Fencing has been not only an Olympic sport, but also the great way to spend free time playing. The process of playing is still a mystery to the public, as it is not so famous, as football is. Some centuries ago fencing was founded as an aristocratic sport, which took a lot of time and efforts from both participants and spectators, but now it is the sport of free access. People of all kind are able to try and learn some techniques of fencing and benefit from it as a sport.
Because of the peculiarities of this sport and its difficulties, the special place in issues concerning participating in Olympic Games is taken by deaf athletes and the process of teaching fencing to such people. Some athletes with limited abilities seek to learn such a sport, but it is extremely complicated for them because of some reasons. These reasons are issues of technologies and methodic to be used and the difficulties of psychological preparedness to participate in fencing. From the first sight, it is extremely difficult to learn to fence if one has some health problems, but there are a lot of articles and books, which may be helpful in the studying process. The system of visual cues - signals, ASL vocabulary and both general and specific sport gestures – can improve the teaching process a lot.
According to Snyder and Spreitzer, sports greatly contribute to physical education as well to psychological and social functions of individualities (Snyder). This way, it is difficult to identify the nature of sportsmen-beginners, whose future depends on their characters. Despite their physical abnormality they may be congenital leaders or splendid team players, so it is worth teaching them to play various sports correctly. Different tactics may be implemented in the studying process in order to select the one of the greatest effect. For example, Sowerby writes about basic exercises along with those for qualified sportsmen in his book Fencing and gives clear explanation of every step to be taken. Following the author`s advice, deaf sportsmen are able to learn fencing and improve their skills.
There are a lot of stories of successful deaf sportsmen, who formed their skills on theoretical material. They did not avoid practice, too. Frank Bartolillo from Australia participated in Olympic Games several times, and he was the leader in fencing. The man learnt to fence using the combination of lip-reading and standard sign language (Ulrich and Egbert 2). Some methods of teaching deaf sportsmen exist, but they are not implemented and adapted fully to the wide use. A system of visual cues has to be created in order to provide some knowledge to athletes in order to assure their successful careers.
The sport of fencing has some deficiencies, however. It may be difficult for deaf athletes to specialize in such a sport because of their health problems. The ability to hear is essential for sportsmen because of the equipment used – it may be dangerous if not hearing the sound of the sport weapon coming or so. This way, deaf athletes have to be perfectly prepared for various dangers in order to have the ability to participate in the Olympic Games along with the representatives of other sports.
The process of teaching deaf athletes to fence following all the rules requires great efforts from coaches and teachers. The system of visual signaling may be very efficient if implemented properly. Ulrich and Egbert provided some general consideration in their articles, which are helpful in teaching deaf sportsmen. First of all, it is obligatory to set a comfort visual distance between opponents in order to help athletes watch the situation from all sides (Ulrich and Egbert 16). Then one must concentrate and use all the materials provided for the teaching process for better information processing (Ulrich and Egbert 16). Following these steps athletes will be able to become professionals in fencing fast.
Works Cited
Chirashnya, Irina. "Is Fencing Safe? - Academy Of Fencing Masters Blog". Academy of Fencing Masters Blog. N.p., 2014. Web. 4 July 2016.
Snyder, Eldon E. and Spreitzer, Elmer A. Social Aspects of Sport. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983.
Sowerby, A. Fencing. Ramsbury: Crowood, 2011.
Ulrich, Randall and Egbert, Lisalee. “Teaching Olympic Fencing to the Deaf: Identifying and Addressing a Gap in Teaching the Sport”. The International Journal of Sport and Society.
