Our guest is Jen Oldham, a fencing coach, co-founder of WFencing and pioneer of the women’s saber program in the United States!
In this episode of First to 15, we're joined by Jen Oldham, a fencing coach, innovator and pioneer of the women’s saber program in the United States.
Oldham is a successful saber fencer, having competed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the international level with several top 32 finishes and a bronze team medal.
She has parlayed that experience in many ways, including as a coach — she’s currently a three-weapon fencing master with Forge Fencing in Durham, North Carolina — and also as an advocate for increasing the diversity, unity and equity within fencing.
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First to 15: The Official Podcast of USA Fencing
Host: Bryan Wendell
Cover art: Manna Creations
Theme music: Brian Sanyshyn
EPISODE 20
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:01] BW: Hello, and welcome to First to 15, the official podcast of USA fencing. I'm your host Bryan Wendell. And in this show, you're going to hear from some of the most inspiring, interesting and insanely talented people in this sport we all love. First to 15 is for anyone in the fencing community and even for those just checking out fencing to see what it's all about. Whether you're an Olympian, or Paralympian, a newcomer, a seasoned veteran, a fencing parent, a fan or anyone else in this wonderful community, this podcast is for you.
With that, let's get to today's episode. Enjoy.
[INTERVIEW]
Today's guest is Jennifer Oldham, a fencing coach, innovator and pioneer of the Women's Saber Program in the United States. Oldham is a successful saber fencer, having competed for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the international level with several top 32s and a bronze team medal. And then she's parlayed that experience in many ways including as a coach. She's currently a three-weapon fencing master with Forage Fencing, love that name, in Durham, North Carolina. And also, as an advocate for increasing the diversity, unity and equity within fencing. We're excited to chat about all that and more. Welcome to the podcast, Jen.
[00:01:16] JO: Well, thank you, Bryan. I appreciate the introduction. I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:21] BW: Yeah, thank you so much for being – I'm ready to just dive into your story. And I understand that your introduction to fencing came through a PE class. I was immediately curious what happened there. Can you tell us that story?
[00:01:35] JO: Sure. This was way back in the 90s when fencing was not nearly as prevalent as it is today. And my boyfriend, Craig, and I were sitting around in a book trying to flip through the class list. And we had to take two PE classes. And I had taken racquetball and loved it. And he said, "Oh, why don't you try fencing?"
His ex-girlfriend, Paloma, had taken fencing and had been recruited to the varsity fencing team. And that intrigued me. I'm like, "Wait. You can just walk onto this team after taking a gym class right?" And he said, "Yeah."
I tried out for the team. There were three Jennifer's trying out. I went from a Jennifer to a Jen in the tryout process for the team. And I was the Jen with the tall socks. I have very vivid memories about this time. And then made the team and just learned from then on.
[00:02:31] BW: That's awesome. Yeah, that's definitely not something you hear about in other sports. If you're taking a PE soccer class, they're not saying soccer. I wonder what it was that made you stand out. And then I'm also just curious about your whole fencing experience at UNC as a Tar Heel.
[00:02:49] JO: Sure. I'm sure it's my tall socks that stood out at the very beginning.
[00:02:51] BW: Right. That was the key.
[00:02:53] JO: Yeah, that was the key. But at the beginning, there was just women's foil. And we were at a transition time in which eppe was also being part of the women's team for varsity programs. So, they needed more women. And in the basic gym class, we learned foil. But once I got on the team, we knew that we were united in being an underdog.
And so, we had to learn, and we were at the beginning, and we were at the beginning with other women across the country. And I had some wonderful team experiences. And two team experiences that really jumped out were about winning of course. Everyone likes to win. But we were raw, I would say.
And we knew that very few of us were "recruits". We had some recruits from New York and New Jersey who had fenced in their high school leagues in some national competitions. But we didn't expect to compete with the Penn states and the Ohio states. That just wasn't an expectation that we had. But we were winning. And we were winning because of our coach. He was very innovative. And he could turn any athlete into a fencer fairly quickly. And that's Ron Miller. He just recently retired.
[00:04:17] BW: Mm-hmm. Hall of famer, right? Just inducted into the hall of fame?
