Our guest today is Laura Decker, one of the top fencing referees in the country and regularly chosen to officiate at the highest levels of national and international competition.
In this episode of First to 15, we're joined by Laura Decker, one of the top fencing referees in the country and regularly chosen to officiate at the highest levels of national and international competition.
She was recently the lone American referee at the 2022 Fencing World Championships in Cairo, Egypt.
Laura graduated from Caltech, where she was the first female fencer from that school to qualify for the NCAA Championships. She still competes in saber alongside her role as one of the world’s most respected officials.
In this episode, we asked Laura how she became a referee, how she keeps her officiating skills sharp and the "feedback" she gets from coaches and fencers while refereeing.
EPISODE 14
[INTRO]
[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 the 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. So whether you're an Olympian or a 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]
[00:00:40] BW: Our guest today is Laura Decker, one of the top fencing referees in the country and regularly chosen to officiate at the highest levels of national and international competition. Laura was recently the lone American referee at the 2022 Fencing World Championships in Cairo, Egypt. Laura graduated from Caltech where she was the first female fencer from that school to qualify for the NCAA championships, and she still competes in sabre, alongside her role, as we said, as one of the world's most respected officials. So welcome to the podcast, Laura.
[00:01:11] LD: Hi, Bryan. Glad to be here.
[00:01:13] BW: Yeah. Thanks so much. So one question that is kind of silly, but I really am seriously curious just to kind of get it out of the way at the start is, why are referees dressed so nicely in fencing? Because when you compare fencing referees to officials in other sports, the attire game is very strong.
[00:01:32] LD: It is a little different than you see in a lot of officials for other sports. I think part of fencing or what shows up in fencing a lot is different traditions. So for example, fencers still wear white uniforms, even though the rules have kind of changed, and you're allowed to wear other colors. I think it's just traditionally how they've already always dressed when you're refereeing. I'm not sure why that started.
Personally, I like it. I know there are some referees who dislike dressing up. I think that a lot of the international competitions have finals venues, where dressing in a suit and dressing professionally kind of adds to the effect. Also, I think it goes a long way to helping develop a rapport, particularly when you're new with the spectators, the coaches, the fencers. Like as a fencer or a coach, if I see a group of referees and I don't know any of them, if one person is dressed up very sharply and coordinated and looks nice, and somebody else is in a wrinkled suit that doesn't really quite fit and they’re wearing sneakers, I know which referee I want to walk over to my strip.
So I think as a referee, it's one of the easiest things that you can do to help kind of give yourself a step up when you're starting. It’s just to make sure that you look smart and professional when you're walking over to a strip.
[00:02:48] BW: Yeah. That's really well said, and I think the effect works too because the referees do look sharp and then act that way as well when they're out there. So let's talk about your own story a little bit. Even before you were a ref, how did you get involved in fencing? What drew you to the sport?
[00:03:04] LD: Well, I actually started a little later in life than a lot of people. I went to Caltech, and they had an NCAA team while I was there. It’s a very rigorous academic school. They don't really do recruitment for athletics. So I showed up, and you had a gym requirement for graduation. So I signed up for the beginning fencing class because it was something I had been interested in doing. My roommate actually was on the fencing team, so I showed up to the beginning fencing class and tried it out. I was there for like one day, not even. They were like, “Hey, you did a pretty good job. Did you like it?” I said, “Yeah. I think it was fun. I really enjoyed it.” They said, “Great. Come to practice tonight.”
So I know that's a little later in life than a lot of higher level fencers typically get involved, but I was able to, fortunately, with the program, jump in and get a great head start to it.
[00:03:55] BW: Yeah. That’s awesome. Do you remember at Caltech your opinion of referees at the time? Did you ever think you'd become one? Were you ever frustrated by a call from one? What do you remember from that time?
[00:04:09] LD: I think I didn't really have a great basis of understanding of the work it took to referee or what it really meant to be a referee. Honestly, I probably didn't really deal with it the greatest as a fencer, as a competitor. I had a lot of problems in bouts myself. Really, most of it was on me. Like I think it was a mental thing for me, where I'd get in situations where I didn't know if it was the referee who made a mistake or whether I was wrong in what I thought. Not knowing that really put a lot of stress in my fencing.
