Why am I Teaching? It was about...

I sometimes ask myself why I would choose this over a reliable career. I know others do it behind my back so I might as well answer it.

I don't teach fencing for fencing's sake. I believe that if I was motivated to just teach fencing, then I would be somewhere else or possibly studying for a year in Hungary or New York. No I teach fencing because I see in every student the potential to have what me and all my old fencing friends had 10 years ago. It wasn't about the medals, the strip, what weapon you fence, or any of the rest of that garbage.

It was about meeting people. It was about laughing so hard you cried in the back of a car. It was about flirting with fencing chicks knowing you weren't going to get anywhere. It was about sneaking out of a hotel room @ midnight trying to find something to do. It was about learning how to throw hotel key cards across the venue, and then playing catch with them. It was about sledding down a hill in your warmups after a bad tournament. It was about gorging yourself at a restaurant after a tournament. It was about mocking the high school teams and their stupid pre-tournament chants. It was about cheering on the last guy from your club who was still in a major tournament (or being the last guy). It was about every stupid memory that you make at a tournament, because 10 years from now, you are unlikely to remember results even if askFred does.