[00:04:19] JO: Yes. Absolutely. This last summer. But how my efficacy and our team spirit built was going out in these arenas. First time I went west of the Mississippi was with this team. I was a native North Carolinian not exposed to a lot of the greater world out there. And we fenced at Northwestern. And we crossed the Mississippi. And we had a lot of snow. And this was all new to me. It was very exciting. Very exciting.
And I remember one time being at Penn State and they – math is important in fencing. And we were fencing and they had put in their B squad. And all of a sudden, the team captain says, "Hey, Jen, if we win this next one, we win. We win this tournament."
And they weren't paying attention to the numbers. They just assumed that they would win. And so, we had to act nonchalant. Like, "Oh, yeah, we're just fencing another bout." Because we didn't want them to notice what was happening. And we won.
[00:05:21] BW: Interesting. Wow!
[00:05:22] JO: That was a huge victory for us. And we have a wonderful photograph in our parking lot celebrating. And I have other memories like that where we were at Duke. I love today going to the dual meets. The smell was the same in that room until they just recently changed the floors. But the experience of fencing in Duke really just is seared in my brain.
And another experience I recall was winning against the Duke fencers. They had more recruits than at UNC. This was a big deal. And it felt powerful. It felt wonderful that I could advance myself as an underdog and win. I loved it.
[00:06:08] BW: Absolutely. That's such a great story. And it makes me think, I wish we could capture some of that collegiate fencing atmosphere into other tournaments. Into our knacks. Because, yeah, you're there representing a team in your club. But we don't have that same team spirit, at least not to that extent, across the board. And that would be something I'd love to see more of. And I don't have the answer but I think it would be really cool to see.
You mentioned women's foil being kind of the only option and women's epee being new. And I think maybe some newer fencers or people who are newer to the sport might not know that women's saber – yes, saber's been in the Olympics since the beginning, 1896. But women's saber was not introduced until 2004, which seems super late and recent, right? What was it like fencing at a time when these weapons were new? Foil was the only thing. Eppe was new. And saber was just coming on board for women.
[00:07:08] JO: I want to tell a story about a job I had in college and use that as a metaphor. I worked in the North Carolina Mountains for a summer as a camp counselor. And one morning we were going on a mentor hike. We had a mentor. The mentor picked our destination. He decided that we were going to the top of the mountain and we were going to bushwhack our way down and forge a new path.
And so, I was the counselor kind of supporting him. And we had all these kids, 16, 18 kids. And so, we went up the mountain. We were dropped off. And we started our hike down. We had a map. We had a compass. He had a plan. It was exciting. "Oh! look at this." Discovering that. This is how it felt traveling internationally at that time and being new in women's saber, "Wow! This is really cool. We had these great guides to help us navigate. All these new cultures and customs."
But then during that trip we realized our guide lost the map, and somehow his compass fell aside and he became disoriented. And so, as a counselor I feel like as how I've been as a coach. I've had to figure out how to lead this group of people. Maybe there's a path that's been there. I have an idea of where to go. But the map and the compass weren't there. And the leaders around me weren't quite able to do what we needed to do to get down this mountain.
I had to find logging trails. I had to counsel all the campers. We're going to get through this. They didn't have water. We had to share water. It was a big deal to get down this mountain. And we got down the mountain. And there were support.
But right now, I feel like I'm at the bottom of the mountain looking up at all of these other groups of fencers from the United States and from all over the world. And I'm like, "Wow! Some people have a lot of resources. Not only do they have a map and a compass. They have a backup map and compass. They have a GPS device. And they have support all around them to help them."
And so, it still feels like bushwhacking to me. It still feels like I'm trying to navigate a path as a woman's professional in the same terrain, in the same environment. I don't know if that makes sense to you but that's what it feels like to me. As a camper, I was a fencer. I was excited. We were in the woods. We were exploring. As a counselor, "Oh, I've got to figure out how to do this."
And now, looking at the greater picture, I'm able to see more facets of our greater community. And I'm realizing, "There's better ways to do this. There's better support out there."
[00:09:57] BW: I mean, there's some of that underdog mentality that you first felt at UNC, too, right? When you look at the landscape of clubs today and that there are some who have more resources and some who don't or still looking for that map and compass to be able to navigate the fencing tournaments. I feel like that's a good segue into – I'd love to hear about the ways that you've observed fencing's growth and change over the years since when you were a fencer to now as a coach and kind of an advocate within the community. Including some positive, negative, whatever changes you have to point out.
