Share passion

Its quite fun to share passion..
as a friend,
as a parent,
as a Godfahter too,

My Godson started fencing 2 years ago, after multiple trying I could take him on summer trainingscamp with me and hi could try fencing. After camp question was simple, should I take this equipment back with me, or maybe you will keep it and start practice.. same club Ive started, same Coach Ive started with.
So hi started, little late than hi should... but most important is to have fun.
Its a long way for him to be quite good, so long old, slow and overweight Godfather can give him lesson of real fencing.

Its quite interesting to see how hi develop, its totally different way Im looking on him.. Im coach, Godfather too... sometimes not best solution.
This situation gave me a lot of reasons to thing what happend if my son will try fencing.
I know a lot of father-coaches.. some of them make great job, but many not...
Hard situation, but life will show me for sure, how hard it can be.. or maybe my son will choose something else (hope not football).. but then what... be father who is just standing on side drung practices ? I dont think so..

 



 





mind is everything

May is very intensiv period in my life... always.
Same as december... actually.. always.

I need to believe that I can do everything what I need to do to succed. I always believe!
Thats why I succed already with few of my dreams
hope you believe that you can succed too.
I found one good quote, good enough to share it:

Mind is everything, Every thught you create manifests it self in real world,
if you didnt achieve something you strive for - you simply didnt believe in it enough.
Mario Novak.

Vitti ... Wratislavia ... Its nice to be here!

In the 90's it was "Challenge Vitti", it was qualification for Polish Championships U15.

Big and strong competitions, among those first ones with many international fencers I could fence against. I remember (and I checked) that last time for me was 1996 and I was 10th among 235 fencers. I lose L16 against Marcin Zawada 15:10. Michal Ponaczewny won this competitions in the final aginst Krzysztof Gracki.

I could check it in my "fencing diary"... yes, because I have one, since my very first competitions in 1994 until I start work as a coach 2006, all competitions I was, all places, all matches, always with best top 8 results and my result, if possible with article from newspaper..
who has something like this now??

After Challenge best 30 Polish fencers has qualified directly to Polish Championships, than another 18 fencers gets "ticket" after additional qualifications in regions... and few months later Michal Ponaczewny became Polish Champion, with Krzysztof Gracki in great final, 15:14.. last hit was "squat".. Michal was like 30cm smaller than Krzysztof, so hi just used oportunity.
its history.. I lose L16 again.

Challenge Wartislavia has long history.. 36 years, as a competition for kids, bigger and bigger every year. Since few years ago we have new categories U15, U13 and U11, all six weapons!

I think there is no chance to find any good european fencer who didnt fence there!
Offcourse succes in Challenge will not determinate your fencing future, but its always good memories.

Kids competitions with budget around 80 000 euro.
Kids competitions with all weapons and 3 age categories in each
Kids competitions with over 2000 fencers
Kids competitions with great finals and TV relations

I love come to Challenge Wratislavia.
Meet all people here,
Meet coach Glowacki who seems be always that same, that same since I was 15 years old.. but is already another 15 years later.
My coach Puza, "maestro" Kuzma, ... Im kind of sentimental guy sometimes.
All Coaches who remember me as boy.. boy, girl.. doesnt matter - you are "sword" as Syrio Forell says, Old coahes has always something to say, I like to talk.. and I like to listen about fencing.

I always get news who is coming to Polanica tranings camp during summer.
I hear news which are not always official...
I see many new talents, and what is most fun as a coach I can seee how few of them growing from U11 to U13 and than to U15

Fencing is great, you know, you meet people here who will follow you whole your life..if you just decide to stay with fencing. We were 15 when we compete here, we are 30 and we are still here.
I can imagine that I will meet many of those people even when I will be 50.

So, why I write about it?
Because I think that good competitions should get good "marketing" among fencing people.
And I always try to say between the words, that fencing is the best you can do in your life.

