Our guest is foil fencer Sylvie Binder, a recent graduate from Columbia University who had an impressive collegiate career, including being named a first-team All-American three times and winning both the NCAA team championship and the NCAA individual women’s foil title in 2019.
In this episode of First to 15, we're joined by Sylvie Binder, a recent graduate from Columbia University who had an impressive collegiate career, including being named a first-team All-American three times and winning both the NCAA team championship and the NCAA individual women’s foil title in 2019.
She graduated in 2022 and was the Ivy League’s nominee for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award.
As if that didn’t keep her busy enough, Sylvie also graduated with a 3.91 GPA, coached fencing at a local middle school and participated in a panel of elite female fencers to discuss mental health.
EPISODE 12
[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: Today's guest is foil fencer, Sylvie Binder, a recent graduate from Columbia University, who had an impressive collegiate career, including being named the first Team All-American three times and winning both the NCAA team championship and the individual women's foil title in 2019. If that didn't keep her busy enough, Sylvie also graduated with a 3.91 GPA, coached fencing at a local middle school, and participated in a panel of elite female fencers to discuss mental health. So we're going to get into all those topics and more on today's episode. Welcome to the podcast, Sylvie.
[00:01:12] SB: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here and to share what I can with others.
[00:01:17] BW: Yeah. This is great. Now, I always like to know, for the fencers who were successful at the collegiate level and beyond, how they got started in fencing. So before we get into all the great stuff you did at Columbia, what was kind of your origin story in fencing?
[00:01:32] SB: Yeah. So I think that every fencer has their unique origin story, but it kind of all begins the same way. It's that I was six years old or seven years old, and one of my parents introduced me to the sport that would change my life, right? So thanks to my dad for that. But, yeah, I was six years old. We were on a family camping trip, and I was playing with sticks in the woods, believe it or not, and one of our family friends approached my dad, and he had been fencing recreationally as an adult. He said, “Sylvie looks competent. She should try out fencing.”
[00:02:11] BW: Just from the sticks they could tell that.
[00:02:13] SB: I mean, I was a left-handed six-year-old, playing with sticks in the woods, holding my own against the boys. So, I mean, there was definitely something to it to the comment, and the rest is history. I went to the Fencing Academy of Westchester and got picked up right away by Oleg Brusilovsky, my coach for four years after that point. Thanks to him and my dad, I started fencing.
[00:02:40] BW: Then when did you realize that you were actually pretty good at this, that once they take the stick out of your hand and put a foil in your hand, that this was something that you had some success in?
[00:02:51] SB: I was fencing foil without competing, until I was 10 years old. Obviously, at the time, I had no idea of what that would mean for my fencing development. But I think the coaches and my parents saw in me somewhat timidness, a shyness. For me, what I read now is perfectionism. I think that if I would have been put in competition earlier, it would not have been good for me. I wasn't ready.
So I never fenced Y8. I started when I was 10 on the tail end of Y10 and continued on. But I think I realized that I was good at it when I started competing at 10 years old. I fenced a bunch of like local mixed events. Some are RYCs, SYCs, although, actually, I don't think there were RYCs at the time that was pretty RYC. Yeah. I started seeing success at that level in the youth circuit, and that's what I kind of knew.
[00:03:47] BW: That's interesting to think about like when is the right time to start competing when you do start at a young age? It kind of reminds me of that King Richard movie about the Williams sisters, that there was a storyline in there with the same thing, like when do we put them into real competition. For you, it seems like the right decision was made, and then we should say you won the 2012 Y12 National Championships. So that was a good way to know that against the best of your age group, you were pretty competitive. So do you remember that moment and how it felt?
[00:04:19] SB: Yeah. I remember the moment of winning the Y12 National Championships like it was yesterday. I felt at the time like it was the pinnacle achievement of my life. At that point, I think it was. There's an amazing photo of me just like almost in tears, so happy after I won the last 5-4 bout against my soon-to-be teammate at Columbia, Rachel Zhang. I felt that it was a moment that I could never live up to again. Clearly, I did again later on, maybe a few times.
But, yeah, I think that every fencer remembers their like big wins, even if they don't remember some other parts. Like, for example, I don't remember what the action was, but I remember the feeling afterwards.
[00:05:06] BW: That's great. Yeah. That'll stay with you. I mean, clearly it has. So at some point, you had to decide, “I'm going to keep this going in college,” which is a big step and a big hurdle, I would imagine, to say this is going to be part of my life for another four years after high school. So what was behind that decision, and then how did you end up at Columbia?
[00:05:26] SB: I think that once I made my first Cadet World Team in 2015, I was a little sought after by colleges and, obviously, nothing formal could happen with recruiting at that point. But the college coaches, they go to Junior Worlds, they go to Cadet Worlds, and you're interacting with them very informally, and you're meeting people.
