What does it look like to introduce fencing where the sport is completely unknown—and where it can mean structure, belonging, and hope? Jen Oldham and Jeff Kallio of Forge Fencing Academy share how a long-term international coaching connection led them to Kenya, including work supporting fencing development in the Kakuma refugee camp and across university communities. They talk logistics (yes, four suitcases of gear), trust-building, coaching across cultures, and what changed in their perspective when they came home. They also share concrete ways the fencing community can help sustain and grow the effort.
Season 2, Episode 19
Guests: Jen Oldham & Jeff Kallio — Forge Fencing Academy (North Carolina); Jen also coaches at Cleveland State
What we cover
How the Kenya initiative began: an international coaching program connection and a promise to “do something”
Working with Coach Eliakim (“Coach Jack”), a Kenyan Taekwondo coach and sports protection coach
What fencing looks like in Kenya: blank slate in Kakuma; early club development in Nairobi and East Africa
The logistics: gathering donations, packing equipment, and getting it across the world
Trust and teaching: adapting communication, consent/check-ins, and collaborating with local organizers
Kakuma realities: why sport matters when basic needs and stability are under pressure
Staying connected after returning: WhatsApp, videos, online support, and rapid learner progress
Creative problem-solving: homemade training weapons, limited resources, and surprising ingenuity
Perspective shift: how the trip changed how they view complaints, effort, and empathy back home
How listeners can help: gear drives, coaching support, donations, and creating new bridge connections
Links
Forge Fencing blog post:
https://forgefencing.com/global-connections-forge-fencing-initiative-in-kenya-and-kakuma/
Timestamps
0:00 — Why fencing matters when it’s brand new in a community
1:12 — The Kenya initiative: where it came from
3:24 — What fencing looks like in Kenya vs. the U.S.
5:02 — Getting started on the ground: teach, adapt, connect
6:27 — The equipment challenge: donations, packing, logistics
8:26 — Early moments and why fencing “fit” socially
10:05 — Staying connected through tech: videos and feedback loops
11:26 — Homemade training weapons and creative problem-solving
12:53 — Culture shock: water, shoes, safety norms, and perspective
14:04 — “Empathy scale” after returning home
15:43 — Trust-building and the refugee camp tour
17:40 — Kakuma context and why sport is a lifeline
24:14 — How listeners can help right now
27:15 — Doing this as a couple: teamwork and logistics
30:58 — Lessons brought home for athletes and students
32:21 — Leadership, gratitude, and widening perspective through sport
Quotable
“They don’t get down when there’s an obstacle—they get excited and creative.” — Jeff Kallio
“This thread is far greater than one person. It’s a huge connector.” — Jen Oldham
Call to action
Want to help? Read the full story and updates here:
https://forgefencing.com/global-connections-forge-fencing-initiative-in-kenya-and-kakuma/
And if you have a relevant connection (schools, nonprofits, adaptive sport, international programs), reach out—bridges are built one introduction at a time.
Credits
Host: Bryan Wendell • Guests: Jen Oldham & Jeff Kallio
SEASON 2 EPISODE 19
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:01] BW: So, what if fencing could suddenly land in a place where sport wasn't just recreation, it could be structure and belonging and a reason to show up day after day? I'm Bryan Wendell, and this is First to 15. Today, we have not one, but two guests, a real life fencing power couple, we've got Jen Oldham and Jeff Kallio, whose work takes them from NAC weekends to building athletes at Forge Fencing Academy, as you can see from their sharp looking jackets there. And for Jen, Cleveland State, and recently, Kenya, where they help support fencing development at the Kakuma refugee camp and across universities through an Olympic solidarity effort, alongside a Kenyan Taekwondo coach. It's a really interesting story.
We're going to talk about the why, because that's a sentence I never thought I'd say before, and what it's like to really be there on the ground, introducing fencing where it's brand new, and then whether this experience changed how they look at fencing and coaching for good. Hey Jen and Jeff, great to see y'all.
[0:00:58] JO: Great to see you, too. Thanks for having us.
[0:01:00] JK: We're glad to be here.
[0:01:02] BW: Jen, we have to start just from the beginning, I think. For people who are hearing about this for the first time, what was this Kenya initiative and how did you end up getting involved?