More about competitions here: Challenge Wratislavia

Becoming a better coach

Quite often I try to find something new, something what can be new inspiration for me. I need new inspirations to be better, to be motivated. Sometimes is just enough to see good fencing, sometimes is enough to talk with some coach, sometimes is enough to read somethin.
Today few tips from very good coach, about how to be better coach.

Allistair McCaw has trained some of the world's best athletes including four world number 1's, five World Champions, nine Grand Slam winners, two PGA Tour winners & six Olympians. He has trained the world number one player Dinara Safina, 2x Grand Slam Champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, as well as the world number one & two squash players, Nicol David & Natalie Grinham.

And there are few "powerful tips" from him:

1. Never stop learning

Every single day I spend at least 45 minutes to an hour reading and researching anything coaching or training related. I also like to observe how other coaches carry themselves and speak to people. One of the great things about this profession is that you are never too old or knowledgeable to learn. The thing is to never stop learning and challenging yourself to improve. Remember that in order to make our athletes even better, we too need to become even better coaches.

 2. Talk to experienced coaches

It’s not enough to only observe great coaches in action, so if you have experienced coaches around you who inspire you, talk to them. Pick their brains about the technical and mental aspects of coaching. You will find that great coaches are more than willing to share their knowledge. Often they will tell you stories about when they first started and these stories will be of great comfort. The great ones were also once a little frightened and intimidated. They have also made mistakes along the way and still do.

My advice is that you hang out with people who simply make you better.

 3. Lead by example.

I was fortunate enough to have a good sporting career and competed in five World Championships in the sport of Duathlon. But you don’t need to be a world class athlete to be a great coach. However, I do believe that you should look the part, meaning partaking in a sporting activity and keeping yourself in good shape. I am a firm believer in the ‘Practice what you preach’ theory. I also ask my athletes and clients to step outside of their comfort zone and confront places of fear. In other words - take some risks, because if I’m not living by that, why should they trust me?

One last thing on this subject, take pride in your appearance and look professional.

4. Experience is your greatest teacher

I’ve been a coach and trainer for almost 20 years now. I started working as a fitness trainer whilst still in school to help pay my Triathlon habit. Over those years I studied as many subjects as I could and completed numerous certifications related to the industry. However, the place I’ve learnt the most is on the field, court, track and in the gym. You see, nothing beats the real raw time actually spent teaching and coaching. There’s no book or class that can prepare you for the reality of day-today coaching. Gain experiences. Make mistakes. Learn from failure. We all fail. Those who are ultimately successful are those who learn from their failures and do not repeat them.

 5. Evaluate yourself from time to time.

Even though I’ve been a coach for a while now, I still need to stay on top of things and make sure I’m giving my athletes the very best they deserve. A good self-evaluation can sometimes be hard, but is a fast track to becoming even better. The more comfortable you get with being uncomfortable and putting yourself on the spot, the more you will learn.

 Sometimes get another person to sit in on one of your lessons and afterwards give you specific feedback. Things like the way you brought across your message and was it clearly understood? Was the training challenging enough for the athlete or athletes? Was there maybe an ‘information overload & toO much talking? etc..

6. Become an even better motivator.

If there is one thing I can tell you all great coaches have, it’s this: They know how to motivate and get the best from their athlete/s. Sometimes, just some encouragement and positive words can make an athletes performance go from average to exceptional.

If you want to get more from your athlete/s, find out what motivates them and what makes them tick. When you tap into this, you will discover that you are more than half way there.

On closing, the road to mastery is a long and humble one, but it’s one that is rewarding to no end. My journey so far has been more than I had ever expected and It’s one I’m happy to be on. I have learnt that patience is huge part of the journey and I can only hope that someday, years down the road, while continuing a never-ending quest to learn, I will have motivated as many athletes, coaches and anyone for that matter, who seek to get the very best from themselves.

