In today’s episode, we’re thrilled to be joined by Valerie Asher, chair of USA Fencing’s Veterans Committee and a standout fencer in her own right. Fresh off a silver medal performance in the Veteran Team Women’s Epee event at the 2024 Veteran Fencing World Championships in Dubai, Valerie brings her wealth of experience, insights into veteran fencing, and her passion for growing this important category of the sport. We’ll be talking about her journey in fencing, the magic behind Team USA’s success in Dubai, and how we can continue to recruit and support veteran fencers.
In today’s episode, we’re thrilled to be joined by Valerie Asher, chair of USA Fencing’s Veterans Committee and a standout fencer in her own right. Fresh off a silver medal performance in the Veteran Team Women’s Epee event at the 2024 Veteran Fencing World Championships in Dubai, Valerie brings her wealth of experience, insights into veteran fencing, and her passion for growing this important category of the sport.
We’ll be talking about her journey in fencing, the magic behind Team USA’s success in Dubai, and how we can continue to recruit and support veteran fencers.
[INTRO]
[00:00:01] BW: Hello, and welcome to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. I'm your host, Bryan Wendell. 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: In today's episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Valerie Asher, who is the Chair of the USA Fencing Veterans Committee and a standout fencer in her own right. She's fresh off a silver medal performance in the vet team Women's Epee event at the 20204 Veteran Fencing World Championships in Dubai. Valerie brings a wealth of experience, insights into veteran fencing, and a deep passion for growing this important category of the sport. We're going to talk about all that and more today.
Hey, Val. Welcome.
[00:01:09] VA: Thanks. I'm delighted to be here.
[00:01:10] BW: I've been wanting to chat with you ever since we had some similar conversations in Dubai. I think it'd be helpful, though, for those who don't know your story to chat about how you got involved in fencing in the first place. What's your origin story for joining the sport?
[00:01:26] VA: My origin story, I went to college in 1978, early days of Title IX. The first sport that I ever went out for was crew, and I loved being on a team. I wasn't very good. At the end of my freshman year, it was clear I wasn't going to keep rowing. But I was dating a fencer, and he thought everybody should fence. Everybody should fence. He marched me up to the fencing room as a sophomore walk-on with the legendary Henry Harutunian, who was not particularly happy to have a sophomore of no particular talent show up. But he kept me around, and I fenced junior varsity women's foil for my remaining three years at Yale with a great group of people. Some of whom have gone on to be on teams with me on veteran teams.
I stopped fencing when I went to medical school, and the boyfriend and I stayed pretty good friends. We broke up good friends, part of each other's lives. In 1999, my friend, Ben, my old boyfriend, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His wife is a really incredible woman, wanted everybody who had ever cared about him to be with him in what turned out to be the last months of his life. My mom – my parents had actually been very close to both Ben and his wife, so we spent a lot of time with them. He passed in January of 2000.
Paula was a young widow with three really little kids, and we were all devastated. Ben loved fencing. When he was first diagnosed with brain tumor that eventually killed him, he prepared for major surgery by going back to Yale and fencing with the team. Even though by the time he passed he wasn't fencing, he identified strongly as a fencer and as a Yale fencer. When somebody passes, there's always inevitably donations to here, donations to there. Paula had asked that donations be made to the Brain Research Association. I said, “Paula, you know Ben really loved Yale fencing. Would you mind if I raise some money for the team?”
What I really wanted was I wanted a big plaque because when you go to an Ivy League school, there's all these plaques to people. The fencing room at Yale is beautiful. I wanted this big plaque because I wanted these three little kids to be able to walk into that room and see a big plaque that showed their dad was there, and this was a place that was significant to him. I called the Yale fencing team, their development people, and said, “You've never heard of me. I wasn't a distinguished alum. I'd like to raise some money. If I raise some money, can I have a plaque?” They said, “Sure.”
This was 2000, so they sent me a printout with telephone numbers. We all had dial-up Internet at home, so I'm cold calling people. Everybody's super supportive. The most supportive people was Badger Merritt, who you know probably from that team. Badger’s a year ahead of me. Suddenly, I am completely overwhelmed with the desire to fence again, completely overwhelmed. I'm sitting at my kitchen table in Rockville, Maryland. I look up fencing in the Yellow Pages, and there are two places. One is in Virginia. One is in Maryland. I go to my car, and I get a mapbook because Google Maps doesn't exist.
