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 Problems and opportunities of a private fencing club in Shanghai. Current status and growth of non professional fencing. Selection of the national team. From badminton and basketball to fencing. One point could change your life. Good bye, old system! The correlation between educational system and fencing style.
 Sean Mei, a real estate and high-tech entrepreneur based in San Francisco, CA, and Shanghai started this thread on the problems and opportunities when opening a private fencing club in China. I started a dialog with him to exchange ideas, information, and opinions which I hope will be useful.
What follows is taken form Fencing.net http://www.fencing.net/forums/thread54825.html
Problems and opportunities for a private fencing club in China
Many international fencers in the past (including me) have found it difficult to find places to fence in Shanghai, let alone interesting fencers.
I used to have a small group of friends in Shanghai to fence with, and our regular group included fencers from France, Hong Kong as well as a handful of domestic (former professional fencers). Last year, inspired by the one of the largest fencing clubs in the world, based in Beijing, I decided as a serial entrepreneur in real estate and high tech to do something about the situation in Shanghai.
Before, if you wanted to have a high level of competition, you had to fence at one of the government run fencing programs, which are typically not open to the public. So, why not collaborate with them, I thought.
 So, last year in October, the Shanghai Dragon Fencing Center (www.sh-dfc.com) officially opened. We have been growing steadily since and in April organized the largest National Amateur competition to date in China, endorsed by the Chinese Fencing Association. My son, Darren Mei, who is a member of Greg Massialas' M-Team in San Francisco and most recently won the Y14 NAC in Portland attended this competition and took first place in the Youth category, with stiff competition from some youth fencers from the Shanghai government program and a top fencer from Hong Kong.
Check out our website and if your travels ever find you in China/ Shanghai, please let me know so that hopefully you can come visit and train at our brand new Fencing Building (12 FIE regulation strips)!
We are doing what we can to promote fencing throughout China and the world.
For this year's World Cup, we had several members of the USA Women's Foil Team (Doris Willette, Ambika Singh and Sabrina Massialas) train at our center with the Shanghai Team (which sent three fencers to the World Cup) in preparation for the WC. The men unfortunately could not make it, although both Greg and Alexander Massialas had a chance to stop by after the World Cup.
You can find some photos on our website: www.sh-dfc.com/en/events.
 We also had the Polish National Team train with us in between the Shanghai and the Seoul World Cups.
If you have fencers next year competing in the WC in Shanghai (I think the Women World Cup will still be in Shanghai), and are interested in training alongside the Shanghai team please let us know.
Also, our center is not limited to foil.
 The German Epee team will train with us after the Nanjing World Cup in mid June, before they leave for Sydney...
Present situation and the growth of non professional fencing
I have posted another blog and will continue with detailing the current conditions and growth of amateur fencing in China. It is an interesting situation. Not many people (myself included) are probably aware of the large number of fencers that exist in China. However, since most all of them are in the government sponsored program and only the National Teams have any international exposure, fencers who do not make it to the national level almost had no opportunity to continue competitively in this sport.
stay tuned for observations about club programs...
Question by Craig Harkin, Fencing.net admin
What timeframe do they have to "make it"? Are they taking kids in a 6-8 and then deciding by 10 who has the chops to go on, or is there some other process? Do people just compete locally and if they show promise get promoted until they hit secondary schooling age where they either focus on school or sport?
Candidates selection for the Chinese national team
There is not a specific cut off time frame for selection. Coaches go personally to elementary or middle schools and pick based on athletic potential or physique (Shanghai and China national men's and women's team members for example tend to be exceptionally tall, and have a large number of left handed fencers).
From badminton and basketball to fencing
Sometimes kids from other, larger programs (badminton, basketball) are moved into fencing. Advancement through the ranks is a combination of participation in competitions and coaches' evaluation of practices.
Youth fencers in China tend to practice core skills a lot more and a lot longer than in the US, before they ever participate in competition. Serious competition only starts when they turn 12/13. US kids fencing in China as a result tend to do well in the younger categories.
When you watch young fencers in China practice, the discipline and form is pretty amazing. However, with much fewer competitions, they tend to be less 'battle-tested'. After 14, they catch up though and frankly, I was quite surprised at the high quality level of fencing that few outside of China gets to witness, since only the China National Team does any significant travel overseas and gets the exposure.
The Shanghai Foil Team, which practices daily at our fencing center for example is comprised of 8 men and women ranging from about 16 to 26 years old and my guess is that every one of them would have an A rating in the US. But again, they tend to have less competition experience. Every year, this professional team only competes in 5 to 6 national competitions with virtually no opportunities for competition in between. When the World Cup is in Shanghai, some of these fencers get a chance to compete against the rest of the world, but other than that it is mostly the 4 or 5 domestic competitions for them.
Kids who are selected enter into specialized athletic schools where besides academics, their focus is on honing their assigned athletic skills. The kids in the fencing program go through city and regional competitions, which are almost like exams for them during which much like in the US they earn points. With enough points, they can not only be on track to become professionals, but the points also help with college admission.
