Academy of Fencing Masters

October 2018

What an incredible start to the 2018-2019 fencing season!

Last weekend we had the honor of hosting an RYC right here at our Sunnyvale location. Over five hundred fencers came and went from our club over the course of the weekend, and we could not have made this event so successful without the diligence and dedication of our AFM fencing families. So many of you gave your time and energy to our fencers and to the many guest fencers who came out to compete from far and wide. It was absolutely fantastic all around! And of course we are incredibly proud of the performance of our fencers at home. Truly, you are all remarkable and make us gleam with pride!

Now that fall is here, you can feel the shift from the “start of school” season to the “we’re in our groove” season. Everyone knows what’s going on academically now, and that takes the pressure off of transitioning. This is the absolute perfect time of year to focus on fencing. We’re not too close to the holidays while we’re also months away from the chaos of the spring school year. A good foundation in October and November takes the pressure off fencers in the spring when other pressures will be piled on top and balance will be harder. The competitions over the course of the next eight weeks can allow fencers to nail down points for Summer Nationals next year or even qualify through divisional or national competitions. We’re here to help you get it done!

Again, we have to thank everyone for the tremendous kick off to this season so far! Our fencers have done just a beautiful job in September! We can’t wait to see how the rest of the season plays out.

Sincerely yours,

Irina

Tournament Results September

September turned out to be a jam packed month of competition for our fencers. The competition results speak for themselves, but we’re so proud of our competitors for their hard work and dedication. Great job guys!'

AFM Start of Season RYC

Youth 10 Women’s Foil - A Podium Sweep and 5 girls in top 8 in AFM Start of the Season RYC! Fantastic Job Girls and all foil coaches!

Gabrielle Gebala 1
Zoie Wang 2

Eunice Zhang 3
Addison Ho 5

Mika Chirashnya 6

Youth 10 Men’s Foil
Congratulations Daniel, Lucas, their proud parents and coach Bogdan for winning Silver and Bronze medal! Way to go!
Daniel Chirashnya 2
Lucas Wu 3

Youth 10 Women’s Epee - Great job to our amazing epee girls! What a great finish!

Sanvi Sharma 1st
Gabriela Yin 2nd
Ariia Blanco 6th
Anais Mollinier 7th
Abigail Lazovski 8th

Youth 12 Men’s Foil - congrats to Daniel Chirashnya for medalling!

Youth 12 Men’s Epee - congratulations to Allan Chu for his first medal - silver! - and Aritra Bagchi for 5th place, Alec Zhang for 6th place and Christopher Wright for medalling with 8th place!

Youth 12 Women's Epee - AFM Podium Sweep! Leehi Machulsky - Gold, Alice Lan - Silver, Noya Chirashnya - Bronze! Great job girls!

Youth 12 Women's Foil - Great Job Gabriella and Cici! Way to go!
Gabrielle Gebala 1
Ruoxi Sun 6

Youth 14 Men's Epee - Congratulations to Yakov Shur and his coach f 5 years Alexander Maximovich for winning Gold in the Y14 Men's Epee!

Youth 14 Women's Foil - Erika Castaneda earned a Bronze medal great job!

Youth 14 Women's Epee - our amazing epee girls did a podium sweep! 7 in the top 8. Leehi Machulsky - Gold, Natalie Gebala - Silver, Alice Lan and Charlotte Li - Bronze, Grace Yin - 5th place medal, Nastya Kolotilina - 6th place medal ad Hailey Haberman - 8th place medal! What a fantastic job girls, so proud of you!

Denver RJCC

Congratulations to Audrey Chu for winning Bronze and updating her B rating and Priscilla Leang for medalling with 7th place and earning C in Junior Women's Epee in Rockies RJCC in Denver! Good job girls!

Congratulations to Priscilla Leang for medalling with 6th place in Cadet Women's Epee in Denver RJCC! Great tournament for Priscilla with medals in both Cadet and Junior events!

Congratulations to Neil Van Eikema Hommes for Bronze in Cadet Men’s Epee and medalling in Junior Men's Epee. Way to go!