[00:04:38] BW: I remember those. I remember those.
[00:04:39] VA: I look up where this fencing club is. The one in Maryland is between my two hospitals, and I think just maybe they have something for adults, and maybe it's late enough in the evening that I could go. I cold call, and this voice says, “Hello. DC Fencers Club.” It was the head coach, Janusz Smolenski. My first coach was Armenian, so the accent seemed like – I thought all fencing coaches had accents. Of course, I know much better now. He said, “We have adult beginner class,” and I thought – I don't know why I was very cheap with myself back then. I said, “Oh, I want to take private lessons.” I have no idea. Those words just came out of my mouth. I walked in with my 1980s foil gear, and he looked at me, and he goes, “You are epee fencer now.” I said, “Women fence epee.” I walked and I did.
[00:05:23] BW: He said that just looking at you. He didn't know anything else. He just said you're epee.
[00:05:27] VA: He didn't know, and he also doesn't really like foil very much. I mean, he's good foil coach, but it's really an epee. They still had more foil back then, but it's mostly an epee club with some sabre. He just – again, for a middle-aged person coming back into it, sometimes epee might be a better weapon. But, in fact, epee made sense to me in a way that foil never quite made sense to me. I liked fencing, but I wasn't very good. As I like to say, I walked in in probably February of 2000, and I never walked out.
[00:05:59] BW: Oh, my gosh. That's great. What was it about those phone calls that reignited it? We’re you having these conversations with strangers essentially?
[00:06:08] VA: No. They weren't strangers. They were the people who would overlap with us. These are people who have been teammates. I'm calling people who knew Ben. He was two years ahead of me, so people from classes that overlap with both of us. It's a small community, so the people who – I didn't know we knew each other's names. I can't even tell you. It was this strong and internal compulsion. It wasn't like, “Oh, yes.” It was just like I felt like I needed to do it.
I should also add that I brought Paula and her kids back to Yale when I got the plaque. I got the plaque, and I brought Paul and the kids to the alumni event. Paula and I was friendly with her but not close friends. We became very good friends after her husband's passing. I actually brought her to world championships with me in Slovenia after her kids were old enough and in college, and she had the freedom to travel. But I said, “This really opened up this incredible world to me. You like fencers.” She's always been sort of very positive at fencing, so she came along as part of my cadre in Slovenia.
[00:07:07] BW: Your support crew. That story is just so unbelievable, and it speaks to the power of vet fencing. But I still feel like it's kind of this great secret out in the world. Fencing specifically but also the veteran side of it. When you talk to co-workers or non-fencing friends, how do you describe why fencing is so important to you?
[00:07:33] VA: It's important to keep moving. I mean, I'm always interested. I'm a physician, and I'm always interested how we benefit by activity movement and sports. There's data about open set and closed set sports. You're a runner. That's considered closed set because – you run on the open road, so that's a little bit more open set. But things where you have to make more decisions, so skiing, you have to adapt to the terrain, tennis. Those are open set, and there's a cognitive and a physical benefit. There's a huge benefit that is kind of there to do any sport. This is one that appeals to me that I have some skill in.
It's also about an incredible sense of community. I was never a very group-oriented person. I like – my mom signed me up for Girl Scouts. I don't think I really liked being part of a group. It just wasn't my personality. Like a lot of fencers, we’re all a little bit nerdy, maybe a little bit weird. But when I started fencing, I felt like I had found my people. I just really like them, and I love the fact that it was men and women, that it was intergenerational.
I keep telling people I feel so lucky because at an age when most of us – I'm in my 60s. Most of us, we have our friends. We have the people we went to college with, our neighbors. Maybe our kids went to school with certain people. Most of our friends are plus-minus our age. But I keep making new friends. They’re people who come into the sport, and you end up in some strange location. You're in Uruguay or Dubai. You go out to dinner, and you, “Think this person is so fun. She's so interesting.” Or, “He's so great.”
People who are on the team with us this year, I mean, Lotte Bowie lives in Maryland, but I didn't meet her until she started fencing. We're good friends now. Daryl Taylor, I met him in Stralsund at one of our team event at a world championship and ended up with a group of vets doing Nile cruise in Cairo. I have the people that I've known for many years. But every year, there's a new person that I get to know. Maybe I knew their name. That richness, that social richness, it's fantastic.