[00:10:39] JO: Well, as a fencer, I had a lot of resources. Our club was one of the dominant clubs in the United States at that time and still is. And I remember Chris Becker who was also a pioneer in women's saber buying a VHS recorder and having little recording tapes. And we went to the World Cups. We recorded the finals and we brought – these are like sacred materials that we would bring back and transfer to a VHS cassette. Put it in this VHS player and watch it on this little TV all just huddled in a room. And we were trying to study, "Okay, what are they calling? How can we get better?" Because none of us were making the top eight in the finals. My highest result was top 16 and I thought, "Wow! this is amazing."
[00:11:30] BW: Right. Right.
[00:11:31] JO: Those were the resources we've had. And now, you just click on your phone in your bed and you can see anything. Anyone can study what is out there and what is happening. It's so accessible right now with this information. It's free. That's a huge benefit for everyone and every country as long as you know how to study fencing and have a group to work with.
Most of these changes for me have been really positive. And we are in a change cycle right now. And always, I would say always, change is difficult unless you have the right perspective of optimism with it. And so, anything that someone would bring up as being negative, I would say, "Let's look at how this is a process of our change and what needs to happen?" It's like information. Anytime there's a negative component or something's not right, "Oh! That's information." That's information about how we need to move forward.
[00:12:38] BW: Right. It's the same thing when you lose a bout, right? You're gaining information for the next bout. And then just extrapolate that to the entire sport. I know this is an audio podcast. So, people can't see. But you're wearing a Mid-South Fencers Club sweatshirt. And so, that reminds me or it brings up the fact that you've opened fencing clubs, which is no small feat. The Mid-South Fencers Club. And now Forge Fencing.
And I've heard you talk about the advice that other club owners have given you. And some of it you've considered not so useful, I'd say. What was that advice? And why was it not something that resonated with you personally as a club owner and founder?
[00:13:19] JO: I remember this moment very distinctly, "Jennifer, you can't do this. You can't have a team warm environment and have champions in a competitive atmosphere." And I remember looking at them and just going, "Watch me. Just watch me."
Something inside was like, "This is not correct. I'm a Tar Heel." There are ways. There are ways to compete. There are ways to build a team. And I had incredible basketball coaches surrounding me growing up. And so, I had seen teen leaders build strong competitive clubs, or programs, or basketball programs in my case because ACC basketball was it growing up for us in the south.
And so, I just didn't believe this advice and was stubborn in that. But the path has not been so easy. It just hasn't been easy. And Mid-South was really about me proving myself. Mid-South is the region of where I was from and where I started teaching when I moved back to North Carolina. And during the pandemic and during this process of re-envisioning myself, and our community and our growth, the name Forge just fit better because it's a process-oriented name, to forge. It's a little messy. A little hard.
But I've had some other bad advice. And I have in my mind always theories that I'm testing. And so, when you're growing a group or growing a team, your interventions improve the more you do this. Some interventions fail. But you have to grow a team and to evolve a program. Or to think forwardly, you have to, A, have a vision of where you want to go and where you want to be. And that vision of Mid-South was really I have to prove myself as a coach. I believe that. I had to do it myself. But now, it's like I have to prove that a community can do this and a team can do this. There's a big shift in that.
[00:15:35] BW: How would you describe then the philosophy of Forge fencing and what you are trying to forge there, right? And what you are trying to put through that heat and forge?
[00:15:46] JO: Yeah, I started to allude to answering that question, because forge is a is a process of creating. And it's hard. It's not only hard as an individual by yourself, but you need people to fence against in order to grow as a fencer. And that team process can be a little bit messy. It can be a little bit hard. But it's centered in the belief that who decides to be part of Forge team is committed to this difficult process and is open to hard conversations.
I'm open to being wrong. I'm open to changing and navigating in a different way. Also, this takes a commitment from families and from the fencers to make difficult choices that aren't always in their own best interest at that time but ultimately can be in the best interest of the team and development overall in the future.
[00:16:47] BW: You talked about parents. How do you get the buy-in from parents? Because when they come to any fencing club, of course they want their child to have a positive experience and grow as a person. Become a good fencer. But when you're trying to balance winning teams versus winning on the strip, a lot of parents will say, "Well, I want my child to also win a bunch, too. And it wouldn't hurt if they brought home some medals to show for it." How do you get that buy-in from parents to your philosophy at Forge?