Cadet Men’s Epee - Congratulations to Neil Van Eikema Hommes for winning Bronze and Paul Kim congrats on fifth place in Cadet Men’s Epee!

SoCal RYC

Gabrielly Gebala, great job for winning Silver medal and Ruoxi (Cici) Sun for winning Bronze in SoCal RYC in Y12 Women's Foil! Great jo girls!

AFM Final in South California RYC in Y10 Women's Epee! Sanvi Sharma won Gold and Gabriela Yin won Silver! Great job girls!

Congratulations to our dynamic duo - sisters Gebala - on their fantastic performance! Natalie won a Gold medal and earned C rating in Y14 Women's Epee and Gabrielle won Gold in Y10 Women's Foil! Way to go girls!

RYC Treasure Island at the beginning of September - Once again, congratulations to all medalists!

William Elloway - Congratulations to William for Silver medal at Treasure Island RYC in Y14 Men's Epee! Great job William!
AFM Podium sweep in Y10 Women's Epee at Treasure Island RYC! Congratulations to Sanvi Sharma for taking Gold, Gabrielle Gebala for winning Silver and Gabriela Yin for bringing home Bronze! Great job girls!
Congratulations to Christopher Wright for winning Silver, Aritra Bagchi for medalling with 7th place and Alec Zhang for medalling with 8th place at Treasure Island RYC Y12 Men's Epee!
AFM Podium Sweep in Y10 Women's Foil at Treasure Island RYC! Congratulations to Gabrielle Gebala for winning Y10 Women's Foil, Keira Castaneda for Silver, Addison Ho for Bronze and Eunice Zhang for medalling with 6th place! Way to go girls! This is also second Gold medal in two events - Gabrielle also won Y12 Women's Foil! Yay!!

Another AFM Gold! Congratulations to Alice Lan for winning the tournament, Alina Popovici for medalling with 5th place and Alena Kononenko for medalling with 7th place at Treasure Island RYC! Great job girls, so happy for you!

Congratulations to Ryan Chin for winning Bronze medal at Y12 Men's Foil RYC at Treasure Island ! Great job Ryan!

Congratulations to Gabrielle Gebala for Gold, Cheryl Sun for Silver and Cici Sun for medaling with 5th place in Y12 Women's Foil! Way to go girls!

Congratulations to Leehi Machulsky for Silver, Alice Lan for Bronze and Natalie Gebala for medalling with 6th place in Y14 Women's Epee!

Congratulations to Christopher Wright for winning Silver, Aritra Bagchi for medalling with 7th place and Alec Zhang for medalling with 8th place at Treasure Island RYC Y12 Men's Epee!

Bay Cup

Great job to Daniel Chirashnya for winning Silver and Lucas Wu for winning Bronze in the Y10 Men's Foil!
Congratulations to Gabrielle Gebala for Gold and Dana Korol for winning Bronze in Y14 Women's! It is a second gold of Gabrielle in the same day: Y12 and Y14!
AFM Podium Sweep in Y10 Women's Foil - congratulations to Zoie Wang, Mika Chirashnya and Eunice Zhang for Gold, Silver and Bronze finish! Great job girls!

San Diego Regional Junior Men’s Epee Tournament

Congratulations to Sanil Sharma for winning and earning A! Also our warm congratulations to our dear friend Zachary Levy for medalling with 6th place!

Regional Rankings!

Congratulations to our youth fencers who performed well at the Regional level! We had fantastic season last year and all our fencers made a huge progress. In particular it is great to additionally recognize those who climbed the top of the regional list:

Gabrielle Gebala - won Gold patch in two categories - Y10 Foil and Epee. Gabrielle is among 12 fencers in the country who won more than 1 Gold patches!
Natalie Gebala - won Gold patch in Y12 Epee.
Daniel Chirashnya - won Silver patch in Y10 Foil
Leehi Machulsky - won Silver patch in Y12 and Y14 Epee
Erika Castaneda - won Silver patch in Y12 Foil

Battle of Veterans

Warm congrats to Haejung Hofman for winning Gold and earning her E in the women's epee! Congratulations also to Michelle White for medaling in the same event!
Congratulations to our unstoppable Alan Buchwald MD for taking home Silver in the foil event!
Great job to our coach Mark Wheeler for medaling with 5th place in the epee event in Battle of the Veterans!