[00:09:37] BW: Yes. We saw some of that on display in Dubai at the Vet Fencing Worlds. Team USA had 26 medals which was the most ever. What was it about that particular group of individuals that just clicked so well during that seven-day competition?
[00:09:57] VA: As you know, you've seen my spreadsheet that I obsessively keep. That looks at us over the years, and we're getting stronger and getting better. But I think it's that we really take ourselves seriously as athletes, and we really look for opportunities to train in a serious way that maybe weren't there. I think we use social media. We use our Facebook page to find each other and connect.
This year, we found out at the April NAC that there was going to be a training room for the Olympic team, and that that training room was not fully booked. Actually, Kat Holmes told us. Kat Holmes went out to dinner with a bunch of vets. I contacted Kaitlyn, and Kaitlyn said, “Hey. Yes, I can get you some team time.” Not all squads could use it. But I can tell you, the ones I know best, women's epee and women's foil, used it. We used it to do training for team events because remember for us as veterans, we would love to have the same opportunities that the seniors and the juniors have of training camps. But they're not funded. We're all over the country. Getting us all together in place and then how do you structure it?
We all have enough knowledge now, and Kat kindly came in and really did just an outstanding job of talking about how do you think about team, and what are some drills that you can do. I think to have – everybody who did the team event with me in Dubai had been in that training camp. Cat had sent us notes about the different roles in team. We sent those notes back to our group chat the morning of team, just so we would have that common vocabulary. I think that we are more sophisticated in our ability to build training opportunities for ourselves as community in a way that we didn't do 10 years ago.
[00:11:46] BW: Let's dive into that a little bit more, the support. Obviously, we wish that there was more funding for vet fencers, and we would encourage people to contribute to that cause if they can. But, also, we have to acknowledge that we're pretty far ahead as well in support of vet fencers, at least from my perspective. In Dubai, I talked to some officials and fencers from other countries. They said they look up to Team USA. They wish that they would even get something as simple as an official team jacket for being on the team.
What do you think sets us apart there, and then what improvements would you like to see USA fencing provide to vet fencers like you? Acknowledging that we've come a long way but also have a lot more work to do.
[00:12:31] VA: Let's just say we didn't have that initially. My first team was in 2011, which was the first year the vets got warm-ups. They had had the ability to buy warm-ups that weren't the same as the warm-ups the rest of Team USA had, and it was made very clear that they weren’t. It was hugely exciting that we got warm-ups. But then if you made the team the next year, you were expected to use your warm-up from the previous year.
[00:12:55] BW: Oh, congrats for making it again. Go back into your closet and get this.
[00:13:00] VA: As a symbol, my warm-ups that I'm wearing, I repurposed them. I wear them in the hospital. But we have asked for that. We've been given that. We really have tried to rise to having that. That's a wonderful thing, and we take that for granted now. But it's something that we fought for and people before my time push for.
I think things like now that we know that there's our training rooms at Summer Nationals, if we know about it ahead of time because we were basically in May trying to put something together for July, now that we know that it's possible, we can work in a more official capacity and start laying out time and giving time to the training squats. Again, something like that doesn't involve additional funding from USA Fencing. It just involves the support and letting us access things that are already there that aren't being fully used. I think being really mindful and using opportunities but seeing those opportunities.
[00:13:58] BW: Yes. We have to talk, too, about the process for even qualifying for the team. We have a completely points-based system for qualification. That's something that is in some ways uniquely American and that we're able to go to Dubai. You've been on all these world teams not because some committee selected you but because you earned it through your results at various events. We chatted at Summer Nationals when you had a gold medal around your neck. How does that set us up for a success, knowing that we're taking the four strongest fencers from the previous season in each weapon?
[00:14:37] VA: I mean, I think also the size of the competitive field and the increasing size of the competitive fields means that we really have ever more qualified people. I mean, it was huge this year when we got – I think it was Vet Women's Sabre. In 70, we had a 15-person event which is a rated event because you have to have 15 to do ratings, and that was huge. I mean, when I started, there would be six women. Four of them would make the team, and they would kind of – they were great. They were great women, and they really gave it their all. But it's a harder field. The people that I started fencing in my 40s, we've all been doing this for 20 years, and so people are getting better. They take lessons. They get personal trainers.