[0:01:12] JO: Sure. How this came about is probably the first question. I was part of an ICECP, international coaching certification program that was funded by the USOPC, Olympic Solidarity, and the University of Delaware. That happened in 2003. That was a year-long program. I met with 36 other coaches from all over the world, and we did projects to develop, I say, minding the gaps in our country. Coach Eliakim, or Coach Jack, you might hear us talk about him, was one of these coaches from Africa in which I met and really connected with. At the end, we were in Switzerland. It was just like, “Yay, let's go. LA.” Everyone was excited. But we were all talking about, how can we support each other? How can we stay connected?
There's not a lot of fencing growth in Africa. With myself and another coach in Africa, we were like, “We will do this. We will do something.” Well, you know how time works, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. About a year later we’re like, wait, we haven't done anything. So, we decided to do something. Then it started coming together very fast. He was a Taekwondo coach in Kenya, still Taekwondo coach. But by the time that we had graduated the program, he was working in the Lutheran World Foundation as a sports protection coach, which is very different from how we see coaching in the United States. Through that connection, we ended up in Kakuma, and then got to tour and see the development of fencing in East Africa and Kenya, and experience the life of a Kenyan that we would have never gotten to do before this international sport connection. That's the how it came about. Then the what is the exciting part that we're here to talk about today.
[0:03:07] BW: For either of you, Jeff or Jen, can you explain what fencing looks like in Kenya when you show up, comparing it to what our listeners might be familiar with, clubs across the US, including your own Forge Fencing Club in North Carolina?
[0:03:24] JK: At that point, there was one club that we networked with online, Tsavora Fencing, and their Coach Faruq. He's based in Nairobi and his community. Really, he is a driver in trying to build a club, build a community. They just last week, hosted the first ever East African fencing championships. They had fencers from Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya all come. He was a big driver of that. Aside from that club, it wasn't known as a sport across the country. When we traveled into the northern part of the country in the refugee camp in the Kakuma community, they had never seen it before. They'd never heard of it before. That was a completely new type of activity for them that they did not have any prior context.
Normally in the US, when we have a kid comes, “Oh, I want to try fencing. I saw it on the Olympics. Or, we watch The Parent Trap,” and everyone has some visualization of it. But there, is a completely blank slate.
[0:04:19] JO: There is an Olympian, Ndolo. She represents Kenya and has been training in Europe. There were some news about, oh, what's this fencing thing? The RIF, or FIE, has supported at least two that we are aware of, coaches, who have trained with an Africa group in South Africa. We met that fencer, and we encouraged her to also start a club and help support her in the small ways that we can as well.
[0:04:48] BW: You figure out that you want to go there, Jen, and you've got a plan laid out. How do you even get started? Because something like this, it seems to me like it's just such a giant undertaking that I wouldn't even know where to start.
[0:05:02] JO: Because we have taught in so many different capacities, it's just a new environment. When we arrived in Kakuma, they were like, “Okay, what are these people going to do?” A whole entourage went with us, and they watched us. We just did our thing. Jeff can tell stories about how my queuing and how my talking, that there were some cultural differences and we just were laughing all with each other and learning how to communicate. They're just people. We just had space. Then we just started teaching and connecting. That we do very naturally and very comfortably. I think once we got into the space, we know how to adapt, and we just adapted very fast and started utilizing the resources that we had to its highest and best capacity. Then talking with the local organizers and saying, “Hey, we think this is how this could work and this could create based on your current system.” We're not trying to reinvent anything. We're like, how can this activity support what you're already growing and developing with other sports?
[0:06:12] BW: The idea, Jeff, is when you left that there would be something that would live on, right? This wasn't just when we're there, they're going to be having this great fencing experience from talented coaches. Then you leave, and that's it, until you come back.
[0:06:27] JK: Oh, definitely. One of the big obstacles was just physical equipment. It's just the stuff that we need to do the sport. There was not enough time as the logistics came together for us to have stuff shipped. We went through our club, got a bunch of donations, donations from athletes, people from the greater fencing community. Gary Lu from Absolute helped us out with a bunch of stuff to support that. We packed four large suitcases. All the weapons, we had to disassemble. I had a luggage scale. We had to weigh everything. We had a food saver, a vacuum food saver thing, where I was like, this is some of the parts and vacuum sealing them to like, because it was just complex logistics. We want to go all that way and try to have the biggest impact we can and get equipment into the hands of the people there and have it be a meaningful experience.