So I think at that point in 2015, I kind of knew that I would be fencing in college. Even prior to that, I fenced a few fencing camps over the summer, sleep away camps, one at Princeton. I did a few years at Cornell, a year at Penn. I highly recommend for kids that are interested in fencing in college. You meet the coaches, and you get to stay in the dorms. It was a big deal for me who never went to sleep away camp because I was fencing over the summer. I was at nationals and then at fencing camps. So it was like a cool hybrid way of going to sleep away camp for four nights and then also fencing.
[00:06:26] BW: So you're saying that it's important to get on the radar, not just with what you do at tournaments, but also all the other ways that you show that you're developing in the sport? Is that kind of the message there?
[00:06:36] SB: Yeah. I think that it's a good idea. I mean, if you're thinking about strategic ways to get on the radar, unless you are winning World Championships, you're not really – Like how else are you supposed to get people's attention? I think it's a really great idea to interface with the coaches, especially if they're giving you the opportunity through a camp. I know that my alma mater, Columbia, Mike Aufrichtig does a lot of outreach in clubs. So if you see that a college coach is going into your club, definitely go to the camp and see what you can learn from them, first of all, because maybe you can learn something really valuable. Secondly, and get your name out there, for sure.
[00:07:18] BW: Yeah, absolutely. So what was it about Colombia that was the right fit and made you say, “This is where I need to be.”?
[00:07:26] SB: Yeah. I love Columbia. I wasn't sure that I was going to love Columbia going into college, but I knew that it was the right place for me for fencing and for academic reasons. I grew up in Westchester County, New York, so only a 45-minute train ride from Columbia's campus. I didn't spend a ton of time in the city growing up, so it still felt really new and different. But I was still within that radius to my family who are extremely important to me, that it was the right place. Academic rigor goes without saying. I also considered Princeton. I thought the campus was beautiful, and the fencing team was excellent. But I wanted to stay around New York City to be with my then coach Slava Grigoriev.
[00:08:10] BW: So when you show up and you're on the college team, I know that student athletes get like perks. Are you given like some swag, some team gear? What are the perks like in college? As someone who wasn't a college athlete myself, this always interests me.
[00:08:25] SB: It’s funny because I think it varies like by every single school, every single fencing school, for – I can only speak to Columbia. At the beginning of your freshman year, you show up. You're super excited. They give you – They, as in Mike Aufrichtig, gives you last year's leftovers for a panel until the rest comes in. Then when the rest comes in, the rest being like t-shirts, long sleeve shirts, pants, sweat pants, fullwarm-up gear, new fencing whites, if you need them, a new lamé, a new mask, a new glove. Literally, anything that I needed to perform at my best or that anybody on the team needed to perform at their best, Mike wanted to provide that if possible.
It was, I'm sure, a lot easier for me to justify these asks because I was performing very highly. But even those on the team who were mostly training partners or if they were walking on but then performing really highly, he wanted to make sure that they had what they needed. That's all funded by our kind of giving day activities. So we as a team do outreach to our networks, our friends, our families, our alums, which I hope to get called this year by somebody on the fencing team.
[00:09:46] BW: Oh, that'd be great, kind of the full circle experience. Yeah.
[00:09:49] SB: Yeah. It'll be great. But, yeah, it's all funded by alumni and by donors who value what we did. So thank you to them for all the swag. But, yeah, it’s exciting going into college and having all of this new equipment at your disposal. It really unlocks a lot of, yeah, opportunity for a young fencer.
[00:10:11] BW: Absolutely. If somebody who's at Columbia now is listening, be sure to hit up Sylvie for when it comes time for giving day, right?
[00:10:18] SB: It’s funny because I don't know if other universities do this. But the alums on the Columbia fencing team love to be difficult about giving money to the fencing team. So normally, it's like, “Would you please give this year,” and you know they will. But they'll say, “I want a poem in my honor, and I want you to post it on Facebook.” Then that's what I literally did last year to an alum. I wrote a haiku for him. So it’s fun.
[00:10:47] BW: So you’ve been on that side of it as well. That’s awesome.
[00:10:49] SB: Yeah.
[00:10:50] BW: So what's the training schedule like? Obviously, as we said at the top of the show, your experience at Columbia was way beyond just fencing, and you were so involved. So how did you have time for it all? What was kind of a “typical” week maybe like for you on the team and as a student athlete?
[00:11:06] SB: Sure, yeah. So there were kind of two times for me on the fencing team. The first would be my freshman, sophomore, and junior years up until COVID, so like mid-2020, and then post-COVID. So I'll talk about kind of like a day to day pre-COVID. I would lift in the mornings with the team two times, three times a week, depending on the week. Go to practices three times a week from Columbia. I had the option of going to outside practices throughout New York City at Fencers Club or Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club or New York Athletic Club, depending on where the action was that day.