[00:15:23] BW: Yes. They really want to make that progress. A lot of your training takes place at DC Fencers Club, and we chatted about that a little bit earlier. But I want to talk a little bit more about the environment there and the support. Definitely, shout out to DC Fencers Club because whenever anything at any level from youth to cadets to veterans happens involving DC Fencers Club, the community comes out to support each other on social media, which is where I'm seeing it. I imagine you're feeling that as well when you're at these competitions. What is it about that club that has turned into such a family and one that other clubs can try to emulate, frankly?
[00:16:03] VA: I think DC Fencers Club was a recreational club. It was a club way back in the nineties. A bunch of adult fencers really wanted to have a real coach. I think they first brought in some Korean guy who then left to go have a mini mart. Then they brought over Janusz Smolenski, who's our head coach, who thought, “Oh, I'll do this for a year.” Then he said he really liked America, and there were a lot of reasons for staying. He's a very well-trained coach. I mean, there're a history with Polish coaches, and they're kind of the genealogy of who trained who. But he came from very good coaching background. Something really clicked.
What was really interesting and what I think about may have made the difference is that all coaches come, and they want to have – they're going to start kids classes, and they think about getting those cadets and those juniors. But he was brought by a bunch of adult fencers. In many clubs, adult fencers are marginalized or have to find their way, their adults. Vets didn't quite exist yet, but he was brought over by these very smart and people who still fence. Carole Jeandheur was on the team with me in Daytona Beach. People who are fencing back in the day who are fencing again, Linda Wiessler-Hughes and Michael Hughes.
These very smart professionals who knew how to get stuff done brought this coach, but they had expectations that they were going to get coach. As he built a youth program and a cadet program and a junior program, they were there. Some of them cycled off to have families, but he had that history of working with people of all ages. Kaz Campe, who was the first American gold medalist at the second Vet World Championships, came from my club. I think having that happen at the very dawn of vet fencing really made a big difference.
The people who were vets stayed in the community. They were the ones, the people who were the age I am now when I was 40. People like Jim Adams or Kaz Campe, they encouraged me. Then you see these guys go off to world championship, and you think, “Yes, yes. I'm going to turn 50. I want to do that.”
[00:18:05] BW: Right, right. Yes. It just continues the cycle. I love that.
[00:18:09] VA: Because you see on social media. Shout out to Sally Gifford who handles our social media who's excellent. I hope you saw the graphic she made looking at the history of DC Fencers Club and Vet Worlds because when she wanted to post, I asked her if she would post not about me but post about where I am in the context of the club.
[00:18:28] BW: You're the latest in this legacy that the club has created, and that speaks a lot. I love what you said about kind of moving vet fencing out of the shadows or something that's being added on at these clubs and making these adult programs part of the community of the club. There's no reason that every club couldn't do that and start similar legacy that ends up at the world championships.
[00:18:56] VA: I actually want to give a shout out to another local club, which is Capital Fencing, because that's a club that had just a stellar performance at world championships, a stellar performance nationally. But it's a club that started off as a mostly youth, junior, senior club. They’ve really built an incredibly good veterans program.
[00:19:17] BW: Yes. They had a nice showing as well, Chris Matt and a bunch of others from that club brought home some –
[00:19:21] VA: Yes. Ron Thornton, yes.
[00:19:23] BW: Yes. That was exciting to see. Obviously, you're representing DC Fencers Club, but you're also rooting for all of Team USA as the Chair of the Veterans Committee. We talked a little bit about what you'd like to see at the vet world's level specifically and training camps to help support vet fencing on that stage. But what are some other things that the Vet Committee and your colleagues on that important group are pushing for and are asking for from people like Phil Andrews or Kaitlyn Litten and others at the at the office?
[00:19:55] VA: I think we have to keep in mind that we really have two hats. I mean, we have to support the highest levels and the vet team and the things supporting the vet team. We want to make sure that as the 40s get rolled in, I mean, that will take the team from 72 people to 96 people. It will be by far in a way the largest squad. We want to make sure that the resources that we have aren't butter spread too thinly over too many people. That the resources are given, and I think we'll use them well. We want to make sure that that happens. We want to make sure that selection criteria for the 40s are built into the – because there's nothing written at this point. There are things that we have to do for oversight and support of the team.