There was all those little stumbling blocks of, well, we can't just have Gary ship us something next day, UPS, if we don't have what we need. We had to just prompt all those. And even logistics and figuring out, okay, we got to go from here to there. We flew into Nairobi. Then we had to take a small regional plane from Nairobi to –
[0:07:32] JO: Lodwar.
[0:07:33] JK: Lodwar. Then take a small car. We packed all this stuff in, just a get to Kakuma. It was definitely an adventure.
[0:07:43] JO: We need to give a shout out to our host, Coach Eliakim. His network was extremely widespread. Every place that we traveled and connected to, if he was not there, he had someone there meeting us. It was quite phenomenal. He was always on the phone. He's always communicating. It was the same when we were in the United States and with Switzerland with him. His networking ability is – we were just in awe.
[0:08:11] BW: Then, what about the actual experience of introducing fencing? What were some of the stories, or the rewarding moments that you had there, someone who really took to the sport, or had an eye-opening experience? What were some of your favorite memories?
[0:08:26] JO: Well, the impact is still unfolding. We are both surprised at how well fencing has taken to the communities. Kenyans, I would describe as very socially based, very networked base in terms of, they want to be communicate and interact with people. It's a very large population in Kenya. The population density is huge. Everywhere we traveled, it was huge. Fencing was a natural sport in terms of two people are engaging. One person is communicating and directing and then people are watching. Just how we debate in our clubs, this is what we started to see transpire. That interaction was very meaningful and joyful for them.
As they send us videos, as they engage with us through the W fencing learning pods, you can see this excitement just transpire in the short little video clips, which is it is propelling us to talk here. It's having us connect with the IOC and RIF. How do we get the support needed? Because we think that this is something that Kenyans will love and grow and nurture and support.
[0:09:42] BW: Yeah, before we talk about the ways that this can grow and maybe even how listeners can help, can we dive a little bit more into what you were talking about about this dialogue that you're still having today, even though you're now back in the United States? Jeff, what does that look like? How did you set that up so that they can continue to share videos with you and get feedback from you, I would imagine, even now that you're a continent away?
[0:10:05] JK: Technology is our biggest ally in that. The ability to use technology and particularly apps like WhatsApp and YouTube to share information, to stay in contact. As Jen mentioned, our Kenyan friends and our people that are part of the Kakuma community that are from other nations also, not just Kenya, extremely social driven. Those fabrics of the community and those interactions are very important. It's very different than just a one-way transactional type of communication effort. It's very collaborative. They like to send videos. They will call us just to check in, like friends.
Our friends from Africa are calling more than my friends from high school. Yeah, exactly. Because that social, that connection component, they're extremely curious, they're extremely creative, extremely creative as a group. Especially as they're trying to problem solve, dealing with equipment and dealing with space and all those obstacles. The thing that I like about them the most though is they don't get down when there's an obstacle. They get really excited and they get really creative. Then the positive competition kicks in, where they're trying to figure out and problem solve a solution and they send us videos and it's phenomenal. They've made enormous progress in a very short period of time.
[0:11:26] JO: The fencing swords that they made have blown us away. We were watching videos and are like, “Wait, wait, wait. What are you using?” They found this stick that was like the size of a foil and light and bends and it keeps bending. They taped up the end and they found some circular device and created a handle and they look quite durable. We're like, “Can we fundraise with these?” In three days, they made 60 of these.
[0:11:53] BW: Oh, wow.
[0:11:54] JO: We're trying to figure out how to get them shipped back to fundraise and support them. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, gosh, these would be really good for the kids’ groups, because they're like –
[0:12:04] BW: What is it made out of? What is it?
[0:12:06] JO: Some sort of tree branch there. We don't even know.
[0:12:09] BW: That's why you want them shipped here. That would not be a twist, if they were shipping stuff here.
[0:12:16] JO: Yeah, they could definitely. I would use them in a class.
[0:12:19] BW: For sure.
