Ward Melville Coaches Bring Elite Talent to Fencing Camp

By the end of the day, after the athletes at Mission Fencing Center's competitive sabre camp have finished hours of training, both physically demanding and mentally challenging, they are exhausted. And they should be.

They have been taught by the best, to be the best.

That's the goal of the three elite-level fencing camps run by Mission Fencing Center in Rocky Point, founded in 2001 by Ward Melville High School varsity fencing coaches Jeffrey and Jennifer Salmon. Each of the three five-day camps focuses on one weapon — sabre, epee or foil — and is run by some of the top coaches in the world.

Wes Glon of 12-time NCAA champion Penn State University was the guest coach for the sabre camp, which was held Aug. 2-6. Glon coached Jeffrey Salmon at Penn State and was the U.S. Olympic coach in 1992 and 1996.

The epee camp, held Aug. 23-27, will be coached by U.S. and Hungarian national coach Kornel Udvarhelyi. The foil camp, held Aug. 30-Sept. 3, will be run by Buckie Leach, an internationally renowned foil coach who was an Olympic coach in 1996 and 2000.

"What they bring is invaluable," said Mission Fencing coach and manager Dennis Kolakowski. "Not only have they seen fencing at the local level, but they've seen it at the national, college and international levels. So just to give the kids the pathway and let them know what's ahead of them is incredible."

"Most of these coaches, we've had every year," said Jeffrey Salmon, who has been running the camps for five years. "It is a unique opportunity, and sometimes I'm disappointed that some of the local fencers in the area don't really understand what great information they're going to be getting from these coaches. They are very active, top level coaches who want to make the kids better, who want to make American fencing better."

Salmon said each camp will include 30 to 50 fencers, and that the camps have grown thanks to the availability of dormitory facilities for sleep-away campers.

Salmon said the guest coaches create the curriculum at each camp and it changes each year. The camps include strategy, footwork, drills and feedback, and are very physical, with lots of conditioning drills and games.

"So the kids don't even know that they're running their butts off back and forth, because they're playing a game," Salmon said.

One fencer who has seen his game raised by attending the camps is 2010 Ward Melville graduate Peter Freiss, who is headed to Sacred Heart University.

"It's awesome," Freiss said. "First of all, Jeff is an incredible coach, because he's learned from the best. But when you're actually with the real deal, it's interesting. Not just the hardcore training aspect, but also the thinking. It's really cool to be working with people who are so high up."

Salmon said having such respected coaches leading these camps is a tremendous benefit to the fencers' development.

"You have to constantly be current both on the national and the world stage, and unless you're there, you'll start to fall behind," Salmon said. "So to bring a guy like that in to a local place is a huge benefit, and a huge advantage."

Glon said he enjoys teaching at the camp run by his former student, and that individualizing instruction is key to a fencer's development.

"Someone who is not as strong, you develop the strategy rather than try to force the person to be aggressive," Glon said. "Those not as physical will develop their technique, and then they will use more strategy. Physical fencers will always try to use their speed and their strength."

Of the fencers he worked with at the sabre camp, Glon said the group was talented. "You'll probably see them in two to three years at the national level."

Salmon said the goal of the camps is "to be able to see improvement from the first day to the fifth. That doesn't happen at most camps, but that's always been our goal, and we achieve it almost every time."

He added that the camps also help raise the level of Long Island fencing. "We don't have to travel outside of Long Island to get the best bouts," he said. "We can have these great bouts within our area and build this up as a powerhouse area, a place that people want to come to, to fence us."