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Academy of Fencing Masters 

January 2018
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Welcome 2018! Every January brings with it a fresh start - that’s just how this time of year works. Even though the fencing season is halfway done at the start of the calendar year, it’s far from over. This gives us the opportunity to reset and look at those goals and our progress towards them.

What’s so wonderful about the new year is that we truly do have the chance to make improvements. Whether last year was a year that you felt great about or a year that was full of challenges for you, there are always brighter days ahead. Making peace with the bad and taking joy in the good form a foundation for our continued growth in the year ahead.

May this year bring you great success in the things that you’re pouring your effort into, fencing related or not fencing related. We love to see the members of our fencing family succeed in all aspects of life. Though we all know that happiness doesn’t mean winning all of the time, what we do know is that working towards your goals with consistency will give you a feeling of accomplishment. Every step forward is a victory! Every step forward is also a testament to the hard work that it takes to get to those goals. There is no substitute for the day in, day out work that has to take place in 2018, but there’s also no substitute for the positive vision and attitude going forward to get you there!

The new year brings a time for new intentions for AFM as well as for you. In 2018, we recommit ourselves to building our fencers, coaches, staff, and families. This year we recommit ourselves to giving you the support that you deserve, and to recognizing how important it is for everyone that we keep that positive passion for growth. You are what matters most!

As we say goodbye to 2017 and give a warm welcome to 2018, we once again have to thank you all for being our inspiration. Here’s to a happy and bright new year with one another!

                                           Sincerely yours, 

                                                                   Irina
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December 2017 competitions results

 


Wow, what a month! Even with everything going on with the holidays, somehow our fencers managed to pack in stellar performances at competition.

 



  

San Jose RYC

  • Erika Castaneda won Bronze and Neta Korol medaled with 8th place in Y12 Women's Foil - great job girls!

  • Sanvi Sharma won Silver and Lucy Niitani medaled with 5th place in Y10 Women's Epee - fantastic!

  • Luke Castelly medaled with 5th place in Y10 Men's Epee - go Luke!

  • Natalie Gebala won Gold and Charlotte Li medaled with 6th place at Y12 Women's Epee - great job girls!

  • Kirk Liu won Bronze in Y12 Men's Epee - awesome Kirk!

  • AFM Foil Final! Congratulations to Ruoxi (Cici) Sun for winning Gold, Gabrielle Gebala for winning Silver and our two other medalists Mika Chirashnya for 5th place and Keira Castaneda for medaling with 8th place at Y10 Women's Foil! Great job girls!

  • Congratulations to our first medalists in RYC! Sanil Sharma won Bronze, Marat Rakhimi medalled with 6th place and Jack Arabaci medalled with 8th place! For Marat and Jack - this is their first medal in RYC's! Great job all boys!

  • Daniel Chirashnya took Gold in Y10 Men's Foil - fantastic job!

  • Another AFM Final in Y14 Women's Epee at RYC - congratulations to Leehi Machulsky for winning Gold, Natalie Gebala for Silver, and our 3 other medalists - Rania Ahmet for 5th place, Erika Castaneda for 7th place and Priscilla Leang for 8th place! Great job girls!

 

North America Cup (NAC) Portland

 
  • Ariane Mohabir medaled with 5th place at North America Cup (NAC) in Division 2 Women's Epee! Great job Ariane - your first national medal looks nice on you!

  • Audrey Chu won Gold at Division 1 classification event in Portland NAC and Ariane Mohabir medaled with 8th place! Great job Audrey and Ariane!

 

MFA tournament Y8XF

 
  • Skipper Cortright won first place, Kandl-Zhang third, Jayden Zhang 5th and Cole Uhlig 7th. Good job, fencers!

 

Schoolhouse Fencing RYC in Utah

  • Neil Van Eikema Hommes won Silver in Y14 Men’s Epee! Great job!

 

RJCC Utah

  • Neil Van Eikema Hommes won Silver in Cadets Men Epee and qualified for JOs, and also won 5th place in Junior Men's Epee event. Great job!


  • Mark Shamis won 5th place in Cadets and also qualified for JO's. Go Mark!

 

SYC Austin

  • Andrea Leang for medaled with 6th place and Priscilla Leang in 8th place in Y14 Women’s Epee. Way to go!

 

CenCal Junior Olympics Qualifiers 2017 at AFM Sunnyvale

  • Alexander Javorski won the Junior Men's Epee event! We are so proud of you!