So it wasn't so much like if the referee made a mistake, and I knew they made a mistake. It was fine. But if it hit a point where it's like I think I'm right, but I don't know if I'm right, I think they're wrong, it ended up impacting my fencing a lot of the times. So it was actually one of the reasons I started refereeing was because I wanted to try to help my fencing so that I would handle the situations better.
[00:05:01] BW: Yeah. I was actually going to ask you that next when you made that switch. It sounds like even before you did, you already had kind of a fascination with the rules because fencing has a lot of very specific and some might say initially difficult to understand rules. How did that fit in your decision to start refereeing? Like what was behind that call?
[00:05:22] LD: Yeah. There was kind of two reasons. One of them, I was just talking about that I felt like I wanted to have the best understanding I could for when I was fencing, and I wanted to be able to understand what was going on and know how to deal with different situations. I thought that it would really aid me in my competitive fencing. Another big part of it was, as I mentioned before, I started fencing in college. So I wasn't living with my parents anymore. It was a new hobby I picked up, and my parents were supportive but supportive in the sense of, “Great. If you find a way to do it, fantastic. We hope you do well.”
So refereeing was a great way for me to help get to different competitions. So locally, I could referee the event, except for where I was when I was fencing. They would let me fence for free, and I'd get some money. Nationally, I started refereeing because I really wanted to be able to compete at all of the NACs. As a college student, I couldn't afford to pay to fly and stay there the whole time. So when I first started, I walked on, just to meet everybody and have everybody see me. But then it quickly became a way where I could subsidize my costs for traveling to events, and that was primarily the biggest motivation for me refereeing at the beginning.
[00:06:37] BW: Sure. So that actually brings up an interesting question that some people might not know. It is possible to both fence and referee at a national tournament then. You can make that schedule work.
[00:06:49] LD: Yeah. When I first started, it was not very easy. But I think in the last few years, they've made it much more accessible to fencers, which I think is really great. You have to find a balance. So for me, it was always important to make sure that I wasn't tired for fencing, which some events is easier than others. If you're looking at doing it, I highly recommend making sure that you only split a day between refereeing and fencing. If you're refereeing after you're done fencing, sometimes you have an afternoon event. So in those situations, I would not referee at all in the morning.
But it definitely takes out a big chunk of like it covers your flight, and you only have to pay for your hotel the day you're fencing. So it makes a pretty big difference if you're looking for a way to fund that way.
[00:07:33] BW: Sure, yeah. That's great advice. So I know you're rated in foil and sabre, rated very well. Do most referees have multiple weapons that they can officiate? Or do you see more specialization for just a single weapon?
[00:07:47] LD: I think it depends on where you're refereeing. Within the US, pretty much everywhere. Everybody has to do multiple weapons. Practically, it doesn't make sense for an organizer, unless it's very, very local, to hire you if you can only work one weapon, if they're paying to fly you somewhere or they're paying to put you in a hotel. So at a local and regional and national level, really, you have to referee more than one weapon.
Depending on the event, you might end up only working one. But it's much more appealing to somebody who's looking to hire you if you have more ratings, and that's, especially, if you're a newer referee, and people don't know you yet. If somebody's trying to hire you, they're going to be more likely to hire you if you're rated in more than one weapon than if you show up, and they look at the list, and they're like, “I have no clue who this person is. They can only do this one weapon. They're not even rated that high. How can I use them in this event?”
Internationally, it's a little different. They require you to have two licenses to referee at World Championships. For the most part, if you're doing any of the zonal championships that are the longer events that have all three weapons at once and lasts about a week, they want everybody to have more than one weapon because it helps staff the different events. But most of the time in any of the World Cups, you're only working in one weapon. Even at those zonal and championship events, they tend to use you mostly for one weapon and maybe for pools or their early rounds in your second weapon.
[00:09:15] BW: Okay, that's really interesting. So to get those ratings and look appealing to someone who's doing the hiring, you need to practice, I imagine, right, just like when you're a fencer. Laura, how do you practice your refereeing and keep your skills sharp?
[00:09:33] LD: I think there are actually a lot of parallels between developing as a referee and developing as a fencer. So a lot of the same steps that you would be taking, especially, I think most of the people who are interested in refereeing have also been doing some fencing. So if you think back to how you developed as a fencer, the first thing you do is you start in the club. You start taking lessons. You don't really know anything. You're practicing, and you kind of build up from there going to gradually bigger and bigger competition.
