Our trainers Danny and Nico have been participating in the fencing master course for a level 3 certification for almost two years now. After two years of hard work, the exam was held on Saturday June 29^th for both. The exam started early at 9:00 am with a one-hour long theoretical exam about the rules and the terminology within fencing. After that, Danny and Nico had to wait almost 6 hours to be the last two participants to take the practical exam. This practical exam consisted of giving a 20-minute lesson to one of their own students. During this lesson the examination committee assessed them. In this case Béla participated as a student for the individual lessons of Danny and Nico.

In previous blogs I talked about Strip Coaching and Getting the Most Out of Your Practice. Both topic require you to be able to honestly and critically reflect you performance. To help you improve the reflection process I will introduce a model that is often used in education: the Reflection Cycle.

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The other day a was frequenting reddit.com and found a disturbing article from r/fencing on my front page ‘The sexual assault problem in fencing’. The author wrote that she is quitting the sport because sexual assault from coaches goes unaddressed.

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The other day I was watching sports news. Dutch top tennis player Kiki Bertens (ranked 10th in the world at the time) had beaten Wimbeldon winner Angelique Kerber (ranked 2nd). The result was exceptional, as Bertens fought her way back from a 1-0 deficit in sets to win 1-2, after being down 2-1 in games in the second set. What really caught my attention was what her coach, Ramon Sluiter, said to her during the break in between the 3rd and 4th game of the second set. Everything he did and said was pure strip coaching gold. We can learn from that and apply it to fencing. […]

In this blog I will show which social media outlets and old fashioned web sites I follow to keep mup with developments are taking place in modern fencing. Most of these media are related to sabre fencing, but I also follow a few that are more generally related to fencing. […]

The Tactical Wheel

During last week’s practice I discussed a basic tactical model to analyze your opponent and build a game plan in foil fencing. However, the Tactical Wheel applies to all weapons and is really helpful to beginners to get a deeper understanding of the game. In fencing, like in chess, you can only really start to appreciate the depth and fun of the game once you get a basic understanding of moves and counter moves. In this blog I offer a more detailed explanation of the Tactical Wheel. […]

When we practice we hope to learn and improve (and beat our nemesis just for once). After all, if you keep improving and growing as a fencer, you can get joy out of our great sport for the rest of your life! However, we do not always practice with a clear focus and make the most out of the hours we spend on the piste. Here are some tips to change that. […]

In the two previous blogs (this one and this one) I have already shown how you can improve your power and stamina outside the fencing training. In this blog I will show how these routines can be combined to get to an optimal result. I would also like to show what Android apps I use to perform my exercises. […]

Another important aspect of power training for fencers are the muscles in the legs. For this reason I will discuss additional training for the legs in this blog post. During the preparation for the coming season these exercises have been used, so everyone that participated will recognize parts of the training routine. […]

An aspect of the strength and fitness training that is often forgotten by fencers, is core-stability training. This training focuses on the abdominal and dorsal muscles and it forms the basis for a good balance. During the preparation for the upcoming season, we have been working on these muscles, but we recommend to our fencers to perform these exercises in their own time, to maintain or even advance their core-stability strength. […]