Foil: Coaches College - Wrap up…

It’s been a couple of weeks since I got back from Coaches College. I feel like I’ve had plenty of time to digest the experience. Part of the delay in doing a wrap up post has been all the catching up on chores I’ve had to do. I’m not complaining, mind you; I’ve just been busy.

What did I learn? Mostly, I learned, that I have a lot to learn. I know that sounds cliché, but honestly it’s true. I’ve always prided myself in being a pretty good teacher. When I’ve had to explain things to people I seem to generally get a good response; people seem to learn. I’m a fairly good communicator. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that I run my mouth so much. I get a lot of practice. Lecturing to people is vastly different from teaching them a motor skill, though, and halfway through the college I began to have serious doubts about whether I was up to it. You have to constantly be aware of your own body, because they are learning by watching you. On top of your own technique, you have to spare some brain cycles to watch theirs. It takes one lesson to learn to do something wrong and five lessons to unlearn it (I just pulled that out of my ass, but you get the point).

Then there’s the patience; you have to be perfectly willing to watch someone repeatedly do a thing wrong, patiently correcting them each time until they get it right, then watch them do it wrong again after they do it right twice. Then, when you see them the next time you have to go through it all again and be perfectly happy when they do it wrong less times than the time before; that means they are learning. You also have to be anal about the little things that are wrong. If you are not, the wrong thing is learned, even if it is minor, and it will, as mentioned, take five times as long to unlearn it.

It’s no wonder we all conjure a certain image when we think fencing master: precise, hard, humorless. I think at some point you just become that way if you let yourself. I watched Maestro Beguinet for those ten days and marveled at his patience and good humor, all while still managing to be precise; he has been at it for decades. He is a model to aspire to, and I think that is the biggest lesson I will take away from Coaches College: you can be precise and a stickler for detail without becoming a monster.

The rest of it will all come with practice and study which I have been doing a great deal of. A week back from Coaches College, and Cameron and Woody left for vacation, leaving Jim and I to run the class. We’ve done not all together horribly. I think we might have even taught a few things that actually stuck. It’s quite a feeling to see a lesson you gave come to life on the strip. I think I could grow very accustomed to that feeling.

I am already planning next year’s trip to Coaches College. There’s a great deal more to learn and I am eager to get on with it. I want to reach level three in foil. It’ll take a couple of years, but I think I have what it takes. I certainly have a great group of students to help me get there.