Being a Fencing Parent, Stage by Stage

Almost every parent who walks into the club wants the same thing: for their child to enjoy it, stick with it, and get something out of it. What’s less obvious is that being helpful looks different at each stage — and something that supports a six-year-old can work against a sixteen-year-old.

Here’s what we see, roughly in the order most families experience it.

Stage 1 — The trial and the first few months

What’s happening: Footwork. A lot of footwork. Learning to hold a weapon properly, stand in a guard position, move forward and back without falling over. Very little of what a parent would recognise as fencing.

What parents usually worry about: Is she enjoying it? Why isn’t she actually fencing yet? Are we wasting the fees?

Ask "what did you do today?" rather than "did you win?". At this stage there is nothing to win, and the question sets a habit that becomes unhelpful later.

Expect the first couple of months to look unglamorous. Fencing is a technical sport and the early work is repetitive on purpose. Children who are drilled properly at the start move better at twelve than children who were allowed to skip ahead.

Don’t rush to buy a full kit. We lend equipment for exactly this reason. Wait until your child has decided they want to be here.

And if you can manage it, twice a week beats once. Not because we’re trying to sell classes, but because the skills at this stage are physical habits, and habits need frequency more than they need duration.

Stage 2 — First competitions

What’s happening: Your child enters a tournament and quite possibly loses most of their bouts. There may be tears. This is normal, and every single fencer on our floor has been through it.

What parents usually worry about: He’s losing. Is he in the wrong group? Should he even be competing?

Set the bar at attending. The purpose of a first competition is to have been to one — to learn what the venue sounds like, how long the day is, what it feels like to be called to a strip. Results genuinely do not matter yet.

Afterwards, ask about one thing that went well. Then stop. The urge to review the whole day is strong and almost never lands.

Don’t coach from the side. Even nodding, wincing or shaking your head is coaching — children find their parent’s face in a hall of two hundred people instantly. If you know you can’t keep a straight face, stand where they can’t see you. Nobody will think less of you.

Take the logistics: food, water, a jacket for the air-conditioning, knowing when the next round is. That is genuinely useful and it’s yours to own. Tactics belong to the coach.

Stage 3 — Intermediate, and the long middle

What’s happening: The novelty has worn off. Technique gets pulled apart and rebuilt. Progress slows or seems to stop. Friends who started at the same time may quit. This is the stage where most fencers are lost, and it has very little to do with talent.

What parents usually worry about: She’s lost interest. She’s not improving. Should we push harder or let her stop?

Understand that a plateau is not a warning sign — it’s where the actual work happens. A fencer being corrected constantly is a fencer being taken seriously.

Protect the routine. If attendance is renegotiated every week, every week becomes a decision, and eventually one of those decisions is no. Fix the training days and let them be boring.

Resist the urge to push harder here. This is the point where well-meaning pressure does the most damage, because the child is already finding it hard. More often, what a plateaued fencer needs is to be left alone to work through it.

And let them have other things. A child with a life outside fencing lasts longer in fencing.

Stage 4 — Competing seriously

What’s happening: Rankings start to matter. Selections start to matter. Training clashes with exams. The sport begins asking for real commitment, and so does school.

What parents usually worry about: Is this leading anywhere? Is it worth the cost and the weekends? Why wasn’t he selected?

Watch your pronouns. "We have training on Wednesday" and "we didn’t get selected" are small phrases that tell a teenager the result belongs to you as much as to them. It’s "you", and the difference matters more than it sounds.

Keep results and identity separate. A bad season is a bad season. It is not a verdict on your child, and children take their reading of that from the adults around them.

Be realistic out loud about the pathway. Very few fencers go all the way, and saying so calmly — while still training properly — takes pressure off rather than adding it.

On selection specifically: it is usually decided by a state or national body rather than by the club, and the criteria vary. We have written about that separately, and the short version is to ask directly rather than work it out through other parents.

Stage 5 — National opportunities

What’s happening: Representing a state or country, longer travel, harder opposition, and losses that hurt more because more was invested.

Keep the frame wide. The habits built at this level — composure, preparation, losing in public and coming back next weekend — outlast the sport by decades. Our own founder fenced at this level, and so have many of the parents’ generation now watching from the side.

Remember that university and scholarship routes exist, and that fencing travels well internationally. But don’t make them the reason. Children can tell when a sport has become an investment strategy.

And when they want to stop

Every fencer stops eventually. How it happens matters.

Ask what is actually going on before you accept the decision. Very often it isn’t the sport — it’s a friend who left, a difficult training block, a comment that landed badly, or exams. Those are all fixable, and none of them is a reason to quit.

Offer a break instead of a decision. A month off is reversible. A cancelled membership and a sold kit are much harder to undo at fifteen.

And if they still want to stop, let them stop properly — come and say goodbye to the coaches, finish the term. Fencers who leave well come back far more often than fencers who disappear.

The one thing that works at every stage

There’s a line that gets quoted a lot in youth sport, and it holds up: the six words children most want to hear from a parent after a competition are I love to watch you play.

Not analysis. Not encouragement dressed as analysis. Just that.

Everything else — the technique, the tactics, the honest assessment of where they are — is our job. Being glad they’re there is yours, and it’s the part nobody else can do.