Today's Training Tip

It's been a while since I posted anything. Life get's in the way every now & again. 

But with my students and I starting to look towards AFC#3, I am reminded of a really important and often forgotten training tip.

Training Tip#01 - Practice what you can’t do... 

...or what you can't do well.

On a purely rational level this sounds obvious. Why would you practice you can already do? 

Unfortunately many fencers, especially during practice bouts, do the same techniques over and over again because they get a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from doing something right (or that wins them bouts at the club). 

Of course it is important to refine techniques you already know, but you should start by refining the ones that need it the most. If you have an excellent parry quarte (four) but a terrible change of line, you will become a more effective fencer by spending 15 minutes working on your change of line than 15 minutes working on a parry you can already execute well.

Let's start things on the right foot.

Welcome to "How to train a fencer"

Having recently returned from a trip overseas to help develop my coaching, I have decided to keep a blog of my thoughts, principles, practices and other (hopefully) useful tidbits relevant to coaching because they may not fit with any of the other outlets I often use to speak my mind.

Why keep a blog?

I am, by no means, suggesting that my opinion is the be-all and end-all of fencing coaching. Just the opposite.  I am hereby inviting fencers and coaches, alike, to share whatever they are willing to share about their own experiences training as fencers or teaching students to be fencers.

Where shall we start?

Let's begin with a discussion on psychology. If you don't know Damien Lehfeldt, go check out his website. I don't know him, personally. 

I have been coaching for quite a while now and some time ago I started collecting my ideas on "how to train" in a single document. Through this blog I want to share those ideas, discuss them with anyone out there who wants to engage in constructive conversation, and document my progress as a coach, especially as I start to take the role more seriously than I have previously.

I was going to start this blog with a discussion on the Fencers' Code of Honour Damien posted on fencing.net but I found something I feel is even more profound, especially if we're going to talk about how to train.

Two Words You Never Want to Hear as a Coach

Go and read it right now if you haven't already.

What is it about apologising for making a basic mistake during a lesson that is such a problem?

It brings to the lesson the notion that mistakes are a failure and will not be tolerated.

Mistakes are a normal and important part of the learning process. Without making mistakes we don't really get closer to perfecting a technique.

Merriam-Webster says a mistake is “a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgment, inadequate knowledge, or inattention.”

When we teach a new skill or correct technical flaws during a fencing lesson we are attempting to address this issue of "inadequate knowledge" [primarily]. Once both coach AND fencer acknowledge that idea it becomes easy to see why there is no reason to apologise for making a mistake.  From each mistake the fencer learns what NOT to do and thus increases their knowledge.

If a coach allows the student to continue to apologise for making mistakes, he or she slows down the lesson which obviously limits how much can be taught/refined in the time available.

But worse than slowing this down, by accepting the apologies one perpetuates the idea that mistakes are failures and that apologising for them is ok. I was taught that an important role of the coach is to help keep an athlete's psychology as crisp and positive as his/her technique. If I let a student keep thinking that they aren't allowed to make mistakes then when they do (and let's face it we're all human so we all make them) those fencers will gradually lose confidence in their ability to improve.

In short if I allow it to continue, I am responsible for the psychological issues my fencers will face further down the track. 

Much easier to keep things on the right track from day one, don't you think?

The only time I would accept "I'm sorry" in a lesson is if a student knows they should perform a particular technique but deliberately tried something else in a pressure scenario. And in that situation I'm just as likely to congratulate them for trying to problem solve on the go as I am to chastise them for doing something other than they were asked to do.