North Texas Roundup SYC

At the beginning of September Zoie Wang won Silver medal in Y10 Women's Foil in North Texas Roundup SYC. Great job Zoie!

Go AFM!!

Welcome coach Andrei Kuryshka and his wife Krystyna Kuryshko!

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of the AFM team!

Andrei hails all the way from Belarus, where he raised foil fencers up from a young age all the way through to joining the National Team as members of the Cadet squad. As a coach, he led his team to numerous national and international tournaments. Not only does he have remarkable experience, but he also has some wonderful positive and bright energy.

In the last several weeks since his arrival, Andrei has quickly become embedded in our fencing culture. All of our foil fencers know Andrei already and he is beloved by everyone.

Krystyna herself is also a foil coach with wonderful competitive experience. As a fencer she won numerous national and international titles at tournaments, as well as being a member of the Ukrainian women’s foil national team. It was wonderful to see Krystyna fence with our competitive class on the first day that they came to the club! Now you’ll find her out on the piste all of the time, providing world level sparring to our fencers.

Andrei and Krystyna - welcome to AFM!

Welcome epee coach Dima Chumak!

We also would like to welcome coach Dima Chumak to our epee coaching team!

Dima comes to us from New York were for the last 10 years he was an epee coach in highly successful fencing club Fencing Academy of Westchester. Dima's students won many national and international level medals, including NAC's, July Challenges, Summer Nationals, and Cadet World Cup and World Championships.

An Olympian himself in 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, were Dima finished 13th, Dima was a member of Ukrainian National Epee Team for 10 years, and was 2 times World Championship Medalist, European Champion and two time European Bronze Medalist, World University Games Champion and many more world titles.

Dima will start teaching in both locations.

We are so happy that Andrei, Krystyna and Dima joined us and are a great and fantastic addition to our already strong coaching team.

Welcome to all and good luck in 2018-2019 season!

Upcoming tournaments at AFM

We’re excited to be hosting a whole array of tournaments in the coming months here at AFM! These are great opportunities for our fencers to compete right here on their own home turf, and of course for family and friends to come out and cheer everyone on.

October 28 - Y14 Men’s and Women’s Foil and Junior Men’s and Women’s Foil

This tournament is a great chance for our Y14 and Junior fencers to fence at a tournament right here with us. It’ll be a smaller competition, so easy to access for foilists right here locally.

November 4 - Youth Epee for Y10/12/14, Junior Men’s and Women’s Epee and Senior Women’s Epee.

Bottom line - this tournament is for all of our epee fencers to fence, including the beginner level who will enjoy competing in their first competition. A fantastic chance to bring your support team out and to compete here with a big boom of everyone.

November 4 - AFM Open Y8 Foil Tournament.

As always we would like to invite all our young foil fencers to participate in this tournament for our youngest fencers. Getting that first taste of competition right here at home is fantastic!

Nov 23-25 - Division 2 ROC and RJCC at AFM

This weekend of regional competition is a perfect way to earn points towards Junior Olympics and Summer Nationals and to push towards those goals for the season before the holidays. We encourage our age-eligible fencers to participate!

AFM Designated Competitions

At the beginning of the month we sent everyone a list of AFM designated tournaments, so please check your inbox if you haven’t already and take note.

This list should serve as your guide to choosing fencing competitions for the season.

Keep in mind that some new events might be established, that some local events could be canceled before we get to them, and that you can rely on the regional and national level tournaments to go off as planned. In general, this list is a good starting point for you to plan out your entire season, which is the best way to make it happen with less stress.

Mid Term Camps

We’re working to conduct two mid term camps, which will provide our fencers with a great way to prepare for upcoming competitions.