I would take private lessons with my coach, who would, luckily for me, drive in from Westchester and give me lessons two or three times a week. I had to mix that in with all of my classes. So I had to really be strategic about the classes that I was going to take. But luckily, I had upperclassmen on the team that helped me figure out how to make a schedule because we didn't have like set time periods for practice by the university. Sometimes, colleges will do that. Like I know Princeton has like sometime in the afternoon where there are no classes, and it's time for extracurriculars. Columbia didn't have that, so it was a little more your own adventure.
[00:12:28] BW: Sure, yeah. You have to be a self-motivator and have that drive and that passion.
[00:12:33] SB: Definitely. Luckily, for me, I love scheduling, and I was able to make it work. That's just how my brain works. But I know that it's not an easy thing to structure your time as heavily as I did. But being an athlete, you learn that, and people say that all the time. You learn structure, and you get your work done when you have more things to do. I really found that to be the case.
[00:12:58] BW: So can we talk about the tournament structure at the college level? This is something that I don't fully understand myself, and I know that those of us who are maybe more familiar with the local, regional, and then the USA Fencing National tournaments are familiar with those. But how does the collegiate tournament differ?
[00:13:15] SB: Yeah. So college tournaments are centered around five touch bouts, which is different from any other circuit because you only fence five touch bouts in pool rounds at, say, an SYC or NAC or a World Cup. So at a typical college meet, you'll have a few schools there, and you fence five touch bouts, and each five touch bout counts as a point for your college.
So let's say Columbia was fencing Harvard. I won about 5-4, and then my teammate wins about 5-0. Even though I won by just a little bit, and she won by a landslide, they both count for one point for Columbia. So a win is a win is a win in college fencing, whereas in other extra collegiate levels, indicator really does matter.
[00:14:10] BW: Right. Yeah. An indicator is how much you win those pool bouts by, right? For those who are unfamiliar with that term. No, for sure. That's interesting. It's almost like tennis, right? With sets in tennis, you can win 6-0 or 7-6, and it still counts as one set.
[00:14:25] SB: Yeah. Tennis is really fresh on everyone's mind right now. I'm watching the US Open as well. But it's very similar to tennis in that way. The one exception that I'll say in the college circuit is at the NCAA championships. So every point is a bout, just as I said before. But in order to win an individual NCAA title, you need to take into account your indicator.
For example, this year in 2022, there were, I think, four women who each won 17 out of 21 or 22 bouts, myself one of them. But only one of us was able to advance to the top four because of indicator. So the top four have a chance to become the individual NCAA champion. So indicator did end up mattering in that situation. But normally, it goes down to a number of bouts one.
[00:15:20] BW: Yeah. As we said at the beginning, you would definitely know, right? Because you in 2019 were that individual national champion, and then the team won a team championship that year as well. So what was the feeling in the room like there? I believe that tournament was at Penn State. So like take us to that. Take us to State College and what the team was experiencing in that moment.
[00:15:44] SB: The NCAAs at Penn State was actually my freshman year in 2018. But in 2019, we were in Cleveland State or something along those lines, and that's one Columbia one. So in 2019, we knew that Columbia had won the team championship by the time that I was fencing for my individual title. So there was a ton of pressure off of my shoulders. Throughout the whole competition, I really was only fencing for the sake of the team. I was only a sophomore. I was hoping to make the top four again like I had my freshman year.
But when you're in a college environment and you have your entire team bus or drive or fly out to Cleveland, you really only want to not let them down. So that's what I what was on my mind the whole time, was fencing each bout and trying to get a point for my team. But after that was done and the whole team kind of felt a sigh of relief, they redirected all of their energy, that nervous energy, into just your excitement. So every touch that I scored in the semifinals and finals was just directed at me and invigorated me so much. So it was really a pleasure to fence in those semifinals and finals, just because I knew that like I would be walking away with something like immeasurably important already. Then it was just the cherry on top that I could bring home the individual title.
[00:17:12] BW: Yeah. That's so cool. That seems – I mean, yes, we have teams. Then at world events countries are rooting for their teammates. But it seems like the college fencing atmosphere just has that special something that you've been working together for. In some cases, four years if you're a senior, right? It just seems like it has that special energy to it that is just what you described. It seems awesome.
[00:17:37] SB: Yeah. College fencing is extremely unique in its team element. I probably will never experience kind of that team camaraderie like I did on the Columbia fencing team. If you think of fencing as an individual sport, which it is, it's not on the college level is what I'll say. College is really the only exception to that, where you really have to lean on others, in addition to perform on your own.
[00:18:04] BW: Interesting. Yeah. Just the way you described it as these really short bouts that ultimately count for a single point. You've got to have a really strong team. You can't just rely on an individual person, even at these meets.
