Desert Fencing Academy

Hi to everyone,

While everything is fresh in my mind from my April trip to Portland to work with U.S. Olympic women's sabre coach, Ed Korfanty, here's all that's going on at Oregon Fencing Alliance.

Firstly, I hate to take a week off because there is no fencing at DFA, but the week spent with Ed, his assistant coaches Charles and Jacek and, of course, the OFA fencers, was time well invested, and at a good time, as Ed and some of the OFA
fencers are in Turkey this week for a Junior World Cup and when they return to Portland, the French, Italian and Russian national sabre teams will be coming to train with Ed and his fencers for up coming world cup tournaments and qualifiers for the Olympic games.

So here is a "typical" week at OFA (Oregon Fencing Alliance) while I was there. Ed's first lesson of the weekday starts at 7:00 a.m. High schooler Avery comes in every weekday morning at 7:00 a.m. to take a one hour lesson with Ed. Then, Avery comes back at 5:00 p.m. and works out, drills and fences electric with all the elite sabre fencers until 7:30 p.m.

Then, Ed has a 9:00 a.m. lesson with Christina Juliana, who moved from Tucson to Portland just so she could work with Ed. At 9:30 the lesson was with Becca Ward, 17 year old Junior World Champion, and at 10:00 a.m. Mariel Zagunis took her lesson.

Ed goes over technical and tactical aspects of the lesson with his fencers. There is a warm up, parry practice and then Ed goes into the items he wants to work on with his fencers for that lesson and then they spar to finish. up. Ed works his lessons slowly, methodically. Nothing is ever done fast. He knows his fencers are fast, he wants them to have control and accuracy. The only time the lesson is fast is when Ed spars with his student.

This was very interesting. Both Becca and Mariel would arrive thirty minutes prior to their lesson to warm up and stretch and do footwork. After their lesson, both would stay another thirty minutes and just do advances and retreats up and down the strip. Becca is home schooled, so lesson time, fencing, and all those trips to tournaments are accommodated by her schedule. Mariel has taken the rest of this and next academic year off from Notre Dame to devote all her time to training and going to European tournaments. In fact, most of the fencers who attend university now and are planning on securing a spot on the U.S. Olympic team are taking time off from school so they can train and compete in the European circuit.

After the girls had their morning lesson, Ed and I would have time to talk over how to train and motivate fencers, how to give technical and tactical lessons, how to run a fencing club and then would give me a lesson. Two hours of pure fencing pleasure.

I'd be back at the club at 3:00 p.m. to watch Jacek and Charles give lessons to the beginning and intermediate fencers and then at 5:00 p.m. the elite fencers would come in and I would join in for the footwork and drill exercises. And I can't say enough about Mariel and how she took care of me at the club and made sure I met everyone and was included in all fencing exercises. And when we would have our warmup drills, Mariel asked me to be her warmup partner. And then it was time to spar and I got to spar with everyone, including current junior world champion Becca Ward. I didn't feel too bad about being beaten 10-6 by her.

Ed and his assistant coaches, Jacek and Charles, are tremendous coaches. They correct footwork, bladework and tactical errors as soon as they are committed. For the fencers who really want to apply themselves and work, Ed, Jacek and Charles are right there for them.

For the elite fencers, like Mariel, Becca, Avery and Christina, I marveled at their work and training ethic. Tremendous dedication is all I can say.

Ed was saying that when Mariel and some of the other collegiate fencers leave him and go back to their university team and then return to OFA, that he has to re-tool them. That they aren't as fast and as proficient. Ed is not that keen on some of the college fencing programs, or their coaches. Actually, according to Ed and the other coaches, right now, their top picks for collegiate fencing teams are Notre Dame and Penn State.

So what changes can our DFA fencers anticipate in their sabre lessons? Well, there will be minor changes for bladework and footwork, but most lessons will remain the same. I've been working with Ed for the past two summers and then this Spring training time with him, so his core lessons remain the same. It's more about correcting and perfecting footwork and bladwork and then working the tactical strategy for the fencer. One definite aim is to improve and increase our fencers' tactical expertise so that our fencers can "read" their opponent and make needed tactical changes while fencing.

As all the coaches at OFA said, and I echo with them, fencing is a lifetime sport, with something always needing correcting, perfecting, changing. And that's what makes it an exciting sport.

- Leslie
The Fencing Coach
Desert Fencing Academy