Swedish Foil Team on European Championship

Its time.
For many it was a main goal for this season, for few is just another Championships.
Sweden is sending full team in Cadets (8) and full team in Junior (8).
Chances for winning? ... not really
Chances for great results? ... not really (even if I want to belive, we need to be realistics)
Chances for good fencing? ... I hope
Chances to learn something and get more expierence? ... I wish
Chances to be more motivatet, and se what we need to do to be better? ... its my expectation

Usually to be in cadett or junior national team is quite a great thing.
I remember when I was in national team and get my "POLSKA" track suits..
Swedish fencers need to buy their "SVERIGE" track suits by them self.
They pay for travel, hotel, entry fee, referee fee and everything what you need to pay.

I always try to understand how cool is to practice whole season, travel on few national and international competitions (always pay for everything by them self) and when you get quite good results you can jump in to national team.. and pay by your self if you would like go to European Championships.

I do many things without reason, becaouse I want it, and I just hope that my fencers do fencing with same motivations..
I see no carrot in this system, so I can just wish that mine students parents have good economic situation and their kids likes fencing and has great motivation to work hard.

This is f..g annoying

I promissed to avoid criticism.. so I cannot write more about it.

So here we go, those foil fencers we can see on fencing pistes in Budapest:

Women - Cadett
Ester Schreiber, GFK, 1997, rank 1, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Linn Löfmark, FKC (but GFK actually), 1996, rank 2, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Harriet Rundquist, EGF, 1998, rank 3, coach Tomasz Goral
Julia Engström, EGF, 1997, rank 4, coach Tomasz Goral

Men - Cadett
Josef Rizell, GFK, 1996, rank 1, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Elis Wickman, EGF, 1996, rank 2, coach Tomasz Goral
Carl Ahlgvist, MF19, 1997, rank 3, coach Dmitri Lee
Vincent Mindelöf, EGF, 1997, rank 3, coach Tomasz Goral

Women - Junior
Ester Schreiber, GFK, 1997, rank 1, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Linn Löfmark, FKC, 1996, rank 2, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Alice Engström, EGF, 1995, rank 3, coach Tomasz Goral
Alida Falkenström, EGF, 1994, rank 4, coach Tomasz Goral

Men - Junior
Julius Martin, GFK, 1994, rank 1, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Simon Rizell, GFK, 1994, rank 2, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Josef Rizell, GFK, 1996, rank 1, coach Henrik Lundegard*
Ludvig Flyborg ÄFK, 1993, rank 4, coach Aliksandr Siniak

*You should know that Martin Roth Kronwall is working as a coach in GFK too, but Im not sure which fencers hi is working with, so as a know Henrik is a head coach, so I wrote head coachs name behind all GFK fencers, it can happend that Martin should be there too. :)

Maybe for few of you it seems little "boring" that 2 clubs has so many fencers in this team...
I will wrote about it little latter.

Good Luck for all fencers!
Remember is always just 1 hit which is counting right now... and than another one.

When spotlights shut down

Nobody thinks about it, nobody thinks about it so much because everyone hope this is not about him.
But what if things go not exactly as we thod?

Most of us dont think that things can go wrong.
We do fencing, sometimes whole life, running after our dreams.
We achieve our goals and give great moments to our fans, federations and sponsors.
Big time when carrier is end. New life, sometimes just same but on other side, when you decide to work as a coach, or get great position in federation. Some of us are great lawyers, doctors, politics or businessman.
Fencing people usually get what they want, we are succesfull people.
We are great fencing family. Fencing give us our best friends, fencing give us our wives and husbands.
Here are people we can count on in hard times. Thats why Im writing this time about Jacek Gaworski. I hope, there is someone who will read it and can help Jacek as many others fencing friends already do.

There are things we cannot controll.
Illness or accidents which change our life in few seconds.

Jacek Gaworski was a great fencer, I hade oportunity to meet him on the piste. I was young cadett when hi was att the end of his succesfull carrier.
But after all fencing duells in his life, Jacek has one more to win... this time about his life.

