Frustration is, for better or worse, part of fencing. And there is always more of it than we’d honestly probably would like. There’s always that tournament we think we should’ve performed better in or a loss to an opponent we know we should’ve beaten.

Frustration can be a beast or an ally. How we respond to that frustration is super important to our growth as a fencer — or even a person.

First off, it’s perfectly fine and normal to be frustrated. It’s human. Sometimes that frustration is with ourself, our opponent, a judge or the environment. If the frustration is happening during the tournament, we need to quickly shrug it off and move on as best we can. It’s really, really difficult to fight your opponent and your frustration at the same time.

If it’s frustration after an event, we can take a little more time to work it out. Take some time to grieve and then let’s get back to business.

Three Steps to Try to Fight Through Frustration

Step 1 — What Went Wrong. What led to the frustration? Was it a failed parry? Attacks not landing? Losing focus? Running out of energy?

Step 2 — What’s the Fix? Now that we know what happened, we can figure out how to fix it for next time. If you ran out of energy, work on nutrition or cardio. If it was a failed parry, work on fine-tuning your parries and expanding which ones you use. If it was losing focus, figure out what distracted you and how you can keep your head in the game. There may be multiple ways of fixing the problem.

Step 3 — Time to Work. Once you’ve hashed out how to fix the problem, it’s time to put it to work. Create a blueprint for working on patching up the hole. If it’s parries, work on refining and expanding your technique, and increasing the difficulty of the action. If it’s failed attacks, build off of what you already know so it’s harder for your opponent to keep up and predict, also increasing difficult of the action over time.

Some problems will be easier or quicker to solve than others, but it all starts with diagnosing what went wrong and going from there.

In short, take time to grieve with your frustration. Figure out what went wrong, how to fix it, and work toward patching it up for next time. As always, our coaching staff is happy to help in this endeavor.

Happy swording!

—Justin
Head Coach | Instructor at Arms
Boston Academie d’Armes
(he/him)