As a referee, I find the best advice I can give is it's really mostly the same. The most important thing is like start at the club. Start in practice. If you're refereeing in your primary weapon that you fenced, that's pretty easy. You probably already do that at practice normally. When I started refereeing foil more, I took the time to make sure that I was at the club and refereeing foil at the club. I took a couple of foil lessons, just because I think it's very important to have a grounding of the fencing that's happening. Foil and saber have a lot of similarities. But also, there are some things that are different. So I think, really, as you're developing and training as a referee, you want to think of it kind of in steps and make sure that you're working your way up.
Personally, I think the open access of video right now on YouTube for pretty much all the major events is really great because you can see a lot of high level fencing if you're in an area where that doesn't exist. But I think it's also important to get into a club and get actual hands-on practice doing it as well.
[00:11:00] BW: Yeah. That makes sense because standing by the strip in real life is probably a little different from rewinding and rewatching videos on YouTube, although there’s value.
[00:11:08] LD: Yeah. It is very different. There is definitely value. I think it's very important to watch videos, but I think that it's also very important to make sure you get on strip time with actual fencers.
[00:11:18] BW: Yeah. Even things like where you stand and how you're moving with the movement of the fencers. I mean, all those things. I know there's a lot of thought that goes into it to make it look so seamless. I just find it all very fascinating.
[00:11:29] LD: It takes a lot of practice.
[00:11:30] BW: Of course, yeah. So you talk about the different levels. What was the jump from domestic tournaments to international tournaments like for you? How did you make that jump? Because to me, at least, it seems like that's a pretty big step up that not everybody is prepared to make.
[00:11:48] LD: Yeah. It can be a little challenging. Usually, they aren't selecting people to go to international events, until they've had a reasonable amount of experience domestically. So that helps because you're not going to wind up in too many situations when you start doing international stuff that won't have happened already at a domestic level.
I think it's also good for a lot of the first kind of level of international events are these cadet European events that start happening. It's true for the fencers too. Most of the fencers start doing their first international events at these cadet ones. So they normally have a larger group of referees who go, anywhere from like three to five or six. So typically, there's usually one more experienced referee who travels with them, and that is also very helpful because you can have a mentor there who can give you feedback and advice and everything like that.
[00:12:41] BW: Right. Yeah. At some point, then you get the big call to like Senior Worlds. Can we talk about what it felt like to actually be there, refereeing at fencing’s biggest event in the world? Because I saw you out there, and you looked confident and did an awesome job. But it's like I'm thinking I would be so nervous in that situation. So like what were you feeling? What was that like? Or did it really truly just feel like you were at a NAC?
[00:13:09] LD: It was definitely a different experience. I think there's an innate amount of pressure and stress at any kind of competition like that. Not just for the referees, but also for the coaches, for the fencers, even the fencers who are very experienced and have been there countless times. At the end of the day, championships is their big event. The only other bigger event is the Olympics. So I think there's always a certain level of stress.
That being said, I think also as a referee, you kind of develop. So that was my first Senior World Championships. I thought it was pretty stressful. I'm glad I looked calm. But in the same breath, like the first time I showed up at a competition to referee, that was very stressful for me then. Now, if I go to a local one, it's not so stressful. The first NAC I refereed at, I was very stressed out.
So really, a lot of refereeing is about that repetition and getting yourself into those situations repeatedly over time so that the first time you show up somewhere, it will feel very stressful. You'll feel a little uncomfortable. But the more times you do it, the better you get at coping with and dealing with that stress. So that when you get to a bigger competition and it's stressful, you're already experienced with dealing with it, and you know how to process it and kind of make sure you stay calm in the situation while you're working.
[00:14:23] BW: Yeah. There are some exterior factors that are going to change no matter how calm and prepared you might feel, and one of those is the feedback that you get from coaches, from spectators, from the fencers themselves, if they disagree with a call. So how do you approach that feedback? I'm using that term in quotes here from people who are watching you officiate about.
