Fencing Instructor Essentials

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn…, “is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn – pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theo-criticism and geography and history and economics – why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough.”
(Merlyn to Arthur in T. H. White’s, The Once and Future King.)

I don’t know how much White is read these days, I fear he is less popular than he once was, which is unfortunate. His magnum opus is sometimes dismissed as pastiche which is lamentable and ironic as he is in many ways a 21st century novelist. He understood the medieval world in a way few people of his century did, (T. E. Lawrence being an interesting exception.) That is to say, he understood it by doing it. For example, he raised a hunting hawk using the medieval method using Hohenstaufen’s classic work as his guide and chronicled it in The Goshawk one of the finest and deepest books about a relationship between a man and a wild creature. Then there is that quote above. One can “spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing.” That isn’t hyperbole; it’s the practical humility of someone who actually fenced for years.

In that regard, I think my own skill has improved a little. For example, at open fencing a few nights ago I sensed I was at least a more interesting adversary to some of the more advanced fencers in the club. When I make a list of reasons for it, my coach, Kenny Nopens, tops the list. Here’s why:

1. Relentless attention to precision and detail. For example, something as basic as a parry four is still a complex movement of larger and smaller muscles requiring split second precision and nearly autonomic response. Kenny is able both to communicate that and work relentlessly with his students to achieve it. And that applies to everything: foot work, blade work, timing, observation, tactics, strategy.

2. Adaptability. In our club our fencers ages span fifty years. Kenny is able to work within the challenging and changing bounds of every person’s interest, skill, physical capacity and does so with good cheer and diligence.

3. Patience. When I taught (just before the end of the last ice age) I used to believe I was a patient instructor and I learned how crucial patience is. Kenny exceeds that by an order of magnitude. It produces results; I’m constantly amazed at how quickly his students improve and excel in competition.

4. Inspiration. On numerous occasions, Lynn, Robert and I have walked outside after a lesson and one of us has commented, “that was an amazing class,” even after practicing basic parries, or something equally fundamental. The reason is the depth Kenny approaches everything, whether basic or advanced. After each class, I always want to fence more and be a better fencer.

The point of this is not to embarrass my coach with praise (albeit deserved) but rather to identify what I think are the most important attributes for a successful coach, which I’ve just done.

Finally, on another note, I’m beginning to believe the multiple anecdotal pieces of evidence that suggest our sport is growing and in interesting ways. I don’t know that I believe Tim Morehouse’s quote that the number of fencers in the US has quadrupled in the last two years but I do know that the fencing equipment suppliers are doing well and that media attention appears to be increasing. And, there’s the local data point: our club is doing well.