[00:17:21] JO: First, parenting is really hard. It's very hard. You need people to consult with about parenting decisions. The child that you are given may not make sense to you as a parent. Like, "Who is this creature that I have born? Why are they this way?"
Parenting is a process of discovery, as is coaching and building a team. They're not too many dissimilarities. Let's assume that most of the parents want the best for their child and they're trying to navigate and make the best decisions for themselves. Same thing for a coach. I want the best for my team.
And first of all, I would say that this team culture and winning are not mutually exclusive. I think that that's not correct. I think a lot of people use that as an argument to buy into. You must come to this club. But what I find is that, ultimately, the environment that the fencer is in matters more long term. And so, when I talk to fencers 10, 15 years down the road who came to Mid-South or came to Forge and then came back, ultimately it was those relationships and that support that made the most difference in their long-term development. Winning was great because they did win. But really, it was about that support that they received through their process of developing as a fencer. That's a three-way relationship between the fencer, the parent, and the coach and the club. The coach and the club. The coach – or the club owner really leads that club entity, but it's a living entity just like that family system is a living entity and deserves respect. And then you have the fencer. I see them all interconnected. I don't see them mutually exclusive.
[00:19:20] BW: And it almost proves the value of your philosophy when someone does take the time to come back to you later and say, "Hey, coach, thank you. Here's where I am in life. And it's been thanks in large part to you and your guidance. It proves that you're creating whole people not just fencers." Right? You and the parents in that kind of triangle. I love that.
We talked about the philosophy of Forge. And that sounds great when you're in the controlled environment of your own club. But then how do you take that to a big tournament where there's a lot of moving parts and new experiences for your team, say, a knack, or a large regional, or even JOs?
[00:20:03] JO: Yes. This is also why Mid-South shifted to Forge. And also, a reason why WFencing formed. Because we had created this incredible environment, but we were going into the competitive arena of North American cups and international cups. And those environments are sustained by multiple clubs. And they are governed not by a club owner or a coach, but they are governed by USA Fencing. We're a big system. We're interconnected. And we need each other to thrive and support each other.
Well, as my athletes left and went to other places and went to other programs, the parents in particular would remark back, "Wow! This is really different. This is not what I expected."
And so, me as a leader building fencers who I knew would leave our environment and go other places, I felt like I had a duty to engage in the greater environment and ask tough questions. And I was challenged and not allowed to advance in the same way my athletes weren't as they left our community. And these are because of factors that shouldn't be in American sport culture, like abuse, exclusion, corruption. And I had a choice I could accept that as it was. I could quit, which was seriously considered. And we'll talk about women later. I think a lot of people quit when they realize what force is up against them. Or I could be stubborn just like I was over a decade ago. And just be confident enough that, "Hey, maybe I could make a difference."
And so, does that answer your question?
[00:22:08] BW: It does. Yeah. It does. And you've really underlined kind of the environment in which you and some other strong women started WFencing, which is a non-profit that's working to achieve diversity, unity and equity among all fencing professionals, coaches, everybody. No matter their race, gender, location in the United States.
I'm curious about the genesis of WFencing. Women like Iris Zimmerman, Vinnie Bradford and yourself. What inspired you all to want to create this organization?
[00:22:44] JO: Let's go back to my hiking analogy of us all in the woods and made it down the mountain. They fired this mentor. And so, I'm back at base camp. We'll call base camp the Summer National Championships. All of a sudden, about four or five years ago, I kept hearing complaining, "Oh, yeah. That's just how it is. That's just the way it is. Ah, you got –" And I'm like, "Does it have to be this way? Does it have to be the way?" Now, every time someone says this to me, this is just how it is. As a red flag for me that, "Oh, here's an opportunity for change."
And so, Vinnie, she has a TED Talk. You can see it on wfencing.org. But she did a presentation at Summer Nationals about women professionals. And I was like, "Vinnie, I've had this idea." And we started talking. And it was at that meeting at Summer Nationals we decided, "Let's do something."
And Iris and I had developed a friendship. And she had also come down the mountain with her own squad, the Women's Foil Squad. Vinnie had been down the mountain earlier. And so, our stories had themes to them, that as we had matured as women and we're club owners, coaches, mothers leading our own communities, we realized this is not fair. This is not equitable. And if we're going to participate in this system, we're going to act as change agents.
