Events

A moonshot idea is one that reinvents and revolutionises an industry or in our case a sport. Normally designers take a single product and look to make a series of incremental improvements. A moonshot idea is to improve by a factor of 10 making it a giant leap forward in a short space of time. Google calls these ideas project X, which just makes it sound very cool. I have always looked at each problem as they come up and then acted on this individual problem. Often through discussions with fencers, a “problem” is identified and we work out a...

A season's retreat

Gaining a title is never easy. In any sport, at any age class, at any time. To defend a title is, it is said, even more difficult. On March 23, 2016, I managed to win the title of the German B-Youth Champion at my first German Championships in Halle, Germany. It was a hard piece of work, but the feeling of triumph was worth all the hard training, sweat and pain. What I did not know by then was that it was only the beginning.

Text: Leander und Timo Helm
Videos: Timo Helm, Oliver Gröteke

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A lot has happened since I first picked up a weapon in August 2010 when I decided to 'have a go' at fencing at my local club, had I known that within 2yrs I would compete in my first international and within 6yrs, hold a World No1 ranking and a Paralympic Silver medal I am sure I would find it all rather unbelievable but the moment I started, I knew fencing was the sport for me and so as I continue to train and prepare for Tokyo 2020, I will do my best to share some of my experiences with...

This video will give you an introduction to collecting lapel pins, specifically pins related to the sport of fencing. My name is Bill Murphy and I have been collecting fencing pins for over 30 years. While fencing is my favorite sport, collecting fencing pins is my favorite hobby! In this video, I have listed eight different categories of fencing pins. Virtually all of the pins in my collection fall in to one (or more) of these eight categories. Occasionally I am asked which fencing pin is my favorite. My favorite pin might be this one from Hard Rock Cafe' that has...

Do Not Read This Article on Strip Coaching Fencing Team Relay Edition Pardon the interruption for a verbose warning that you, most likely, will ignore. Today’s warning will focus on why Not Reading about coaching concepts for the Team Relay Fencing Bout.  If you are a fan of fencing, and watch team bouts you have probably seen a team bout and scratched your head when you looked at the scoreboard and the team with the lead was not the team you predicted based on the individual player talent level or initial seeding.   If you are like many Americans or you follow politics you...

The Fencing Podcast was launched by two Scottish fencers/coaches/nerds in the immediate aftermath of the Rio Olympics. Sean Walton and Gavin McMenemy are the voices of the podcast, after a friend suggested they give the medium a try. Gav has a history of online fencing presence - maintaining the peace as a moderator on Leon Paul’s Fencing Forum (and the US-based fencing.net) for many years - and Sean has written fencing blogs, so a podcast seemed the logical next step. While there is a lot of online discussion and writing about fencing, there is little spoken-word output.

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It’s fair to say that most of the British fencing community left the Rio Olympic Games behind with a sense of mixed emotions. Richard Kruse coming fourth was an immense achievement but getting so close to a medal meant a slight sense of deflation. As time has passed, I’m sure we’ll all just remember how well he did. All I’ll say about the team event is that it didn’t appear to be our day! Now all we have to do is ponder the “will he, won’t he?” question – will Richard carry on to Tokyo? I do hope so. Last season he showed us that he’s still a major force on the World circuit and he demonstrated that in the toughest environment – Olympic qualification.

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