This summer, we had fantastic camps as part of our Summer Nationals preparation and saw the benefits of this type of training first hand with the stellar performances on the big week. It’s time that we offer that same kind of support during the season!

These will take some of that same good training and bring it to the Winter Break. This will give fencers even a big boost in the middle of the season to help them prepare for upcoming competitions, such as NAC’s and JO’s for cadet, junior and senior fencers and RYC, SYC and March NAC for youth fencers.

Foil Mini-Camp - 3 DAYS

Dates: Dec 26-28

Time: 9am - 12pm - half day

Location: Campbell

Price: $350

Epee Mini-Camp - 3 DAYS

Dates: Dec 26-28

Time: 9am-3pm - whole day

Price: $425

Attendance is open to all our fencers, regardless of their age, and it’s open to all club fencers regardless of location. Our coaches will be able to scale training for age and skill groups when necessary.

Please contact us about registration, as we expect these spots to fill up quickly!

Little Fencers New Class

We’re excited to share with you our new program for young fencers! This new program is unique in that it will for the first time allow the youngest potential fencers to participate in our beloved sport for the first time!

This program is for kids 5-6 year olds, so Pre-K, K, and 1st graders. It’s going to be packed full of fun developmental exercises and games, all built around the expertise of our incredible coaching staff and geared towards building solid fencers while having fun.

When: Fridays 3pm-4pm

Where: Campbell Location

Price: $150/mo

This is the ideal introduction to prepare the little guys for fencing down the line. This is especially great for siblings that want to follow after older kids who are fencing but who can’t yet join the older classes.

No equipment necessary! That will be provided by AFM. Easy peasy and perfect for your little one! To enroll, call the office in Campbell. Don’t forget to pass it along your friends!

Ticketing at USA National Events

Starting this month with the October NAC in Milwaukee, national events from USA Fencing will move from being open to having ticketed admission. This is going to feel like a big change for our fencers who have been around for a long time, so please be aware for it!

Tournament passes are five dollars per day or fifteen for the entire weekend. You can get your passes online for the October NAC or buy them at the venue, there’s no price difference. However it’s important to know that anyone who holds a USA Fencing membership will get a free pass to all National events. That’s competitive members (our fencers), collegiate members, coaches, supporting members, etc. A supporting membership is great for family members and costs twenty-five dollars on the USA Fencing website.

Note that children ages ten and under get a complimentary pass, so if you’ve got younger siblings coming along you won’t have to pay for them.

This is a minor change, but it’ll add up. As fencing grows, the demands of organizing tournaments change. You can read more about the change on the USFA website at https://www.usafencing.org/news_article/show/951691.

Fitness Lessons with coach Tania

We'd like to remind everyone that personalized fitness programs led by coach Tanya Kolotilina is back to normal schedule.

Many great fencing teams adopted customized strength training and cardiovascular programs to significantly maximize athletes' results and overall physiques. We are very proud to have our own fitness coach at AFM.

Her advises and training already brought results in some cases with reduced back pain, better flexibility and understanding of right stretch before and after lessons, proper competition preparation, and overall better shape of many of our fencers. Tanya works close to fencing coaches to coordinate fencers' personal fitness plan. The idea is to improve all areas that are essential for fencer - core, legs, back, speed, agility and resistance, and many more.

There are available time slots in her schedule of minimum 40 min to 80 min per session. Please talk to your personal coach to ask suggestion if you need fitness coach help and let us know. Office will give you permission to connect to coach Tanya's schedule online.

We are happy to invite everyone to work with coach Tanya to improve their physical abilities.

Sign up is available online, 40 minutes is the minimum required per session up to 80 minutes. You can book session of 40, 60 or 80 minutes.

Price is $60 for 60 minutes of training, with proportional derivatives. Each student's fitness training will be discussed with personal fencing coach before start of the program.

AFM Red Jackets Order

Reminder and last call -
You can pre-order your red jackets for the new season now!
The cost is $90 for your AFM red jacket.

If you want to order a jacket, please email the office and note the size.

Eunice Zhang 3 Addison Ho 5