Our fencers are looking forward to the end of the official school year: School sports are currently claiming most available outdoor spaces that we were able to use during the pandemic summer of 2020. Soon, we can expand our daily operations from the small space we were generously provided with by the property management of the Rotunda!
Youth Foil Fencing News:
Coach Austin Young is continuing youth and youth competitive classes at 733 W. 40th Street in Baltimore (our Rotunda tempoeary encampment) on
Saturdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with an over-flow day earmarked for Monday afternoons.
He has also just started a youth beginners’ class on Saturdays. As outdoor spaces become available, we may add additional learn-to-fence opportunities at Towson High School’s athletic fields.
For questions and scheduling, please contact Coach Austin directly at 410-340-6269.
Adult and youth Epee
Our epee program continues to gather steam:
(We are currently exploring adding Saturday afternoons for inveterate competitors.)
Like our foil program, we are looking to alternate our open-bouting venue with the great outdoors to accommodate more fencers.
Individual Lessons: Coach Larbi “has sword, will travel”, providing individual lessons at students’ homes, driveways, patios and, on Mondays, at our Rotunda location. Lessons are available for foil and epee, on all levels, beginner to competitive. To make your own arrangements with him, call 443-739-0077. Lessons are also available via Coach Austin.
ANY FENCERS AFFECTED BY RECENT CLUB AND LOCATION CLOSURES WILL AWAYS BE WELCOMED BY ALL OUR COACHES.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Coach Chris Amberger (adult epee program): Call or txt 410-790-8033
Coach Austin Young (youth and competitive foil): Call or txt 410-340-6269
Coach Larbi Soufiane (individual lessons foil and epee): Call or txt 443-739-0077
If you’re ready to kick the kids out of the house and lock up the violins or oboes that have been making life an acoustic hell for the past 2 weeks of CORVID19 “social isolation,” I have bad news for you:
Looks like schools won’t reopen for another month, making another 4 weeks of “Bah-Bah Black Sheep” scratched out on a tiny violin inevitable.
That also means BMFA will be closed until further notice from our gracious hosts at Loyola Blakefield. Please check in at this page and at our FB pages for notices!
Our gracious host, Loyola-Blakefiled, will go into corona-shutdown mode on 3/15. That means until April 3, 2020, none of our carefully developed safety policies will be necessary, as the venue will be closed:
No fencing classes or lessons until April!
We will alert our members if we decide to organize properly social-isolation open-air work-out meets at a different location. After all, Coach Chris has been ordered to stay out of the office until April 6, and as of next Monday probably won’t know what to do with all the free time.
So stay tuned to this website and our Facebook groups!
Meanwhile, see you at Knott Hall’s performance gym tonight!
Start: New classes start every FIRST WEDNESDAY of the month 5:30PM at Wheeler Hall, 500 Chestnut Avenue, Towson, MD 21204.
Students will build up agility and stamina in an age-appropriate but challenging class involving:
Coach Larbi Soufiane will introduce your child to the concepts of modern competitive fencing in a cooperative, kids-friendly atmosphere. Our program focuses on teaching the proper way to move (balanced advancing, retreating, lunging, acceleration units), using distance both for offense and defense, using the foil both to score on the opponent and to keep from getting scored on). At the end of the course, the students will get to experience fencing using the electric scoring apparatus.
The club provides all gear: masks, gloves, plastrons (a protective garment worn over the shoulder and armpit of the sword warm), and foils.
Our first Youth Beginners Class in 2020 will start on January 8, 2020, with new Groups starting every first Wednesday of the month!
Location: Wheeler Hall at Loyola Blakefield, 500 Chestnut Avenue, Towson MD 21204.
[This link gets you to the Registration and Sign-up Menu of the Blakefield Experience. Click on Page 2 and look for Learn-to-Fence Sign-up!
If you have any questions about the program, please don’t hesitate to contact Coach Chris Amberger at jcamberger@gmail.com.
For questions regarding registration and sign-up, please contact Chantal Cross at ccross@loyolablakefield.org.
First Friday: BMFA resumes its full program of classes and private lessons on Friday, January 3, 2020.
There will be no fencing activities on New Year’s Eve: NO FENCING ON DEC. 31, 2019!
Also: If your BMFA has siblings or friends who always have been wanting lear to fence:
Fencing — or watch children happily dance around Christmas trees (or whatever holiday decorations you put up)…
Fencing — or clink glasses and graze opulent New Years Eve buffets with friends and family…
Tough choices, we know.
But sometimes, we have to make tough choices.
Accordingly, BMFA will be closed on Tuesday, Dec. 24 (a.k.a., Christmas Eve) and Dec. 31 (a.k.a., New Year’s Eve.)
Put simply for our teenage members, such as Mr. Aidan “Captain Plum” Owens:
NO FENCING 12/24 and 12/24!
Fencing in Baltimore 