Armory Clinic
The UW-Rock County Sabre Rattlers Fencing Club is hosting a Wisconsin Division-sponsored armory clinic led by David Neevel on January 21st from 10:00am to 3:00pm. The clinic is free for division members, so head over to http://askfred.net/Clinics/2011 AGM news
Thanks to everyone who braved the Janesville wilderness to attend the 2011 AGM at the University of Wisconsin - Rock County. Thanks also to Brian Duckwitz, the coach for the UWRC Fencing Club, for hosting a fine meeting. The 2011 AGM Meeting Minutes, amended Division Bylaws and Sanction Manual will be posted in the Documents section of this site. The results of the Officer and Executive Committee elections are posted below.
2011-2012 Wisconsin Division Officers
Mike Garrison, Chairman
Jacob Kriegisch,
Vice-Chair
Diedre Stary, Treasurer
Brian Duckwitz, Secretary
David Neevel as Armorer
Additional Executive
Committee Members
Scott Bins
Dan Torchia
Joe Biebel
Anthony Gillham
Steven Stary
Chris Bundy
Aaron McTavish
Adam Puzach
Lara Szpak
Joe Monarski
posted by Mike, 7-26-2011
Joe Biebel takes another NAC title
Our own Joe Biebel took another V50 Men's Foil victory, this time at the NAC-D in Detroit, MI 3/2011. This season marks Joe's last in the V50 catagory, so those foilists in the V39+++ age group had better watch out!
Notre Dame Academy Celebrates a Decade of Fencing
This year, the Notre Dame Academy Fencing Club will be celebrating their 10th year as an official club at the school. The club began as an offshoot of the Drama Club, which wanted to incorporate more authentic-looking stage combat in an upcoming production. Mr. Steven Stary was the Drama Club moderator at the time, and had studied fencing at UW Madison, so they asked him to work with them on making their fight scenes look more spectacular.
"Stage fighting is really pretty different from actual fencing. You have to make the moves big and impressive looking in order to be appreciated by the audience from 20 feet away. They want it to look like Star Wars, while real fencers are more about making their moves fast and efficient. The actors' moves are all choreographed as well, so there are no surprises on stage leading to injury, while fencers try their best not to telegraph their moves."
While the fight scenes were painstakingly choreographed, the actors still needed to look like they knew what they were doing with a sword, so Mr. Stary taught all the participants the basics of modern sport fencing using what little equipment he owned or could borrow from fencing friends.
"After a while, we all had so much fun with the fencing that the students wanted to continue learning more about it even after the show was done. That was really the start of the fencing club."
Over the next few years, the Drama Club put on at least one show per year with a swordfight in it, but the Fencing Club also grew beyond the core group of actors who started it.
"We started with actors, of course, but over time we started to attract students from all sorts of different backgrounds. For a while, our biggest crossover group was Band students. Now we have a good cross-section of the student population, all classes and interests, and pretty much evenly divided between boys and girls."
One of the biggest challenges for an ever-growing club was getting enough equipment for everyone who wanted to participate. It's still an ongoing issue.
"Every year in September we always have more students who want to try fencing than we have equipment for them to try it with. All of us who own our own gear give it up to the beginners, just so they don't have to go away disappointed. After the first few weeks we always lose some of those new folks who find that fencing wasn't for them, and the equipment crunch eases a bit. We're slowly making progress on the issue, but competition gear is another story."
For official competitions, fencers are required to use electric scoring systems, which add more (and more expensive) gear to the mix. Most of the NDA fencers who compete in official tournaments own their own electric equipment.
"It can be a big expense to buy electrics, so I loan out older sets of my own gear to any student who wants to try a tournament. Besides, I don't fit into the same gear I did 10 years ago, unfortunately."
In addition to official tournaments requiring electrical gear, the club competes in a few non-electric competitions, such as ones held at UW Steven's Point, or NDA's own in-house tournament, the Robert Burns Tournament.
"Our first in-house event happened to be on Jan. 25, which is the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns. We named the event in honor of that, and got more elaborate with the Scottish trappings every year since. Haggis and other Scottish foods are served, kilt wearing is encouraged (but not while fencing,) and we take our group picture for the yearbook."
This year will be the 9th Robert
Burns Tournament, having started in the club's second year. NDA will host an official USFA (United
States Fencing Association) tournament on April 2nd to celebrate
their 10th anniversary as a club.
They're hoping to have fencers from the rest of Wisconsin and beyond
come to participate.
Posted by Steven Stary, 1-1-2011
Congratulations Stephen and Dierdra
Joe Biebel to Captain our Veterans at the World Championships
Joe Biebel will be the Delegation Captain for our Veteran's Team as they travel to the World Championships in Porec, Croatia this September.
Joe sheepishly admits that, "Having made just about every tactical, technical and travel arrangement error possible in the last 8 years, I believe myself uniquely qualified to help my team mates stay on course and get the most out of their opportunity."
Joe, 6-time member of the US delegation to the world championships, was asked to captain our fencers by Rinaldo Campana, the Veteran's Committee Chairman.
Posted by Mike
7-31-2010
Joe Biebel's report from the 2010 Summer Nationals
MSFA's Ellis Grasse went to his first national championships and competed in the Y-10 foil. Ellis had 2 victories in the pools, advanced, and fenced one set of DE matches. Ellis won the first match 5-4, lost the second and the third 5-3, 5-3. This was an excellent first appearance at a national event! Way to go Ellis!
I rather fell short at Nationals this last weekend. Fenced brilliantly, first seed after the pool round and finished fifth. This also put me fifth as far as standings for the world team. The only way for me to go now is as the first alternate. Not very likely I'm afraid. The guy who put me out, many of you will remember with great fondness. It was Sam Jones, previously from Caliburn, now in Birmingham. Sam made his first world team. It was great to see Sam and his son Stephan. Stephan is really something, in a good way, of course.
I must say that I have never wept uncontrolled before at a loss. Sam defeated me 4-3 in "sudden death" overtime, (us veteran fencers don't like to use that term) after six and a half grueling minutes, to make the round of 4. When he won and we shook hands and hugged, he refused to let go until I could compose myself. It's interesting how hard we work to vanquish an opponent and still remain the best of friends. Good luck Sam.
Sam then beat Tom Lutton to make the gold medal round and was defeated by Ed Kaihatsu. FYI, Ed won both of the NACs and "Nationals" and has a good chance of winning the world championships. Go Ed!
Joe Biebel
Youth fencing alive and well at the MSFA
The future of our sport resides in the small bodies and sometimes fickle motivations of our children. So, we should all be proud of the job Joe Biebel and his MSFA are doing to cultivate youth fencing.
The June 19th, 2010 MSFA Lighthouse Youth Event was run as one large 10-person pool with Y10, Y12 and Y14, boys and girls together. This format gave all of the competitors nine, 5-touch matches.
One competitor, Ellis Grasse, a Y-10 fencer from MSFA, won all nine of his matches, cleanly and convincingly! Ellis has been working very hard lately and it shows.
After qualifying for nationals at the "Arnold", Ellis has decided to train hard for his first Summer Nationals next month. The quality of his fencing and his confidence has grown markedly and he should do well. We all wish him the best of luck in Atlanta.
The champions were:
Y-10
and overall Champion: Ellis Grasse
Y-12 champion: Ted Capp
Y-14
champion: Alden Grasse
Congratulations to all the fencers!