  • Sanil Sharma gets congrats for his well earned "C" rating and a Gold medal in Cadet Men's Epee event at (AFM Sunnyvale).

  • Audrey Taylor won Gold, Natalie Gebala Silver and earned "D", Jennifer Liu Bronze in Cadet Women's Epee. Let's dance!

  • Junior Women's epee - Congratulations to Audrey Taylor for winning Silver, Erica Vacca Bronze and "D", Ria Jobalia Bronze!! Priscilla Leang is 5th and she also qualified for both Junior and Cadets! Great result!! Congratulations to Sana Pandey as well! Way to go!

Competitions January - February

 


 

Fencing competition season is heating up! Here are our recommended tournaments for January and February. There are lots of chances to earn those national and regional points ahead of qualification for the big tournaments!

January
 

  • January 13-15, 2018 -  Capitol Clash SYC in National Harbor, MD. We have a nice team of our fencers going to this national tournament, which is the largest SYC in the country.

 
  • January 13-15, 2018 - Treasure Chest RYC at the Treasure Island in San Francisco. This is third RYC in the Bay Area. Our coaches will help our fencers there.
     

  • January 20-21, 2018 - TFC WinterFest DV1A ROC in San Jose ,CA. This ROC is a qualifying path for senior divisions 1A, 2 and 3 and is very important for senior fencers (13+ to attend). It is also going to be a very high level of competition, actually the highest level competition in the Bay Area during the season.  While it is double fee registration period now if you still considering to participate - definitely worth it.

  • January 28, 2018 - Bay Cup at AFM Sunnyvale for Rated Y14 Women's Foil, Y14 Men's Foil and Veteran Mixed Foil.

 

February

  • February 2-4, 2018 - RYC in San Diego,CA. We do not mark this tournament as designated but if you want to make a trip south this would be a good tournament to get some additional points to qualify for the nationals.

  • February 4, 2018 - Bay Cup in San Francisco for Women's Epee.

  • February 11, 2018 - Bay Cup in East Bay Fencing Gym for our epee fencers featuring Y14 Men's Epee, Junior Men's Epee and Mixed Epee. This is a good tournament to participate especially for those fencers who go to the JO's

  • February 16-19, 2018 - The Biggest Cadet/Junior event in the year - Junior Olympics in Memphis, TN. This year AFM qualified the biggest ever team of fencers to participate in this championship and we are proud to send these fencers to compete against the best cadet and junior fencers in the country! We will have also coaches Alexander, Andrey and Slava supporting our fencers there. Good luck to all!

 

  • February 25, 2018 - Bay Cup at AFM Sunnyvale for Y14 Women's Foil and Y14 Men's Foil. A great tournament to go before the March NAC!

Policies reminders


January is a great time to get a quick refresher on AFM policies. Here are two important parts of our policies that we want to be sure everyone has clarity about.

 
  • Strip coaching

Strip coaching is a part of our program.  It’s an important part of success, of teaching and learning for fencers. AFM makes the decision about how many coaches and which coaches go to a given competition depending on the number of fencers participating and coaches availability.

Strip coaching fee summary (was published at the beginning of 2017-18 season):

  • Local (no hotel required) - $40 per event

  • Local Travel (hotel required) - $80 per event

  • Travel (flying required) - $160 first event, $80 each additional event

Strip coaching fees can be paid in cash before the competition or charged from card on file one week after the competition (+$5 convenience fee per event).

We would not make strip coaching a requirement if it wasn’t an essential part of your fencer’s success!

 
  • Private lessons

All private lessons must be canceled at least 24 hours in advance ON THE WEBSITE  or you will be charged for the lesson. Emails and phone calls DO NOT COUNT. It is the responsibility of the parent or fencer to cancel fencing lessons in advance.  The website makes it so easy! Just one click and you’re done. Everyone who have private lessons should have the login to the scheduling portal. Twice a season last minute cancellation will be waived.

Here is link to major AFM policies: http://academyoffencingmasters.com/academy-fencing-masters-policies/

If you ever have a question about our policies, please let us know! The AFM staff is always happy to clarify anything that you might find to be confusing. 