Currently, however, fencing in China does not yet enjoy the same point earnings as higher profile sports (gymnastics, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, basketball etc.) that would get kids into the top schools and makes families want their kids to be selected for sports. We are working to change this by the way...
A point can change your life
Getting into college in China is extremely competitive (just imagine the sheer number of applicants) and sometimes just a single point may make the difference of getting into a college or not. With so much pressure on college applications, you sadly hear of quite a number of suicides each year, when young people do not get into their desired college. So, any points kids can earn from athletics is extraordinarily valuable. Sometimes, these points are the main objective and it happens that some of these kids after they get into college with the help of their fencing points, unfortunately never fence again.
On the amateur side, if say, you as a kid have a passion for fencing, but don’t quite fit the ideal selection criteria, there is unfortunately (until now with our club) not much chance to get into the point system.
Good bye, old system
Things are changing though, as China itself is going through not only vast economic but also social transformation, where individualism is slowly being recognized as something positive. You can see this in music, arts, but also in sports, where you can now see kids entering athletic programs who dont necessarily fit the old 'mold'.
The Dragon Fencing Center
For our club's part, we are doing what we can in working with the professional team and government authorities to broaden access to fencing, recognizing that kids of all shapes and sizes may attain success through their diligence, intelligence and creativity in the sport. We are also promoting more competitions and more exchanges between Chinese and overseas fencers, which I believe would benefit everyone and would help fencing overall.
Next year, we will definitely organize the 2012 China National Amateur Tournament again in Shanghai during the last week of April and this time combine it with a broader International Invitational (we will extend invitations to all clubs in the US). This year we organized it with the endorsement and support from the Chinese Fencing Association and we have already received verbal confirmation that we will receive the same endorsement for next year's event...
Comment by pikufencer
Hi Sean - great to see the club continuing to progress over the past year!
When we visited your club in mid 2010 and fenced with Chinese youth fencers in the greater Shanghai area, I was struck by how the Chinese education approach (or at least, my perceptions of it) filters down into the technical strengths/weaknesses at the fencing level.
In a nutshell, the Chinese youth had very strong technical foundations and I clearly noted this emphasis when I watched the Shanghai DFC coaches. On the other hand, their youth fencers were 'less scrappy' than US youth fencers and had more difficulty if they did not score on the first intention. This might just reflect less competitive experience at their level in China…
Hi Michael,
After being at it for about a year, I think you are absolutely right. The emphasis in China has been to focus on repetition of core and advanced skills to make them as intuitive as possible. As a result, you will find technically very sound fencers in China and frankly I would say a large number of gems who could then turn into highly skilled and competitively successful fencers. And at the senior level, after a process of elimination, you do get some of the best fencers from this approach. But in many ways, these fencers would discover the tactical aspects on their own through competitive experience and members of the national and municipal teams who have the most opportunities for competition do discover the tactics and can put their finely honed skills to use. However, at the youth level, there is currently still less emphasis on tactics, but rather on memorization of skills and techniques. And with fewer opportunities for competition, the tactical aspect and the creativity so necessary for fencing does not typically materialize until later.
Much of this does indeed mirror the education system. Take Chinese language itself for instance. To be well versed in the language requires an incredible amount of rote memorization, and this approach colors the entire educational system. It has been said that the level of memory in a human being correlates directly to their overall intelligence. And assuming that is right, the process of learning the Chinese language itself develops this form of intelligence. However, the drawback is that with this approach, creativity or 'thinking outside the box' takes somewhat of a backseat. I think that by and large young Chinese have a tougher time making a 'leap of faith' than say their American counterparts. And this is reflected in the style of fencing.
I think particularly the new generation of up and coming American fencers displays how tactical creativity may balance and often trump pure skill and technique at the youth level. Knowing how to apply fewer skills creatively, at least at the youth level of fencing, seems to serve American fencers well. Young American fencers when they are on the strip do not always 'look good' when compared to classical fencing styles. However, they hold their own due to their ability to 'think outside the box'. The other critical difference when comparing US versus Chinese fencers, is that top Chinese fencers today were selected by the coaches/ sport, while American fencers themselves select the sport. That difference I think manifests itself particularly in close bouts, where the last point often goes to the fencer who just wants it more.
The correlation between educational system and fencing style, I find enormously intriguing. While we are focused on building a fencing center as a business and promoting the sport, I also believe that while we do that, through fencing we may focus some attention on how young people are being educated and whether we can explore better methodologies to not only produce academically gifted young people, but possibly more balanced future leaders of society, who can rely not only on skills memorized but have vision through their ability to take 'leaps of faith'. Ambitious maybe, but hey.... I think worth pursuing....
Sean Mei
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Not long ago members of the Accademia Nazionale di Scherma 
I discovered recently that just behind my club there is Vassilli, an important manufacturer in Italy of systems to aid to ambulate (
iovanni Rapisardi
Cambio di mentalità e di... ca...
Amarcord: Maestro Janos Kevey
Amarcord: Maestro Janos Kevey
Amarcord: Maestro Janos Kevey