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Title
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The Professional Problem : Part One
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Date
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February 1941
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volume
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6
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issue
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1
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pages
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10, 12
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content
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en
THE PROFESSIONAL PROBLEM
PART ONE
One would have little respect for the medical or legal professions if anyone owning a thermometer or a lawbook could put out a shingle and claim that he was just about the best doctor or lawyer that the world had ever seen. Yet that is exactly the situation in fencing where anyone owning a mask, a few weapons, and preferably a mustache can set himself up as a fencing master and offer to teach the intricacies of a time-honored sport to anyone who applies.
Unfortunately, there are no required standards to enter the fencing profession, and just as unfortunate is the fact that there are no checks upon the results of professionals after they start to teach the sport. As a result, the sport has a goodly number of poseurs and quacks, but more serious still, it has a large number of well-intended professionals who are incompletely equipped to teach the sport. They should be taking lessons rather than giving them. Then too, as with every other group, there are the lazy drifters who talk more than they perform and have entered the sport as an easy racket, after failing similarly at other endeavors undertaken with the same attitude.
We do not fear the quacks. They generally expose themselves in short time and have to pull up and move on to new fields that will listen to their tales of greatness. Nor do we fear the sluggards, for they generally exterminate themselves through their own inertia. The ones we fear are in the large intermediate group who devote a great deal of time and energy to teaching the sport incorrectly. This they do blindly in many cases, which is as much to be regretted as if they knew their faults.
We have already stated in a previous article that there are 280 professional fencers in the United States and have listed 230 of their names in a special directory. We have appealed to them to take over the very important responsibility of developing the sport at this particular period when it gives every appearance of being ready to blossom forth into a really sizeable sport. Now we must turn about and attack them for ineptitude, for whether or not they are at fault, they nevertheless are, on the whole, as poorly qualified for their profession as any group of professionals we know. They stand up all right as men, they like the sport, many of them are very hard workers, but they just do not know a great deal about the sport they profess to teach. This is not 100% true. There are probably two dozen real Fencing Masters in the United States, men who know fencing well and are fully qualified to train a youngster into Senior quality. Even these few 24 do not all understand all three weapons equally well, but this is not our requirement of a Master, which merely demands sufficient ability to be able to train a group of beginners in one or all weapons to a degree of excellence where they can hold their own in the best Senior or at least Junior competition.
That leaves us over 200 fencing teachers who are little better than provosts, drill masters, exercisers, poseurs, dabblers, or quacks. Many of them admit their deficiency and would take advantage of instruction in their profession if it were readily available. Others refuse to plead guilty and continue to talk better than they teach. These drift with the tide, fearing exposure from the first good amateur or professional who sees or hears them performing their mumbo-jumbo. Over all the profession lies a pall of jealousy, which has in turn produced a fine group of alibi-artists. Add to this those who are eaten up with uncalled-for self-importance, who take it upon themselves to deride the accomplishments of their more successful competitors rather than swallow their pride and seek the help of these sources of their envy. To summarize, we are only left with the conclusion that fencing as a profession is being inadequately served by a low technical standard of fencing knowledge.
What can be done to improve the quality of professional fencing in our country? One sure help, if it could only be accomplished, would lie in the formation of a strong Professional Association. Such an Association should have a strong and critical central organization made up of the few real masters we have, who would immediately establish a stiff set of standards and regulations. The Association should classify all professionals: Fencing Master (first class), Fencing Master (second class), Fencing Instructor, Fencing Teacher, Fencing Trainer, with all those not able to pass the lowest class bunched together as Dry Nurses. Any bold step of this kind would probably gain the immediate approval and endorsement of such amateur organizations as the A.F.L.A., the A.A.U., the N.C.A.A., and the I.C.F.A. The Association would proceed to place rigid ratings upon the men within the profession. It would take steps to provide a center of instruction for those who honestly desired higher ratings and further training. It would not hesitate to expose poseurs and quacks. However, let us not go further into this, for our thoughts are approaching fantasy in tremendous strides. The time, thought, energy, and cost required for such an undertaking places such a conception beyond the hopes of even the most conscientious group of professionals. Furthermore, a Professional Association would never function according to any plan. It would be like an army made up of all Generals and no Privates, and work would soon cease as it did with the Tower of Babel.
If there is no help forthcoming from collective effort, perhaps something can be done from individual effort. The individual professional has some of the remedy within his own grasp if he would only view himself in the cold light of self-analysis. Let us start out with what is probably his worst fault. He has, in many cases, become bored with his own profession. This is his own fault, for he seldom does anything to freshen his viewpoint. He lives completely within his small circle of influence, and that circle has cramped him. He has forgotten that fencing is a living sport. It is developing new ideas and methods under his very eyes, and he refuses to see it. He lives in a house by the side of the road and won't even look out of the window.
Let us give a simple analogy as an example of what happens to many professionals. We shall use dancing for this analogy. Most Americans know how to dance. Women continue to like dancing longer than men. Why? The man leads his partner in the dance. He knows a few steps, and after he has tried out these steps on a few partners, the only variation left to him is in the particular personal charm of the chosen partner. The woman has a different experience with every partner. Each male partner tries his few steps with her, but added together, she has an interesting evening of variety and is always ready for more. Cannot the professional be compared to the dancing male and the amateur be compared to the woman dancer? Does not the professional get bored after repeating his few pet actions with one pupil after another? The amateur fences around either in practice or competition, and the pleasure found in variety of actions is always his for the seeking.
For a man to gain more pleasure from his dancing, he must go to some dancing school and learn some new steps. For a professional to keep from going stale, he must attend fencing competitions, watch what other professionals have apparently been teaching their pupils, and even go to another professional and be freshened up with a course of lessons.
We held our National Fencing Championships last May. There were 72 entries in these strong individual competitions. How many of the 30 or more New York City fencing professionals so much as attended these contests? Very few, and these were not consistent in attendance. Alvar Hermanson of Chicago and Charles Schmitter of Detroit attended almost every contest. They came to New York with their fencers, watched every bout that they could, discussed fencing with all and sundry and returned home to change this, improve that and continue with the other principle they had been teaching. These men are open-minded and progressive. They took advantage of an opportunity that was offered to all of the New York City professionals to little avail.
Why should Aldo Nadi, who probably knows more about foil than any other man we've had the pleasure to meet, attend even prep and novice foil competitions? He takes a seat well up front and watches as interestedly as if it were a world's championship. Why? Because he knows that there are things to be learned even in watching the mistakes of the rankest beginner. To him it is a living sport and he never ceases to study the personalities and the results of trial and error among active competitors, no matter how slow or inefficient they may be.
One thing is sure. Fencing will never be forwarded by professionals who never leave their own Salles. These men are really out of touch with the sport they profess to teach, living in a fencing world of their own that has long since gathered moss or run to weeds. They need to be asked by their own pupils, "Where were you during last night's competition?" If this doesn't succeed, then the repeated failure of their pupils in competition should be pointed out to them and a gentle hint given that unless they undertake to freshen their viewpoints with more contact with the active fencers then their pupils will look elsewhere for that fresher viewpoint.
(To be continued in our next issue.)