So switching gears a little bit, you graduated this year, 2022. But the honors for your college career didn't end. Each college conference gets to nominate student athletes for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Not only were you the Ivy League's nominee, but you were also the only fencer on that list of nominees. So what did that mean to you?
[00:18:38] SB: The NCAA Woman of the Year Award is something that wasn't on my radar when I graduated, but I knew that my former teammate, Iman Blow, was a nominee. I know that Stefani Deschner, who fenced for Notre Dame, was also a nominee. So I knew it existed. It was only when I looked into it after somebody at Columbia Athletics told me that I was to be nominated that I realized what it really meant.
For example, it recognizes me not only for my athletic achievements but for the legacy that I leave on the team and my kind of footprint on campus overall. So I was really humbled by it. Obviously, for people who don't know, I don't know if I explained this yet. I took a gap year during COVID, so I could fence after maybe – I would be able to go and fence in person again and go to school in person again but also for my mental health. The fact that I was able to come back, perform well, and then be nominated by my university as leader was incredible and really validating. So, yeah, it was an amazing, amazing announcement. My whole family is so happy. My friends are super happy. I'm happy.
[00:19:56] BW: Yeah, of course. The ways that you've given back don't just include Colombia and your time there. But also, you've given back to kind of the fencing community. I have a specific example. You mentioned Iman Blow, who was your teammate at Columbia. In May, you were part of a panel discussing mental challenges and successes that you and the other women on the panel encountered in college.
Now, I know that discussion was an hour-long, and I believe Iman has posted a video of it online. But I'm wondering if you can summarize a key takeaway that you'd maybe want future college mentors to know about how they might manage the stresses of being a student athlete.
[00:20:34] SB: Yeah. I can definitely say a key takeaway, and I feel very strongly that mental health, especially when you're a fencer, is a practice, and it's not something that you can just check off. I had to learn that over time because mental health fluctuates. Say, for example, you're traveling to a competition. Your mental health and what you need is different from a day that you're experiencing a hard practice or a day that you're taking off, and you need to totally rest your mind and your body.
This this whole mental health journey and practice doesn't have to be approached or tackled alone. But each person around you at practice, including your coach, including your teammates, your parents, your friends, your family, they should be a part of it. Everybody is experiencing fencing and the mental challenges of fencing in their own way, and it's important to share it.
So like I mentioned, I was experiencing mental challenges going into the 2020 Olympic trials. I was trying to power through it. I fenced very well in a tournament in Poland, a World Cup where I got top 16. At which point I realized that I was in a far reach but a contention for the Olympic team. At which point I just experienced like crippling anxiety and had to deal with that at a few more competitions before the world shut down. While COVID is still a horrible, horrible thing, that goes without saying, that break for me was a way for me to stop a spiraling momentum. I highly recommend, for those who are feeling the starts of overwhelming anxiety or even, say, depression, to make sure that you're integrating mental health care into your practice routine.
So Iman has some great recommendations on her Instagram page. There are tons of mental health resources out there. I'm no expert, but I know that, in my case, mental health has been a practice and something that has to be worked on.
[00:22:47] BW: Yeah. I think it's brave that you're willing to share those personal moments as well. That'll help a lot of people understand that they really aren't alone. Like you said, it's something that everybody is dealing with. Some maybe more privately than others, which is their choice, for sure.
[00:23:01] SB: Yeah, definitely. I'm going to be pretty public about my challenges with my mental health. But that's just because I felt when I was at my lowest that I was somewhat on my own. But after speaking to so many of my like fellow athletes, I've realized that we all are experiencing a similar thing, and we're each learning our limits.
I think that's important to recognize too that each athlete has their own physical limits, like not everybody can do splits. But everybody also has their mental limits too, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. Yeah. That's what I'm learning.
[00:23:43] BW: Totally. So final question before we let you go, what's next for you in life, in fencing, and whatever you'd like to share?
[00:23:50] SB: Yeah. So I graduated in May. Right now, I'm working in clean energy at a company that I'm really feeling empowered by. Essentially, what we're doing is helping buildings in New York and in the US more broadly reduce their carbon emissions. It's really interesting work. It's stimulating my mind, and I get to go to pretty cool buildings around New York City.
As far as fencing goes, I'm not sure yet. Right now, I'm trying to work on the equilibrium of my work life. But if there's one thing for certain, I'll be at the Columbia meets in New York City and cheering on my little brother, Zach, who's a sophomore at Columbia. So I'll definitely still be around.
[00:24:36] BW: That's great. We love to hear that, and there's another great fencing family, right? There's quite a few out there, which is so awesome to see. Well, Sylvie Binder, thanks so much for being our guest, and best of luck to you going forward.
[00:24:48] SB: Thank you so much. My pleasure.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:24:51] 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.
[END]