Junior Olympics Prep Clinic

 

We had a great qualifier and we have the biggest team ever to send to the Junior Olympics! Now that our fencers are qualified, it’s time to get down to the business of preparing. As the JO's are the major competition for cadets and juniors, we need to help these fencers prepare to do their best. Our coaches have designed three specialty epee full-day clinics as part of preparation for the JO's:

January 7, January 28, and February 4, 2018

The clinics are open ONLY for competitive class fencers. While this clinic will be used as a preparation for Junior Olympics, competitive epee fencers from both classes that did not qualify this year for the JO's are encouraged to participate.

Every clinic runs from 10am till 4pm with following schedule:

9:30am - doors open and gathering
10am-12pm - morning training
12pm-1pm - lunch
1pm-2pm - video reviews
2pm-4pm - afternoon training

The first clinic that was last Sunday was a blast. We highly recommend attending remaining two session.

Also, there are 2 competitions the fencers should go before JO's as part of their preparation:
January 21 - ROC Div1A @TFC (also a great tournament to qualify for Summer Nationals)
February 11 - Y14ME, Junior Men Epee and Senior Mixed Epee Bay Cup

The cost of 1 day clinic is $120

To register please go to askFred:

January 7: https://askfred.net/Clinics/moreInfo.php?clinic_id=39425
January 28: https://askfred.net/Clinics/moreInfo.php?clinic_id=39426
February 4: https://askfred.net/Clinics/moreInfo.php?clinic_id=39427

 

Beginner Camps

 

Calling all new fencers! Do you know someone who would like to get started in fencing? Beginner fencing camp is hands down the best way for new fencers to get going in this sport!

New fencers learn proper form and technique, basic fencing skills like footwork, blade work, and distance control. They learn about the electrical equipment that’s an essential part of being a fencer. Not only that, but they learn fencing etiquette, rules, and sportsmanship in this noble and dedicated sport that we participate in. Once fencers successfully attending fencing summer camp, fencers get a certificate that grants them a place in the intermediate fencing class. Not only that, but they’ll have made lots of good friends and made some fantastic memories! It’s a summer activity that is so, so good for young people.

This summer we’ll be holding beginner fencing camps in both locations - in our Campbell and Sunnyvale facilities. Exact dates and pricing can be found here.

If you know someone who might be interested in fencing, please have them come check us out! Many of our most enthusiastic fencers got their start in beginner fencing camps, maybe you’re one of them! Your referrals from friends and family are the best way for you to help our sport grow, and we cannot say enough how much we appreciate your letting people know about our sport. Thank you!

March NAC



Registration opened on December 20th! Regular fee registration will continue to January 24th, 2018, which is about 2 weeks away. This is second best tournament in the country for youth fencers after Summer Nationals, and due to the Y14 team event some people even think that it is better than nationals.

We definitely recommend attending it for everyone who can. There is this one catch though - for Y10 and Y12 your child MUST fence in at least one RYC or SYC prior to the NAC. Don’t panic, there is still an opportunity to participate in one RYC prior including this weekend's RYC at Treasure Island.

Simply participate in one of these and you are done and can participate in this NAC!

This is an AFM designated event and our coaches will roam the strips there. We just can’t emphasize enough how great this event is for fencers. We’d love to have a large presence and to have as many of our fencers as possible to compete against best youth fencers in the country and train before the nationals!


Summer Nationals Qualifications


Summer seems quite far away, but in reality it’s just around the corner! There is still lots of time to earn points and get to that dream of making it to the national championship. This is one of the best fencing competitions anywhere in the world every year, and we cannot say enough about what a fantastic experience it is to compete in this tournament for any and all fencers who are able to make it.

One thing that many fencing families struggle with is trying to figure out how to get those points and earn a spot in the big competition. Checking out our infographic on the subject will help you to make sense of how your fencer can get the points or the rank needed. Our infographic details the main paths of qualifications. The whole thing can be quite frankly confusing, but it doesn’t have to be!

The top box will show you the basics, then you can scroll down to check out each of the categories that you have the potential to qualify in. You’ll find specific paths to qualification for each of the age groups, as well as lots of points about what exactly you need to know in terms of which paths there for you to Summer Nationals.

Just click on over to find out what the qualification path looks like for your fencer. http://academyoffencingmasters.com/blog/infographic-qualify-2018-us-fencing-summer-nationals/

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Copyright © January 2018, Academy of Fencing  Masters ,
All rights reserved.


AFM Newsletter #52
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office@academyoffencingmasters.com

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