[00:14:48] LD: Yeah. The feedback can definitely get heated, if you will choose the word feedback. I think it's a very difficult topic to address because everybody kind of has to come up with their own coping mechanisms for it. For me, thankfully, I think it's true also kind of across the board. A lot of these venues and competitions are quite loud. There's a lot of noise going on. So sometimes, when you watch from the outside of the bout, you see a lot of things, and you hear a lot of things, and you think, “Oh, my gosh. How is that referee handling that?” You talk to the referee after, and they're like, “Oh, that person said what? Like you didn't even notice? What was going on?” Obviously –
[00:15:27] BW: They’re in the zone.
[00:15:28] LD: Yeah. Well, you’re in the zone also. As a referee, you have to focus on the fencers. If there’s a coach standing on the strip, you're going to get feedback from them. You're not really going to be able to miss that. But spectators behind you or stuff like that, you don't always notice. Sometimes, you do. But I think the tricky thing is that you can't often deal with that feedback in the moment.
So a lot of the processing of that happens after the bout, where as a referee, if the bout ends noisy or if a bout is noisy while it's going on, when it's done, it's kind of thinking about, “Well, do I think I was right about that call? Do I think I messed that call up? Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. Could I have done anything differently that would have kept the bout from getting loud like that? Should I have said something earlier? Could I have said something differently then?” But all of that kind of has to happen after.
So in the moment, you have to be able to let go of the feedback that you can't ignore. Like if a fencer is coming off the strip and talking to you or if a coach makes some big like, “No, how did you do that,” and like that kind of stuff. I think, for me, I know the amount of work that I put into to be good at refereeing. I know the amount of practice I've done. So I kind of got to a point after doing it for so long that I have that faith in the work that I've done that I can only make the best call that I can in a situation. If it ends up being wrong, it's wrong. But I know I've put in enough work that even if I make one mistake, I won't make more. That has where I've fallen into for being able to handle those kinds of stressful situations and environments.
[00:17:06] BW: Yeah, absolutely. We should say that for calls where there is that disagreement from a fencer or even their coach, you can also look at the video replay. I'd love to hear your take on video replay, this relatively new, when you look at the full history of fencing, development that allows a fencer to, I guess, we'd say challenge a call and have the referee, you, take another look at it. What do you like about it? Are there some areas that it could be improved?
[00:17:35] LD: Yeah. I think video replay has definitely helped fencing take a big step forward. I'm actually kind of unique because in the timing of when I first started working at national events, it was like the first event they bought video replay to. So I obviously have experienced at local events without video. Now, a lot of the junior international events and stuff like that don't have video. But video replay has kind of been around since I was developing as a referee. So I think it has positives and negatives.
I think overall, for the fencers and coaches, it's very positive because you'll often see situations where they're very, very upset about a call, and they ask for a video. But at least once the referees go back to video and they look at it, the fencer and coach has a second to calm down. Maybe they think about it a little more and realize maybe they're wrong. So not all the time but most of the time when people come back, whether they change the call or they don't, it kind of diffuses situations.
I think it's also good for referees as well because you can make sure you're making the right call. That's always good. I think it also helps with development. Because I know that when I started refereeing, I was able to get the chance to referee bouts that if there was no video, they might have been a little more concerned about putting me in. But instead, they'd assigned me to the event, and I'd have a stronger referee on video. So in case anything happened, the bout didn't get flipped. The correct fencer still wins, and everything is correct. So I think it goes a long way to getting people more bouts earlier to help accelerate that kind of referee development.
[00:19:09] BW: Yeah. That's a great point that I hadn't thought about. I got to say, the bouts that I have seen at our national events that have video – I mean, this is a totally unofficial statistic. I'd love to see the real statistics. But I got to say it's more than 90% the calls are upheld. Does that match with what you've seen? In other words, I'm saying the referees are getting it right most of the time without the video.
[00:19:31] LD: Yeah. I think since the videos are used in the later rounds, you'd like to think that the referees who were roughing in that round would be getting most of them right. I don’t know any statistics, but I think most of the time referees at that level are not making that many mistakes. So if they change a call, they're only really going to be changing one, maybe two. Obviously, you have outliers where there's a bout that has several changes. But I think for the most part at that level, you only end up with one or two changes in a bout.
[00:20:00] BW: So, Laura, you mentioned the ideal steps that a referee takes, starting at their club, just the refereeing that every fencer does with their friends at the club. But can we talk about how someone might assess their own skills and mindset to see whether they might make a good referee, someone who was going to have that staying power?