Video with slideshow about Jaceks carrier

Multiple Sclerosis became a opponent that Jacek need to fight against now!
Jacek is great fighter, and never give upp. Hi is doing well! But hi need our help.
Fencing, this time on wcheelchair is helping him... and fencers helps him too!
Unfortunatelly health system in Poland cannot help him. There is many administrative bulshit rules.
MS get also help and try destroy Jacek together with cancer, but Hi got us in this fight!
We are members of Jacek Gaworski team..
Hi started foundation "Help fight about life"
Hi can count only on us, other fencers!

About Jacek Gaworski

About Foundation "Help fight about life"

About sport in Poland..

There is a lot of discussion about Polish sport now. Big changes, new ideas, seems like sport ministry has no idea how sport works.
I would like to share my opinion about it. Its about Poland.. my country, its about sport.. my love.. so this is important!
I have many friends working there, coaches, PE teachers, instructors.. all trying hard to make champions! I wish them well, but when I see what hapend there Im not so optimistic.

I was thinking about it, read about it a lot, so I have questions and few answers too, few ideas also.

Its a big reform in polish sport on the way. Sports became divided to 3 categories and depends on it will get, or not money.. team sports are separate categories.
Many questions, many very bad ideas, but I found also quite good, just quite good.
It can works, but is polish sport ready for changes like those?

Is it so hard to find a guy (for me guy means also women in this case) who know his things about sport, and has idea how to manage polish sport?
Is it so hard in 38mln people country to find a 1 person like this?
Our sport ministry Joanna Mucha maybe is a good manager.. but no shit about sport.. and in sport its not enough to be good manager.. you need to fell it.

I totally understand that is not so easy to find right person just because of politics reasons..
but fuck politics reasons!..
its about sport... NO GAMES (politics).. JUST SPORT.. as a Mell Gibson said in one movie,

Is it so dificult to make a team of people who can help a sport ministry to manage sport in country?

There are many specialist in Poland, in every sport! Very good coaches, sport directors, people who knows how sport works, people who has ideas how this sport can works better.

Is it so hard to ask every sport federation or the main organisation for it and delegate one or two people to represent their sport and present what this sport need to be better?

Maybe every sport should present some kind of program, without all this bullshit "we will" .. just write what kind of ideas is possible to start in practice, what can give more kids doing this sport, what chances for succe have they, show how situation looks today, how many coaches can and will work for it, how many clubs are interested to work hard for better future, what possibilities have they, what kind of projects can start together with schools, what kind of project can this sport start on "comercial" fields - becouse there are sport which have little easier to get money from there.

Later every project can get own budget.. no money just for ferederation or sport, just money for speciall projects and special group of people who will take care about it.. without totally unnecesary administration. this is olso part of new ideas, but the way how it became annonced and way how poeple from goverment make it its not best one.

What is important people who decide about it should understand that sport need a time and stabil situation, is impossible to start some kind of project "make a champion" during 2 or 4 years..
yes is impossible if you already have "almos champion"
but Im talking about working on the ground of piramids.. with small kids, with clubs, with schools...
we need a thousands kids trying be champions.. to get one champion!

Is it necessary to have sport ministry?
Many countries havent and they works some how.
How much it cost to have sport ministry? Many people working with sport "on the papper", many departaments... milions of polish zloty which can be used to work with kids

Poland have good Olimpic Committee and there is many great people there, everything they do around olimpics works, so maybe they can do everything around sport in Poland?
Offcourse its need bigger reorganisation to do it, but is it impossible?

How much money we can safe on administration and use to real projects when we have just one organisation takin care about sport?

How much money we can safe if we liquidate all regional administrations?

Is it so hard to look around and watch how others do, if they do good maybe is a worth it to try that same?

Its not so easy to copy some solution from another country, but there are always som details of whole solution which can help others be better.
Academic sport like in USA.
Army, Police sport like in Italy (especially in fencing)
more commercial solutions in sport like in GB or USA that people pay quite a lot for it becouse until some level you will not get any money from goverment

I read also that 1 $ invest on sport with kids can help save around 6 $ on health care
Is it not good idea to make som kind Super project with ministry of health, education and sport ?

