ASER FENCING ACADEMY
INTERNATIONAL FENCING SCHOOL
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Private lesson and its role in fencing
If you already did fencing, you probably heard about a private lesson. But what it is? The private lesson is the period of time (usually 20 minutes) that fencers work 1 vs 1 against the coach and learn the details of the techniques. In fencing, there are many techniques that you need to learn how to perform in different kinds of situations and gradually improve on them and learn how to do them in the combination with each other and learn how to do them with fencers with different speeds, heights, type of grip, dominant hand, guard and etc. So what you learn is the first quality of doing techniques and then improving on them over time and you're going to train on them over the week and in your open fencing in order to stabilize them in your bout. So during the week, you're going to check if you're able to do them if you have any problem performing them, and take feedback from your coach and you will continue your learning process in the next week. so basically, it's the main learning time for techniques.
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So what is the group lesson and do I still need to do a private lesson if I'm taking a group lesson?
Group lesson is a class mostly focused on physical fitness, footwork and training on the basics of the trainings. Besides, you will have time to train on your learned techniques during bouting. You must learn the details of techniques in the private lesson and then train on doing them during your group lesson. Each of them have their own goal and combination of them is something that helps you to go more and more.
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How many private lesson do you recommend per week?
Beginners can start with 1 or 2 private lessons per week while intermediate/advance fencers and above need minimum of 2 private lesson/week. More number of private lesson will provide more time for you to train on your learned techniques, regularly taking feeback about it and improve it over the time. Best range of private lesson can be between 2-3 private lessons per week, but more than this is youre not going to have enough time to apply them during the week and fix them.
What should you do in order to improve the effeciency of your private lesson?
Try to monitor yourself between private lessons to make sure youre actually applying your learned techniques during the week. Thats the way you can improve your speed of learning and fix the problems in your next private lesson. Try to micromonitor yourself during your open fencing and at the same time try to work on the other parts of your techniques during the group lesson to improve yourself in your learned techniques.
When should you start taking private lesson or increase the number of your kids private lesson?
Its best to start taking private lesson from the start of your fencing. Other option is to start with group lesson for a while, then after learning the basics start your private lesson. But first option is more recommended, here is the reason. When you start, you will have open fencing during classes as well, so if you didnt learn or dont learn techniques at the same time, you will use your instinct to just do something on the strip and turn on the light. No need to mention, but since you dont have any fencing knowledge, youre going to do wrong things and they will turn into your habits and later your coach has harder work to fix those wrong habits and change them with the right one. So its best to start on the right track from the start your path. But for the competitve fencers, when you start, there would be some point that youll see that you need more and you need to get more and apply on strip. You feel what you have is not enough and you want to improve faster, thats when you go for more private lesson.So trust your coach word, find a good coach, listen to them, and believe in your path. They see something in you that probably you cant, just listen, work hard and be consistent. You can go a far way.
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