[0:12:19] JO: We could sell them. They made these quite quickly. Also, we have such heightened focus on safety and mask and equipment. We watched for a few weeks before we went over there. They were practicing some footwork. Inside, I'm like, oh, my gosh. They're not wearing shoes. This was like, in my mind, how can you not fence without shoes? But it's not a thing. It's not a thing of safety, or concern. If you have shoes, that is extremely special.
[0:12:51] BW: Yeah, interesting.
[0:12:53] JO: There's things about how we do things that challenged us as Americans and Westerners. It was tough to see kids pushing their water around. Water just being such a valuable resource. There were discussions about water and our teaching of how they had to bring their water, but someone didn't have their water. These aren't things that we typically have to deal with in the United States today. Maybe in the past we have. We felt like, to me going back in the past and seeing sport in these opportunities to commune had a different value than maybe what we see as competitive fencers in the United States.
[0:13:42] BW: It maybe makes you rethink some of the things that we complain about when we're at a NAC, all of us, right? Things like, the temperature of the venue, or that we had to walk too far to get to our pod. Not that these complaints aren't – don't have some validity. But I imagine, Jeff, that it made you change your perspective a little bit once you got back. What was your reaction?
[0:14:04] JK: Yeah, definitely. I call it my empathy scale. I've also run into this when I have done work with our para-fencers and our para team. When you start to work with a population that's working through different types of challenges and they are overcoming those challenges and they're working through them, and you see what people are capable of doing, and when you come back to your home-based environment in which things might be perceived to be a little bit easier, or not as difficult, you have to check yourself. When I got back to the club and there was an athlete like, “Oh, my legs are so tired.” I'm like, I just taught in Africa these athletes that were coming 6 kilometers one way from their village to the sport training center. They're doing 12 kilometers round trip just to get to the spot to do the sport. I'm like, I know his legs were a little sore, but I had to shift my empathy on that.
I think that's why travel is so critical. It's important to get out and see and go different places, and interact, be open to different cultures and just learn and then have your perspective shift. That's how we grow.
[0:15:07] BW: I love that. It occurs to me that you all must have found a remarkable way to build trust pretty early on when you got there. It's probably not unlike any coach going to a new club, or a new environment. Jen, when you went to Cleveland State, right, you had to prove yourself. I mean, maybe not prove yourself, but in a way, show them that, “Hey, I'm here to help you and I'm working for you.” You being the student athletes at Cleveland State. What would have that looked like in Kenya? Was it similar for you, Jen, where you felt you had to build this trust before you could start working on fencing lessons and technique?
[0:15:43] JO: Trust has to constantly be earned constantly. I mean, as soon as your integrity slips, or drops, or falls behind, you have to restart and make amends and apologize when you mess up. I find that for me, vulnerability works best, and laughter. When you mess up, or you're showing curiosity, you're showing also, respect. You have to ask questions and also make sure if what is happening is okay with them. You're constantly – not constantly, but you're every once in a while, really asking for consent. Is this okay? Is this normal for you?
We just found ways to check in with folks about that. I think it was what? Day three, or day four, we were in Kakuma, we got invited to tour the refugee camps, because we were in a facility, a dedicated sport facility that had a field and had room for athletics. We were actually teaching on the roof at the beginning in this scorching heat. We found a little hole underneath where they were storing plants and trees for this tree of life program that had been started. We found this area, because we were all just sweating at the top. We just went down and we're like, “Can we use this space?” We started creating this space. Is it okay if we use this space? They’re like, “Yeah, yeah. We can use it.” There's a constant collaboration.
What I was going to say is they took us to the refugee camps. This is where the empathy testing was – they were almost testing us to see if we could handle what we were about to see. Jeff, maybe you can speak a little bit more about that, because it was hard to drive through the refugee camp.
[0:17:38] BW: What did you see there, Jeff?
[0:17:40] JK: Yeah. I think it's important for anyone who's watching this to understand, and we knew conceptually, but until you go there and you see it exactly what the setup is. In 1992, these refugee facilities were built, because of the Sudan war, the lost boys of Sudan, which was in the news at that time. I think the idea was that this was going to be a short-term problem, that if UN and Kenya and international partners came together, they would do some things and solve it.