Maybe even financiall ministry could help and arrange som kind of speciall rules for business, that companies can count "off" all money they put to the sport? its working in other countries (Hungary).

There is many ideas to get better. BUT
Ideas its not all, even if ideas works and money come, more places to make sports builds..
we need good people who can take care about sport!
Proffesionall people. Coches, instructors, PE teachers, sports managers.. with good education, knowledge, and what is even more important...passion!

I see one big problem in Poland... 50 years of communism!
It was a great time for sport! ... but there is no communism anymore around..
unfrotunatelly a lot of people still thinking like during communism..
"we should get money.. becouse.. we should" :)

Its quite easy to change some system, make it new... but change people its not so easy.
so maybe its time to say "thank you and goodbye" .. give chance to younger without "bad habbits".

Sport in poland need young blood, wise solutions, and time with stabil situaton around it.

Water dance

I want to be dancing master, and I want to teach my fencers water dance.
Maybe is quite naive, but I belive that investment in technique is the best investment we can do in fencing, since first practice we should focus on it.. technique, technique.. rytm, flow, tempo.

Off course you cannot forget speed, strenght and coordination but this all are "just" motoric skills and it takes shorter time to train it, much shorter time than get good technigue.

Many can think that is very funny, but I love Syrio Forrel, from Game of Thrones
I think that this framgent is one of the best "fencing" fragments in tv.

 

 

Magic people... Fencing people!

Everyone has friends, (I hope!)... I can be quite boring, but I have only "fencing friends".
Yes I have friends from elementary school, childhood, high school or university..but there are friends.. and "friends".

For me its f...g big difference when you know people.. and when you can call them friends.
I know thousand of people, but I havent to many friends..
Maybe it depends of my character, maybe its not so easy to be friend with me.
Maybe I dont want to have many friends..

There are few people I would like to present.
People who here in far, far away Sweden do some fencing.. not always like me, but beauty of fencing is that enyone can do fencing on his own way, and it can work pretty well.

I love fencing, and I have great respect to people who work with fencing, almost all of them.
So, please meet "my" Magic people,  "my" Fencing people.. here in Sweden.. my pack!

I need to start with Pawel Mancewicz, because its actually his fault that Im here (long story!)

 

Pawel "Mancek" is coming from Poland, from same city as me, from same club as me (Budowlani Torun), Hi was already national team epee fencer when I tried to be good in foil. Not as regular epee fencer, Pawel is also dangerous in foil! Hi is also FIE referee.. in foil.

Hi is a "Mrs Fencing" on Gotland island. Working as a coach and PE teacher.

Master degree in PE and fencing coach from AWF Katowice - "produced" by famous prof. Czajkowski.

His wife is an angel, if Pawel is "quite" impulsive, Ewa is totally opposite to him.

His two soons, Bartek and Mikolaj already fence, with quite good results. It can be quite loud about Bartek, Mikolaj can be another Zlatan too.

The best with Pawel is that we can call to each other and tell everything with many "kurwa" between.

 

 

Orvar "Maestro" Jönsson. The Old Fox, actually in my opinion the last one of those "classical fencing masters", the last one in Sweden, the last Swedish who got my great respect. Great Experience. Great passion.. to golf and his dog. Live in Malmö and working there, also as a PE teacher in High School. Orvar is Swedish Fencing Federations board member. I love old stories, and Orvar knows "few".

 

 

Pierre Thulberg, champion of diplomacy. Actually hi is a general secretary in Swedish Fencing Federation now, and I have great expectations to him on this position. Pierre know fencing well as a DT on biggest competitions include Olympic Games. Many people know him, and hi knows many people. I like Pierre for many things, one of those most important is that hi understand that, we, here in Sweden, need to change a lot of things to be better. I just hope that Pierre will make it happen.

 Ivan Makkai. Most famous Swedish among Hungarians, and almost most famous Hungarian among Swedish (I think Bella Rerisch is still more famous hungarian). Epee coach from Stockholm, Djugården, educated in Budapest.

