goals is imperative,
what elements are important, creating contracts with their coach to assure success in
attaining their goals, and a basic understanding of a framework that they can rely on as
they continue their competitive career.
With these fencers, my main thrust was the physical/tactical side of the pyramid. I only
touch on the mental and the psychological aspects of the game with them as necessary
to support the tactical discussion.
Setting Goals, making contracts:
This activity permeates all aspects of the pyramid. And in this case we need to be even
more precise and specify competitive goals. Goals must be measurable. They must also
be reasonable. The fencer has 5 years of fencing experience, he has had a B rating for
two seasons and continues to improve in skill and results. As his coach, he comes to me
and states that he has a goal for the season... “I want to earn my A.” Although this is a
worthy goal, it is a reasonable goal, and it can be measured, I believe a better goal
would be “I want to win the Citrus Epee Open”. This is a better goal because we know
that the Citrus Open is historically an A1 event, and has a specific date. Given this goal,
winning the meet will earn the fencer his A and meet the original desired goal. In
addition to meeting the original goal, given a specific date the coach can establish a
training program that will optimize the athlete's training to achieve the goal. As the date
of the meet approaches, the coach will focus more and more on high energy, high
performance training lessons. And they will also modify physical training to allow the
athlete to hit peak potential physical performance on the day of the meet.
Once the goal is set, a plan needs to be established to achieve the stated goal. Working
with the coach, the fencer needs to understand and commit to the coach’s plan. It’s a
good idea to document the plan, especially to enable the coach and the athlete to allow
for increased commitments in time and effort. Although the documentation of the plan
(and I'm talking about less than a page) is extra work, it helps everyone stay focused on
the goal. The agreement and commitment to the plan by both parties is the contract.
And the contract needs to be executed by both parties.
Setting up the contract binds the coach and the athlete to a common goal that both
parties work toward in harmony. Failure to execute against the plan by either party
breaks the deal....
In summary, goals need to be:
• specific
•
measurable
•
realistic
•
achievable
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