Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Fencing


One has been fencing at a local academy since he was 6 1/2. For the first 8 months he did the club once a week. Then he was asked to fence in a salle tournament; he won 2 of 5 bouts and was asked to join the team (all his opponents were team members, although they didn't tell him that until it was all over). He now fences 3 days a week, 2 hours at a time, 12 months a year. It takes its toll on dinner time, at least on Monday nights, but so far the positives far outweigh the negatives.

This summer will mean 2 intensive camps: 5 days, 6 hours a day, and 6 days, 7 hours a day. The latter will be with the French national team as well as US fencers. He will go to both camps - he is thrilled he was asked, and can't wait to watch and learn from the older fencers, as well from the additional coaches who will attend.

However, as much as he practices, we are pulling back on competition until he is older. He goes to the Y8 meets his team hosts, but he does not travel, fence Y10, etc. We - including his coaches - do NOT want to push the competitive part of fencing on him. We want to wait to see what develops inside him - to see how much this means to him and how competitive he wants to be about it. Right now he LOVES fencing; his friends are there, the salle feels like a second home (it's run by a family, and they work at that atmosphere), and he is learning and improving.

I am thrilled that he has consistently chosen this activity over others - we've presented him with a choice several times (i.e, "soccer or fencing but not both") and he always votes for fencing. He is making this his own, and I love that. I also love the discipline it teaches him, and the (healthy) pride he gets from working hard and seeing results.

No comments: