8th grade daughter is fencing in a high school tournament

Assuming the weather doesn't cancel the event, my junior high school daughter will be competing in a High School fencing tournament on Saturday morning (Homewood-Flossmor High School for those who are bored silly and need to kill some time).

When she was invited I was pretty excited because the coach apparently thinks she is good enough to compete against older kids with more experience. But then I got to thinking that if she doesn't do at least reasonably well, it might actually be something that turns out badly for her. There are supposed to be roughly 100 competitors there, all from Illinois high school teams. Not sure how many are going to be fencing in the girls saber events. Its a team event, but based on individual performance. The teams are made of 3 people, on Melen's team will the other girls are 14 and 17 years old (freshman & junior).

Am I worrying for no reason? Should I just advise her to go have fun and do her best? Clearly I think it was an honor she got picked to join the team but. . .

She'll love it!

I fenced for two years in high school (foil) and then tried out for the UW Madison team in foil and saber.

Not only is it a great sport for stamina and confidence, but it is a martial art.

Oh she does love it. She fences 2 to 3 times a week at the local club. 90% of her fencing is Saber. She is getting an electric foil from Santa. The club has members that fence all 3 events, but most of the members are Saber fencers. The high school she wants to attend next year used to only fence foil and epee because the nun who is the fencing coach thought that saber was too violent . . . but we've been working on her and now they are allowing saber fencers too. Our club armorer is the saber coach at that high school and he asked me to become the armorer for the high school next season. I've already been doing some armorer work for the club, but under his watchful eye. While she is only in 8th grade, she has her sights set on Jr Olympics in a couple years. The club has already produced one kid who went into Jr Olympics and a few that have been competitive at college level. Our head coach is very good and she is lucky to be learning under his guidance.

Still, I wonder if an 8th grader will be able to compete at H.S. level? I do hope she has a blast and I hope she does respectably well tomorrow.

As a dad I can understand you being concerned, but I would guess it will be a grand experience for her. Even if she does not do so well against her older competitors. The thrill she will get if she beats any of the older girls will give her quite a confidence boost. And win or not the experience will prepare her for upcoming years when she'll be competing against others who might be new to the competition.
Best wishes to Melen tomorrow!

That's quite a breakthough since my era. High school students were only allowed to use the foil.

I did not like epee, too slow. I always joke that epee is so boring that I once fell asleep during a match. When I awoke, I found that I had scored two points...

What do you expect from a match when the "right elbow" is the preferred point target?

Before his death, I considered myself lucky to have UW coach Judge Archie Simonson.

My kids like to take those tubes that wrapping papers is on and beat the crap out of each other. Maybe that skill will serve them well if East Limestone High School ever gets a fencing team.

I have always enjoyed watching the competitions, but I have never seen one in person.

Good luck to Mel.

I should add this. At my wife's school there are many kids who are members of a local McDojo. It has amazing results. The kids are focused. They learn respect. It's good exercise.

I think fencing offers the same attributes.

When I joined in high school it was because of two brothers who were my firends. Hey, I got out of the house on training nights, I got to play with swords, we traveled to other schools...

But over time, I learned the same lessons as recognized by my wife. I learned to listen to my coach, I wanted to do well in school to stay on the team, and yes, I got a boost in self-esteem when I won matches and got to the finals.

Here's an odd benefit. Those classes were over 40 years ago. I now carry an ASP. Many of the moves for an ASP (feints, head cuts) I learned in fencing. And as a young boy, I didn't think I was learning anything at all.

Bob - encourage her - she'll have a blast. It'll be good experience, and if the coach thinks she's good enough, she should have the chance to find out how she rates. You may be surprised. I assume she has good eye-hand coordination and decent twitch reflexes or she wouldn't have been asked, and the fact that she's small/young might make some of her opponents overconfident. Even if she loses her match, it's good training. The only way to get better in a sport like this is to lose to someone better than yourself.

Well its been a long day, but a pretty good one.

Melen's team came in 4th place. It was the first competition for 2 of the 3 girls on the team. And it turns out that 2 of the 3 girls are not in high school. So my daughter and another 8th grader and 1 girl who used to fence but took a couple years off made up this team that showed very well for themselves. There were at least 120 people fencing, about half of those were fencing in Saber, which was my daughter's team's event.

Melen won 7 of 13 individual matches and the team won about 65% of their matches.

Now a bit of sour grapes, the refs were pretty bad. There were a couple very highly qualified refs, but the refs who were officiating over Melen's matches were basically high school kids who knew about as much as I do. I saw several blown calls, and way to many non-calls. Realistically the refs did NOT show any favoritism, so I would guess the outcome would not have changed, but there were really some pretty crappy calls (both ways).

Melen fell and injured her knee in the elimination round, again, I doubt it would have changed the final outcome, but she obviously had to forfeit that bout. Still, I was pretty happy, the coach was pretty happy, but all the girls were upset they did not walk home with medals!

Even though they were upset, they should be proud of their accomplishment. And so should the parents

My congrats to Melen.

OhioTC18 said:

And so should the parents

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I think the parents and coaches walked out pretty happy and proud, but the girls were just bummed out. The car ride home was pretty quiet but after it settled in, Melen did say she had a great time and that it was a good experience.

One semi-funny thing happened. Melen plans to attend Marian High School next year. She knows the fencing coach at Marian. This event was a HIGH SCHOOL event. The Marian team showed up at this event and the coach came up and talked to Melen, obviously knowing that Melen was not in high school. Oops!

B_Skurka said:

the refs were pretty bad...I saw several blown calls

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Perhaps this is a part of character building, as well.

In fencing, you don't question the call. You sit there and take it. I guess it stems from dueling and the question of honor.

I was actually injured more from biting my lip than the snap-cut of a sword...

It's great to hear she is interested in this. I took fencing in college; it was a blast.

I have my son signed up for an intro lesson after new years.

Yup, her coach bit his lip several times. He was also a ref at the tournament today, but obviously didn't ref her bouts. I've ref'd at the club, while I don't fence, I spend 4 to 6 hours a week there and the coaches have been teaching me to ref. Its tough, and I suppose probably even tougher in a tournament. But in this case I really don't blame the refs for the bad calls, I think the tournament sponsors should have gotten more qualified referees. There were a lot of people there and to count on young kids to ref some (not all) of the matches seemed inappropriate. They had the best refs on Foil and Epee. The young ones on Saber. I dunno why.

As for fencing in college, it is something she hopes to do. But who knows if she will. Right now she seems to enjoy Saber. Doesn't always want to go to practice, but enjoys it when she gets there.

65% win rate for her first tournament, competing above her "level", in a team that sounds like it was scratch built to fill a space in the roster, and they came in 4th out of 40 teams?

I think you might want to point out that while she did not win, she did vey good.

congrats to both of you!
(her for doing well, you for not getting thrown off site for hassling the refs)