Well fast forward to the year 2025, almost 2026, this community is a population of over 400,000, and 70% are youth. Just to put in perspective. In this area, there is a local village, Kakuma, there is the refugee camp, and then there are the permanent settlements. Because after a while, it became clear that all of these people were not going to be able to get repatriated, or returned to their home countries for a variety of reasons, because why they're there, from genocides to famine, to war and population displacements.
It was also obvious that the nation of Kenya and surrounding nations weren't going to be able to absorb all these people into. The Kakuma situation is a place that's out of time. It's stuck in time. People can be stuck there. The sports complex as part of the permanent settlement area. The goal was to create this anchored community center, where people, particular youth, could do sports, be together, interact with the local community, so that there wasn't more animosity, or violence, tension between these two communities of all of these people. Because the people there come from many different countries with many different tribal histories and tribal languages.
When we got to tour into the camp, so the settlement is more permanent, and then when we went into the camp, that was a completely different situation. The roads are just a complete mess. They're not really roads. They're just dirt trails. Because there's tension between the United Nations and the Kenyan government, who's in charge of the roads. There's trash everywhere. Because again, who's in charge of the trash? Whose job is it to do it? There's just a lot of functional questions here in terms of responsibility.
I think once we realized that we saw how critical, because up until that point, I'm like, okay, we're here. This is cool. I love fencing. I'm getting to do this with my favorite person, Jen, and it is a cool adventure. Right before we got there, because of the USA cuts, there was a reduction in food rations for these people. I'm like, okay, there's basic needs not being met. Why are we here to do a sport, or to play a game? But when we went into the camp and we saw the very difficult conditions that people are living in, how critical is for them to have communities and to have activities and to have things like sports, all right, that can drive and propel them forward and connect them. Also, just to keep their spirit alive. Because for me, seeing a cute little five-year-old kid on top of a trash mound was sad.
Then, seeing some people who you could see the light in their eyes, extinguished, because their spirit had been broken, as a coach, that was harder for me. Then fast forward back when we go to the sports complex, working with these amazing, talented, smart, energetic, athletic, beautiful people –
[0:21:11] JO: Angels.
[0:21:12] JO: - and just seeing how capable people are if they're given a chance and they're given opportunities. It's a very intense experience, but one I would not trade for anything.
[0:21:20] BW: Jen, do you want to expand on that, or share your take on that?
[0:21:25] JO: I cannot highlight enough the goodness of the people who were a host at LWF. Even how they tended to us as we were driving through it was very emotional for me. I'm just like, I don't know what this is feeling. Our friend Elijah goes, “This is culture shock.” He's just helping me process this. We drove by Angelina Jolie's encampment for women. You could see where people had been moved and had given in the little ways that they could to help support this. My system brain was like, okay, where is this going? Sport and that sport complex that we were at, it gave motivation. It was like, this is something to do. This could be a way out.
It was only until then that we started to see how building the whole infrastructure in Kenya and East Africa, and then the IOC refugee team. You see how important all of these major programs are and how they connect together. It gave value to our work beyond just ourselves, just Kenya, just the Olympic movement. It is about democracy. It is about peace. It is about moving forward, and that's amazing.
[0:22:51] BW: I love that. Yeah, it's one thing to see the IOC refugee team and be like, well, that's a great idea. They should be doing something like that and offering this pathway. It's another to really have the perspective that those individuals on that team would have started in a village, just like the one you guys visited. Perhaps, the first time they picked up a weapon that they call it a fencing sword, right?
[0:23:14] JO: Yeah. Piur Bell, who, he came from this refugee camp, and he's on the IOC right now. I've met Piur, and he was part of our Switzerland group. Just having that connection and seeing the impact on him personally and meeting and talking to him. Then, just the value of this work through sport. I just can't emphasize how this thread is far greater than one person, or one ideal. It is a huge connector.
[0:23:46] BW: It's probably a great time to talk about what other people can do, who maybe don't have the means, the time, whatever, to travel to Kenya, or work on this this great initiative, Jen, that you applied for and were selected to be a part of initially with, and I forget the full acronym, but you know what I mean? ICECP.
[0:24:04] JO: ICCECP. Yes.
[0:24:05] BW: There we go. I was close. What can someone listening do to make a difference? They're inspired by what they've heard, and they want to give back in some way.