[00:20:21] LD: Yeah. I think it's a little challenging to come up with like a set of personality traits or mindsets that are mandatory to be a referee. I think, really, the one big thing that you have to be sure about is you have to be comfortable being able to stand there in a bout and say, “On guard. Ready, fence,” and then say what happened. For sure, especially if you're younger and you're fencing, there will be people who are not comfortable in that at all. If you're not comfortable in that, you can't be a referee.
That doesn't mean you couldn't be a referee later. Especially if you're younger, it can be very intimidating. But as you get older and more experienced, suddenly you find it not so intimidating anymore. But I think, really, the primary first thing that you have to be comfortable with is just at practice being able to stand there and referee. I mean, I would say pick the two most difficult fencers. I'm pretty sure everybody's club has those two fences, where when they fence, everybody vanishes, and nobody wants to ref the bout. That's the bout you want to be ready to referee and feel. Maybe not get the calls right. Maybe mess them up a lot. But feel confident enough to stand there and referee that bout. I think that's kind of like the really primary thing.
Outside of that, refereeing is a really hard job, and a lot of the competitions are very long. They're tiring. You get feedback all the time that may or may not be good. So I think the most important thing is that you have to have a reason why you're doing it, and that reason can be very varied. It can be because you really like fencing, and you really like watching fencing, and you think it's a great way to see it. It can be that you want to fence at the NAC and you want to be earning money. The other time, it could be that you have friends, and you haven't seen them in a while, and you want to travel and see them. There's a lot of different reasons, and any of them can be good. But you do have to have a reason why you're refereeing and not just showing up to do whatever.
[00:22:12] BW: So let's say someone listening says, “Yeah. All that interests me. I'm in,” where do they start? I mean, that seems like a basic question. But where's the place to say, “Yeah. I'm ready. I want to give this a try.”?
[00:22:24] LD: So preliminary, make sure you referee at the club first.
[00:22:27] BW: Got it. Got it.
[00:22:27] LD: That's a very big thing. But let's say baseline accepted. You've been refereeing at the club a bunch. You like it. You want to start doing more. The first thing you have to do is you need to take a referee seminar, and those are available around the country. There's quite a few people who hold them. I also know that given COVID, quite a few different people have started doing the seminar over Zoom. So if you're in an area where there's not a lot, that's a great opportunity.
I believe all the seminars are posted on AskFred, under the clinic, things that you can take a look in your region. Or you can do a wider search for a referee seminar. I know there's at least a few on Zoom that if you don't have one near you, you can sign up online and do it. So you have to take the seminar. Then once you take the seminar, you have to pass an online test. Once you pass the online test, then you have to show up at an event and get observed.
So usually, when you're tied to a seminar, often there's an event coupled with it where you can get observed at. Sometimes, there's not. But the people who run the seminars can help connect you with an event where you can be observed and get your rating.
[00:23:32] BW: And then you're in the door. I love it. Now, let's say someone is listening that isn't at all interested in being a referee, but they're a fencer, and they're interested in this world. What would you want to tell them about something they may not have thought about about referees? Or you have a platform to talk to the fencers out there. What would you say?
[00:23:50] LD: I think at the end of the day, it's easy to forget sometimes that referees are just people too. The same way that there's fencers who show up on a strip and have a really bad bout or have a competition where they have a really bad bout, referees are also learning. I think there's very few competitions that fencers show up at that they're not hoping to practice something to learn something to get experience. I think that's true for referees as well. Really, in the vast majority of situations, all a referee wants us to make the right call. Nobody likes making mistakes. Everybody does, but nobody likes it when it happens.
So as a fencer or even as a coach or a spectator, the way you interact and react to those things can really change and shape a bout. As a coach and as a fencer, personally, I think that you can get a lot farther by staying calmer in those types of situations than reacting badly. I speak of that from my fencing experience. I know that anytime I really decided that I was just going to get really angry about calls, I ended up fencing really badly after. Or if you like say something to the referee, and then suddenly the referee starts making more mistakes, like mistakes happen.
So I think the vast majority of the time, the more you can accept that as a fencer and approach it from the idea that, “Oh, this was a mistake, and they will do their best to not have it happen again.” Versus, “This is a mistake. They're screwing me. They're trying to make me lose. They hate me,” like that kind of thing. I think it helps keep the bout better for you as a fencer, just if you kind of approach it more to that everybody's trying to do their job. Nobody really wants to screw it up most of the time, and just kind of approach it like that.