And many other people thought this. Jennie Salmon was also at the beginning of this conversation. Susan Burgos. And so, the impetus was to connect women in all aspects of the fencing arena in North America. The president, Vicki Miller, she was the mom of one of my top students. And so, she saw from the parent perspective first hand what was happening. And rightly so, she riled up. She's on board.
And there's a dozen or two other people who this story resonates with them. And it's not just about women. It really boils down to two things. One is fairness. Men also have suffered under the current structures that we are working within or in the process of trying to change. Because as I mentioned earlier, we are in a change process state right now.
And another part is – this is going to seem odd. But it is an awareness of how democracy works in the United States, and the function of non-profit organizations and how communities guide and lead themselves.
[00:25:30] BW: I think that's well said. And part of the guidance, let's say, that WFencing is able to provide is workshops, and clinics and resources. And you mentioned the URL, it's wfencing.org. And we'll put it in the show notes of this episode, too.
That's really an important place for anyone within the community who cares about this community to check out and see some of the conversations that are being had there. What has been the response so far? People coming up to you and saying, "I came across this resource." And maybe they hadn't met you or any of the women involved on the board or involved in WFencing but they just happened upon the resource. What are they telling you out there in the community?
[00:26:13] JO: I think, in general, there's a sense of relief. At the beginning, we had some really tough conversations about what the W meant. Is it women? Is it we? Is it worldwide? What's the W. And the consensus was let's highlight and promote women first until someone starts paying attention.
And we're at the point where people are paying attention. USA fencing is paying attention to this now. You didn't have the bandwidth or the ability then. Same with the USFCA. People are like, "Okay, I see that this is important. Whoa! Our history is not great. Ah! I'm kind of embarrassed. What do we do now?"
And so, now the W is coming into a collective we. What do we as the fencing community want for ourselves? What do we want our culture to be? And for everyone who is like, "Ah! About this referee." Or, "Ah! About this coach." Or, "Ah! About those parents." This is the getting messy part time. This is it now where we have to have these conversations and build what our American team, what our American culture, what our landscape is going to look like. Because the forest is harsh. There are thunderstorms. There's rain. There are mudslides.
If you're by yourself and there's no one to help you, "Poof! You're gone." We are interconnected. On the fencing strip, we can compete against each other. But the second we step off, it's a different relationship. And that's where everyone's struggling. They don't know what that relationship should look like or what is fair. No one just knows. There are just no guides right now. And WFencing has just been a guide. We're like, "Hey, we know there's another way. And that's what we're doing." We're just being part of USA fencing. Being part of USFCA. Trying to take a sponge and just take out the shame and the embarrassment and be different. Find another way. And that's really the essence of what WFencing is.
[00:28:35] BW: I love that. And just providing a safe space for people to have those conversations is such an important step in this messy time, right? You have to kind of build that – to use your outdoors analogy, build that campfire for everybody to gather around and have these discussions.
[00:28:49] JO: It's been part of that. And there have been a few kickbacks. Someone esteemed referred to as the women's coaching group. And I suppose that's correct. But that's kind of like calling us lady coaches. We're professionals. We're professional coaches. And there are men, too, in this group.
[00:29:11] BW: But I mean that kind of highlights the challenges that you still face, right? That phrasing that is still out there. And so, women coaches, women professionals, that's actually the next topic that I'd love to hear your perspective on.
A lot of coaches, men, women, everybody, there's a pretty predictable formula, right? You have a successful experience as a competitive fencer. And then at some point you find a club and – or start a club and try coaching. That's oversimplifying obviously. But can we talk about how that journey might differ for a woman wanting to become a fencing professional?
[00:29:52] JO: Yeah. And I want to take one step back, Bryan, and really give a shout out to the referee cadre, the women and men. Because they've been really getting messy and having tough conversations. They just rearranged their ranking system. I think the referee cadre is ahead of the coaching development group right now.
I want to give a shout out to them. Recently at a tournament, really impressed with the quality of refereeing that was out there. And I know a lot of men and women have put a lot of time and effort because the referees ensure fairness. That is their job. They are the judges. They control the playing field.
And there's a symbiotic relationship with the coaches to the referees, but we seem a little bit more alone. We're in our own little groups, our own little clubs. And only through networking with other people that we trust do we gain access to information. And that access to information is the challenge in which the coaching community is having.