[0:24:14] JO: Well, the Lutheran World Foundation is accepting donations and kind. At the March NAC, we will be collecting gear and shipping it to Nairobi. We're partnering up with the Do Good Organization, so shout out to them. They're going to have a booth. Any new, or gently used gear, or used gear but still works, if you would like to put it in that box at the March NAC, we will ship it over. With the reduction, particularly from the United States and the European world's UNICEF is recalibrating how they fund programs at Kakuma.
The sport program that we saw and were a part of is in jeopardy. I've been told that it's $78 a month to support a coach. You can support a coach for a year, or a couple of months through the Lutheran World Foundation. I'm happy to connect you with that. W Fencing is supporting online. A lot of these fencers in Kenya, people personally donated to W Fencing to do that. If you want to donate to W Fencing, we will push that forward to add more people in the future to that online training. Jeff, what else you got?
[0:25:29] JK: I mean, those are the biggies. We're still establishing these pathways and things just keep shifting quickly, too. It's very dynamic. We just found out last week about the UNICEF cuts and the sports programs being in peril, because they're seen as non-essential, even though we know they're essential to quality of life. They're not basic needs, like food, water, and shelter. I think as we continue to work with these groups and build some pathways for support to go there, I think short-term and long-term, we also had some phenomenal interactions with the folks at Kibabii University and Maseno University. I think that there's a path for potentially, some exchange students to go, college athletes to go and spend some time and coach and work with fencers there, would be phenomenal outcomes. I think there's a lot of stuff. We have a lot of great ideas. We're just trying to get –
[0:26:23] JO: Pieces together. Yeah. Once we announced that we were going, we found out that there was a member in our club, Dr. Peter Cushion, who has been in Kakuma working and developing doctors. We had, unknowingly to us, this local connection. He's going to be traveling back soon and he's going to be able to hopefully, take some equipment. Maybe, even, he can take someone with him to teach more and connect more with the athletes. Programs for our college age students and our aspiring international law med students, there's a lot of ways to connect. You just have to ask.
Also, if you're listening and you have a connection, please reach out to us, so we can continue to build those bridges. That trust comes with those connections. With more trust, more opportunities will for sure start to create themselves.
[0:27:15] BW: That's terrific. Jeff, can we switch gears just a little bit and go back to something you said earlier, which was that you got to go on this trip with your favorite person, Jen. What was it like doing this as a couple? Because a lot of couples don't even have the same hobbies, let alone the same career. What was it like?
[0:27:31] JO: The fact that you asked Jeff this first, I love it.
[0:27:38] JK: Okay, there's so many directions. Jen has many superpowers. One of which is falling asleep on public transportation. She can fall asleep on a plane, a train, a bus, a cart, like that. I have a whole photo album that I'm sworn to secrecy that I can't share of me taking selfies with Jen when she's zonked out. There's a giraffe in the background and then like, “Boom, she's asleep.”
[0:27:59] BW: You got to sleep when you can.
[0:28:00] JK: Which is classic.
[0:28:01] BW: Hey, I don't judge this at all.
[0:28:02] JK: No, we're a great team. We're a phenomenal team and we both have skills that were things, we're really, really good at and they complement each other. The only hard part was when I got to drive. Driving there is very complex, okay. If you feel like you want, or should drive in Africa, you shouldn't. Definitely, don't do it. It was a former British colony, so they drive on other side of the road. The roads are very – they vary. I mean, there could just be a giant crater-sized pothole, and they don't have speed police there. They just put speed bumps anywhere. You could be driving 40 miles an hour and all of a sudden, kaboom, you hit a speed bump, which did happen a couple of times. I would say, the driving was only the hard part. Everything else, I thought was great. We just figured out where we need to go and then where our strengths were. Our host took great care of us, too.
[0:28:59] JO: Our host. Shout out to our host, his family, his cousins, his kids. I mean, everyone was extremely gracious.
[0:29:07] BW: Those speed bumps is probably a good way to make sure you're awake, Jen, and not missing the scenery, right? What was it like for you being there with Jeff? Let's flip the script now.
