For Fencers:

Writing a journal is a great way to focus and plan your strategies for fencing. An elite athlete keeps a journal not only to reflect on his accomplishments and progress, but also to mentally prepare for the next competition. These are some suggestions on how to use this journal:

• Write, in detail, as much as you can, including your feelings, not just the facts and scores.
• Use your imagination. Visualize as you are writing.
• Write about the great bouts as well as the bad ones.
• Describe in detail how you won or lost, what techniques worked for you and what you need to improve on.
• Be consistent with writing after every class and tournament.
• Read the journal once a week and before a tournament. Read your impressions of the opponents the last time you fenced them. What were their strengths and weaknesses. What were yours.
• Close your eyes and visualize winning the next bout and making your dream become a reality.

But most importantly, HAVE FUN!

For Parents:

The object of this journal is to keep a daily log of every experience, feeling, and thought. Encourage your fencer to write right after a lesson or a tournament and even conversations with a coach or a teammate. The physical process of writing about that great “touch” will help make that moment to be forever be etched in memory. By reading what was written about that touch and how it was accomplished, the fencer will be able to recreate that “touch” in his next bout, even months later. Help your fencer by writing the scores at tournaments in the journal. After each bout, have the fencer fill out the bottom portion immediately. The results can, then, be analyzed with the coach after the competition using the journal.

To every successful touch, En Garde!

If you have any questions regarding The Fencing Journal, please e-mail: Absolute Fencing Gear.