Coaching Aphorisms

Over my years of coaching I have pillaged many different historical sources for little expressions I can throw into lessons/classes. In the interests of sharing, here’s a few for all you coaches out there to borrow should you wish to!

•  “Bend your Legs; it’s why gave you knees”
• “In general, when your lips are moving, you’re not learning anything” (used to quiet chatterers)
• “Do you know why gave you two ears and one mouth? So you can listen twice as much as you talk” (ditto)
• “Look at the tree, not the leaves” (Derived from Yagyu Munenori)
• “The foil is a thrusting weapon….” (Repeat ad infinitum)
• “Hold the foil like a paintbrush, not a club” (Useful for French grips)
• “We are not at home to Conan the Barbarian”
• “Keep your head up while lungeing… If your head goes forward your body goes forward. It can’t help it – it’s due to this thing called a spine….”
• “Straight legs equals ‘Hello Mr Penguin’” (An attempt to paint a verbal picture of the consequences of bad stance)
• “The point of the foil is to hit and not BE hit” (Borrowed from numerous sources)
• “Everything you do should be about getting the point on target. Any time your point is not in line with your opponent’s target area is wasted time” (Adapted from Musashi)
• “Hit them on the F of their forward step” (on the art of the stop hit)
• “Prevent the opponent from doing anything useful” (Adapted from Musashi)
• “The piste is a weapon” and “The clock is a weapon”. On tactics
• “The three D’s of fencing are…… Distance, distance and distance….”
• “The three B’s of fencing are ….. Balance, balance and balance….”
• “The three F’s of fencing are ….. Footwork, footwork, footwork….”

And finally
“Defeat is only a failure if we take nothing from it….”