[0:29:15] JO: Jeff is a phenomenal human. If you know Jeff, you know. How we work together, I just have these ideas. I can see how they work. Jeff is just like, “Ugh.” Because he was the one who had the wait for the bag and was weighing out the exact amounts. He's the logistics person. We just play off each other extremely well. His ego was really hurt when he was driving out there.
[0:29:45] JK: I really like to drive. I thought I was going to be better. It was hard. It was very humbling.
[0:29:51] JO: Our guide, we were there for almost three weeks and our guide was with us pretty much the whole time. To hear his advice occasionally to each one of us was just hysterical.
[0:30:02] BW: Oh, geez.
[0:30:05] JO: But, I think, it was just special being there with him, but also because we do know each other very well, and our strengths and our weaknesses. We just have each other's backs when one of us has a confidence fail, unless they're driving, then the other one generally backs them up and supports them. If something isn't working right, or I'm like, “Jeff, what do you think?” Most of the time, he's encouraging. Then 10% of the time, he'll just tease me. It’s that laughter and that ability to laugh at each other and with each other, that is a strength and a testimony to our relationship, for sure.
[0:30:45] BW: Yeah, absolutely. Jeff, is there something that you've brought back from this trip that you use at the club, or in your daily life, some sort of lesson, or approach, or even a mental mindset, perhaps?
[0:30:58] JK: Tons. I think going there on this trip, it was such an outstanding, just reminder how crucial it is to get out into travel. When I'm working with my teenagers, both our sons are about ready to finish college, just imparting to this next generation of leaders how crucial travel is, getting out of your comfort zone, going somewhere, just experience, struggle a little bit, figure it out. What you learn about people and each other and also ourselves, you can't learn that in any classroom. I think as a coach leading and helping my students and my kids realize how important it is to get out there and be encouraged to get out there and to do that.
The second part was, I think, how athletic the people and how much movement the people of Kenya do in their day-to-day life, compared to a lot of us in the US. Just trying to also encourage my athletes to just get more movement in their life, get back on a bike, or walk. Just to be outside and more movement, because it was really stark how sedentary we are compared to the Kenyan people.
[0:32:10] BW: Interesting. Jen, you've got students both at Forge and at Cleveland State, who you work with regularly every day. Have you incorporated any lessons that you've brought back with you?
[0:32:21] JO: For me, this was born out of the pandemic, too. We have to develop leaders. We have to develop leaders in any and everything we do. I would say, that we are in a leadership crisis. When I came back to Cleveland State, they were extremely interested and actually listened to me talk about photographs, which A, that blew me away. I challenged them. Hey, can you create some videos to help support? One day, we just took some time and they created little videos of doing exercises and games that don't require equipment, that were easy to implement.
Connecting our teams to these effort builds that empathy and understanding and reduces that anxiety that we put on ourselves as competitive athletes. This is why having para and other levels of competition in a club are so important, because your perspective can get so narrow hyper-focused and just create anxiety that when you have an experience, like what we've just gone through, you realize, that's not necessary. It's just not necessary.
As coaches and a sport leaders, we have to find ways to let that be released. Just take a little pen brick and let that out. We're still learning as coaches how to do this, but this is one way, gratitude, building empathy, the Do Good organization with the team leaders working nationally together on various projects. That means we're heading in the right direction.
[0:34:01] BW: Yeah, we're seeing encouraging signs within the fencing community, but definitely some ways to go for sure. It's great having role models like the two of you out there leading the way. I think I'll just sum up by saying, thank you for all that you have done for fencing and for sharing some of your story today. I hope it's okay if I say, if people see you at a NAC and want to know more, they can also stop you and ask you questions. Fencing isn't just about what happens on the strip, right? It's about the people and the community and the possibilities that it can bring to a place.
I just really am grateful for both of you. You've been great to me since I started in the sport. Some of my earliest allies in fencing. I appreciate you for that as well. We'll put in the show notes some places where people can get in touch and learn more about these initiatives. Jen and Jeff, thank you so much for joining today.
[0:34:52] JO: Thank you.
[0:34:53] JK: Thanks, Bryan.
[0:34:54] BW: Thanks. See you soon.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:34:56] 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. If you like this podcast, please help us grow and reach more people by leaving us a rating, or review. Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell, and I hope to see you real soon out on the strip. Bye.
[END]