What Every Fencing Parent Should Know About … Welcome to a New Blog Series for Parents

Editor's note: This is the first in an ongoing series of blog posts written by a fencing parent for fencing parents. The author is Greg Husisian, father of 2024 Team USA Women's Epee Olympian Hadley Husisian. Future posts will appear on our USA Fencing news page and on our Fencing 101 page.

So, I have been taking my daughter to fencing tournaments for 11 years — a total of nearly 200 local, regional, national, and international tournaments. And over these many, many, many tournaments, not once has anyone ever said to me: “You know what you should do? Write a fencing blog!”

Which, from one perspective, makes sense. After all, not only am I not a fencing club owner or a fencing coach – I haven’t even ever fenced.  

And yet, the idea of writing a fencing blog, from a parent’s perspective, kind of stuck with me. And eventually I realized that maybe I was qualified to write such a blog. Most parents, after all, are far more likely to be unpaid Uber drivers who shop for new cars based on whether they can hold a fencing bag than club owners or coaches. And if there is one thing that I do have experience in, it is being a fencing parent (and an unpaid Uber driver), at every level of the sport.

The result is this first blog posting. Every couple of weeks, I will be putting out a new blog post, aimed at newer fencing parents (and their children) who are looking for guidance on how to navigate the fencing world. If you are looking for tactical tips to improve your fencing – well, you will have to find another resource. Anyone who takes fencing tips from me deserves their inevitable loss, for the simple reason that I am not qualified to get within ten strips of providing that kind of advice. But if you want some tips about navigating your first NAC or international tournament, or what types of sword repairs are easy for a parent to perform, or (most importantly) the best tactics to beg, cajole, or steal your way to the last fencing poster at a cadet world cup (I take the Fifth on the last tactic), well then maybe this blog will serve as a resource guide.

So, here is the big ask: the goal is to make this an interactive conversation. Which is where you come in! If you have any topics you would like the blog to cover, or any comments on any postings, then shoot me an email. I can’t guarantee that every blog posting will drip with words of wisdom and unforgettable gems of knowledge. But I can guarantee that if the conversation is a two-way street, eventually we will end up with a nice set of fencing resources that can help answer all the questions I had when I was confused and looking for answers that I had to develop through trial and (far too often) error while leaning on the passed-down knowledge of parents of older fencers.

So what are you waiting for? The next couple of topics are set. (Spoiler alert: In two weeks it will be the Ten Commandments of Being a Fencing Parent, so set your Outlook reminder right now). But after that, I will go where the requests take me. Let the emails fly, and I will do my best to keep up!

Fun Fact of Interest Only to Me: Fencing has been featured in every modern summer Olympic Games since the first in 1896, making it one of only five sports with this distinction. 1896 featured events for foil and sabre; epee was added in 1900. Also added in 1900: the Olympic sport of obstacle swimming, which involved a 200-meter swimming competition in which the competitors had to swim up to and clamber over a pole, then climb over a row of boats, and then finally swim under another set of boats. Much like breakdancing (in terms of Olympics duration, if nothing else), the sport lasted for only one Olympics. Perhaps the two events can be combined at a future Olympics.

Want to send some feedback? Have an idea for a future blog post? Just want to make fun of grammatical errors in the article? Feel free to email me at usfafencingblog@gmail.com.

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