There is some kind balance in the world. Jang and Jing, if there is one impulsive coach like Pawel or me (but in this compare Im calm), there need to be another very calm. Ivan is calm. Hi likes fencing and do his jobb, quite good distans between life and work. Hi always find a time to go fishing. Hi can be world champion in fishing on fly among fencers. I heard that Ivan likes slavisk music and "burnt wine". All nice girls should notice that Ivan is still single.

 

Martin "Rektor" Roth Kronwall, the guy who beat Salvatore Sanzo when they were juniors. Working in Gothenburg with Henrik (about him later). Hi is like sport menager and help coach in club. Hi was a principal in High School, but love to fencing (and to us) was stronger than good sallary. So hi is teaching som wired subject like culture history in part time and rest of his time spend on fencing gym. Hi can be record holder if you count all nights hi slept in fencing club. Martin is also autor of book about "cold swimming houses in Sweden"... I have this book, even with autograph, but Im not ready yet to start reading it. I will tell you about it when it will be done.

 

 Henrik Lundegard is this guy you se always with Martin, and believe they are not togehter!. Henrik became a coach few years ago, try learn everything from everyone by himself and create his own fencing phylosophy. Great motivation and very good results so far. Hi is a head coach working with foil in Gothenburg. Actually Gothenburg is a only one fencing club in sweden with 3 coaches! Yes, I know its quite funny, but this is how it is in Sweden.. in my situation 100 kids.. 1 coach - part time paid, and its not a club foult, this is "swedish model" its quite interesting so I will write about it some day.

Henrik is a "made in sweden" product. Involved to his jobb, with own instinkt and not always good teoretical base. Unfortunatelly Sweden hasnt any national education for fencing coaches, there are just very simple instructor courses, so Henriks "by himself" way is correct. Who told us that coach need to have a master degree in sport since? Yes, I know all coaches from post comunistics countries have it. But Henrik is from Sweden. On other side Henrik is try to beat Pawel on "go carts" as I remember, so long without results.

 













Mariusz Zimmerman is another Coach coming from Poland and working here, in far, far away Sweden. We are almost like mafia here :)  Hi is the "silent" one. Hi never gets yellow or black cards, not like Pawel or me. Representing Muszkieter Gliwice and educate as Pawel on AWF Katowice produced by famous professor Czajkowski. Mariusz like Ivan has a great distans between work and life. I dont have, fencing - my work, my passion.. is my life. Its make me dangerous.

Mariusz is like catalyst you can talk with him like with Pawel, but without so many "kurwa, ja pierdole" I have a feeling that Mariusz can produce great fencers, questions is only if there are any candidates out there.. in Örebro?

 

Alexandr Siniak, the newest one in the pack. Hi came to Sweden two years ago from Minsk, and hi replaced me in Ängby Fencing Club. Because of my moving with quite big group of fencers and starting En Garde Fencing Club, hi started almost from begining in Ängby and his small ninjas are already on top in youngest category. I can speak polish with Pawel and Mariusz, and with Sasha I can still practice my russian, which is great, unfortunatelly Sasha want to practice swedish more often.

Sasha like go carts to!  We like to talk about fencing, similar ideas, similar fascination. All nice girls should note that as I know Alexandr is already taken, but you can always try.

 

I think that Im quite magic too.

 

 
As you can read in my profile, coming from Poland, Torun, educated on AWF Warszawa. Walking always his own ways. Always something to say, and say always what hi thinks. Quite active in Students Union during studies, if I cannot succe in fencing, I will be a politican, the orthodox one.

Black and white.. there is no grey.

Maybe black sheep, but I dont care. No others hobby than fencing, have no time. Actuall focused on En Garde Fencing Club - the dream which comes true. But there are few dreams more to come true.

 

 

So here we are. No girls this time.. because fencing is a sport for real man!

There are few more in Sweden working with fencing, but not so many, unfortunatelly. Hope it will change some day.

I need to apologize all my friends in other countries! You are great too, but I will write about you all next time.