A, who has the information? You can get any opinion on that if you want. Who should be in charge of this information? Who controls this information? There's a lot of still language about power, and control and access to this information. And that is ultimately patriarchal in nature and historic for our sport. And linked to survival for many of these clubs and many of these coaches who have come from really harsh environments in the other countries that they've come from.
But in America, we don't quite have those same obstacles of survival. We use sport as a metaphor for developing ourselves. Meeting as groups. Developing friendships. Networking. Fencing is a lot more than just survival at this point in time and also in the world. We talked about access to information. Now we have access to people through our sport all over the world. And we're intimately connected. And so, that's the shift of where we're headed.
I also want to add that the women who have stepped into our realm have – they met at base camp. But as we met at that base camp, summer nationals, and as we've communicated out there, there's a lot of very qualified people. Not just former athletes who picked up a saber and started giving lessons. These are women who fenced previously, who are in other sports and they want to learn more about the sport. That access part to information is going to be really important in our next stage of developing fencing in the United States.
[00:32:51] BW: And what information are you referring to when you say access to information? What are some of the specifics that exist there?
[00:32:59] JO: Sure. Well, there's leading a group, which a lot of women and men who are teachers, who are parents they've just done and they've learned. And then there's the individual lesson, which is a key component to developing those fine motor skills that are needed to develop at a very high level of fencing. And those seem to be a mystery. And there's also – they're not a mystery. But they appear to be a mystery. And there's different pedagogical belief systems based on primarily country of origin. And all of those deserve respect. And many of – some of these have developed as counteractions to other systems so to speak.
There's a lot of competitive components and feelings of sacredness and privacy to certain knowledge. And if we are going to grow, we have to unlock that somehow. And we have to be open to sharing, creating, evolving. And this is interconnected to our greater team and national team development in my opinion.
Again, I mentioned we were in that messy stage. And the path forward as far as I see is unlocking this information without shame, without judgment and without ultimately ego. Fear that if this knowledge is given, it's going to be used against me in my fencers.
[00:34:27] BW: Well, yeah. I mean – Sorry. I understand that to some extent that like someone saying, "Well, here's my playbook." Like a football coach saying, "Here's all the plays I'm going to run this weekend." You wouldn't see that. You are in a sense battling that perception like you said. That I'm giving away the trade secrets and now that's going to negatively affect my fencer's ability on the strip. You're fighting to overcome some of that competitiveness that the coaches might feel toward one another.
[00:35:03] JO: And then you have to decide who's on whose team. And this is about the American team. What is this going to look like? Just like I mentioned earlier, who has access to this information? And women have historically not been given access to this information. Some of the bad advice I got that I didn't mention was what women can't be elite level coaches. And that was said directly to my face. I'm like, "What?"
[00:35:28] BW: Right.
[00:35:29] JO: Well, they just blame some biological components on this. And it just – I'm like, "This doesn't make sense." We have to challenge these greater social norms and fencing norms, cultural norms. Decide what we want to keep. What's important? And unlock what our future team is going to look like. I see this is an incredibly exciting time right now. But it is messy.
[00:35:55] BW: It is. Yeah. And it will take people willing to, like you've said well earlier, set their egos aside for the greater good of not just American fencing but just fencing in general.
Finally, Jen, is there anything else that you wanted to share or add? Or any other final thoughts you want to be sure to put out there?
[00:36:16] JO: I think it's just important to remember that USA fencing, WFencing, USFCA, these organizations are non-profit organizations and they are governed by their members. Become a member. Parents, you can vote, but you have to become a member. When it's election time, research the candidates. Think about which candidate is going to look out for the greater common good of our fencing program. And be invested in this process of our community.
[00:36:46] BW: I think that's really well said. And I really appreciate all that you've done for fencing and continuing to do. And, Jen Oldham, best of luck to you the rest of the season and beyond. Thank you so much.
[00:36:58] JO: Appreciate it. Thank you, Bryan.
[OUTRO]
[00:37:00] BW: Thanks for listening to First to 15, the official podcast of USA fencing. We'll be back with our next conversation in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, you can stay up to date on all the latest fencing news by following us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. And if you like this podcast, please help us grow and reach more people by leaving us a rating or a review.
Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell. And I hope to see you real soon out on the strip. Bye.
[END]