[00:25:39] BW: Yeah. The referees are there to do a job. But also, they have this community too, and that's something that really interests me is the community of referees. When you all get together at a national tournament, it's a chance to see people that you maybe haven't seen in a few months. So what do people need to know about that side that that when referees all unite, there is this camaraderie there that allows this community to thrive and flourish?
[00:26:05] LD: Yeah. The referee group is very much like a family, sometimes a dysfunctional family. But at the end of the day, once you've been in the group for a little while, you show up. You see people. There are some people who you don't like as much. There are some people you really like. But the people who are refereeing with you are really one of the few people who can understand the stress and challenging situations that you wind up in often. So you can talk about it with fencers and coaches. But if they haven't actually refereed themselves, they can only have so much sympathy.
So the group of referees who are there can be kind of your biggest support. When you're new, like if you haven't refereed before, it can feel a little intimidating because you show up to a group, and everybody knows everybody, and you don't know anybody. But for the most part, everybody's really welcoming and excited to see new faces. We want more referees. It makes our job easier. So if you're newer and you feel kind of like overwhelmed, just remember that everybody's kind of been in that point. Everybody was the new person. If you stick with it, you kind of join that family pretty quickly.
[00:27:10] BW: So we should say you were that new person at Senior World. So what was that experience like? Did you feel intimidated by the other referees, or did they welcome you into that family, to use your word?
[00:27:24] LD: I find that my experience internationally is very similar to domestically. I think it's kind of like a personality that develops. It helps that a lot of the referees who are refereeing at Senior Worlds are traveling during the year, refereeing together anyway. So I knew a lot of the referees already who were there. It's people I've worked with before. I was at Junior Worlds in Dubai. A big chunk of the referees who were in Cairo were also in Dubai. So it was nice because I got to meet a few more people who I hadn't met before in foil and in epee, just because I don't do those weapons as often. But they're also just as welcoming as it is domestically.
[00:28:01] BW: That's great to hear. Then what's next for you? What are your kind of goals for your own referee development, I guess, we could say?
[00:28:09] LD: I mean, I think it's important when you're refereeing to always want to be looking for how you're developing. So obviously, I would like to keep refereeing as much as I can. I just moved to San Francisco. Right now, I think over the next year, I'll be refereeing more. So I'm hoping that I'll be able to slot into my schedule more events, just to kind of keep getting that exposure and keep getting that practice. I just kind of want to referee as much as I can.
[00:28:33] BW: Yeah. Is there a path to refereeing at the Olympics? How do you get to that level? Because I imagine someone in your position sees that potential out there, right?
[00:28:45] LD: Yeah. I mean, I try to not think about it too much, to be honest.
[00:28:48] BW: Okay, okay. I hear you.
[00:28:49] LD: I think that there's a lot of things that go into getting selected to referee at the Olympics. In an ideal world, you'd like to think being the best you can be is the only thing, but there's often not a lot of other factors. They need representation from different countries, different zones, different weapons. So really, where I've fallen on it is the only thing I can control is how well I referee. So I just like to focus on continuing getting better and doing well because that's the only thing I can really control for it.
[00:29:18] BW: Yeah, well said. Finally, Laura, do you have some advice that you'd want to give to a current or maybe future referee out there, some parting words for them?
[00:29:27] LD: I think the most important thing is don't be scared to just get out there and work. If you're new, just get out there and get started. If you've been roughing and you feel like you're not satisfied with how you've been roughing, or maybe you've had a bad experience where there was a bad competition or a bad bout, or some coach was not the nicest to you. But really, every competition, every bout you’re in, no matter how big it is, no matter how small it is, is a chance to be getting better.
So you want to just make sure that you're approaching it with like how am I going to get better in this bout and what am I going to do to make sure that I'm improving. I think once you start looking at it like that and focusing on it like that, you'll be surprised at how quickly your refereeing improves.
[00:30:10] BW: That's well said. Well, we'll leave it with that. Thank you to Laura Decker for joining us and for all that you and all the referees and tournament officials out there do to keep fencing strong. Thanks so much.
[00:30:20] LD: Thank you very much.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:30:23] 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 liked 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.
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