Then we have to talk about how do we support and grow veteran fencing in general because veteran fencing isn't just people who are on the team. We are very welcoming. I mean, you can be Jennette Starks-Faulkner, and there could be some woman who just started fencing who’s at her first NAC. Jennette will be so gracious and so wonderful to you. I think that how we make these people feel part of their community.
One of my committee members had an idea that I'll be talking to you guys more about, but perhaps we need to – partway through the year, as we start to build our competitive membership is send a letter from the Veterans Committee to new competitive members in the vet age group, welcoming the community and just talking about some of – I mean, things that aren't official but the Facebook group, ways that they can find resources to support them in their fencing journey. We'd like to figure out a way to do outreach to people when they come into the system, so they know we exist.
[00:21:32] BW: Yes. Those questions that maybe they might not be super comfortable just asking or finding an answer to.
[00:21:39] VA: They may be in a club where everybody is a youth fencer where they’re fencing. Not everybody's at DC Fencers Club or Marx or Northwest Fencing Center or places or Seattle. Places that have a really [nobody’s inaudible 00:21:49] walking into a knowledge base. How can we reach those fencers when they're starting their journey with us? Because when you think about it, when you come into veteran fencing as a competitor, you potentially have a 40-year career as an athlete, which is impressive.
[00:22:06] BW: Yes. It’s something that a lot of sports can't say. Certainly, there are activities. You mentioned running. Activities that you can do for your entire life but not necessarily like the competitive infrastructure that fencing provides and the opportunity to, like you said, challenge yourself in those ways that make it always fresh.
[00:22:26] BW: I'd also like to see. I mean, our medical staff are absolutely fantastic and supportive. I'd like to see us really understand the aging body and fencing and how we work to still excel. I mean, I thought it was really interesting. Not interesting but right after the Olympics, both Lee and Gerek had chronic injuries. They went off and had surgery. That happens to us in vets. I can tell you two people who had surgery right after vet worlds.
Jane Carter medaled and then went home and then the day after she got home had surgery on her knee. But, obviously, there's a lot of support and knowledge given to athletes at the Olympic level to help support them as they recover from injuries. I'd like to have a better access to knowledge and resources, even databases of practitioners who work with aging athletes, physical therapists, chiropractors, orthopedists who understand our sport. I think that just to be able to offer people resources and support because we are aging something, and we are working our bodies hard. Something will need fixing. The question is how do you get that taken care of.
[00:23:35] BW: Yes. The answer for Lee Kiefer in her 30s is not going to be the same as the answer for a fencer in their 60s. Yes. It makes sense.
[00:23:43] VA: But just like those Olympic athletes who figured out how to marshal their resources and come and still play on what is their highest age, even with bodies that weren't perfect, you do that probably with even more physical things on our plate. That doesn't mean that we're not going to compete or that we're not going to try hard or that we're not able. But we have to figure out how to work with that.
[00:24:08] BW: I want to switch gears to talk about some of the town hall that you hosted alongside our CEO, Phil Andrews. I think it's great to see that you were willing to hear from other members, other fellow vet fencers. You serve as an ambassador for them as well and someone that they can use as a sounding board. Are there key takeaways from either that specific conversation or other feedback you're getting from vets that says, “Here are some ways that we'd like to see vet fencing at NACs change or vet fencing at regional tournaments evolve.”? Or what are some of the takeaways that maybe other vet fencers listening will nod their head and say, “Yes, I've been saying that, too.”?
[00:24:52] VA: Well, I mean, I think people say that they want more ROCs. We do have more ROCs, but they're still very small. For them to be really good, they need to grow the numbers. I'm trying to reach out to people and kind of – because if you connect, there's often enough people in an area. If you knew that those eight people were coming, you' be like, “Oh, I would come to fence those women.” Trying to build the community so that people are talking to each other and saying, “Yes, yes. Let's all go to this.”
I mean, there was one before Croatia. I think [inaudible 00:25:28]. I think we had 30-plus vet women for a ROC in Connecticut because the timing was perfect, and we all talk to each other and set things up so that we would be there. There's always this desire to grow the ROCs. People say, “I want more ROCs.” Then I look at the numbers because in my obsessive spreadsheeting, I actually spreadsheet the size of every event.
If you're a men's or a women's veteran epeeist in the Northeast, you're in great shape. The events are growing. But in other parts of the country, they're still very small. How we encourage people to not think – it's not like there's some magical they that makes things. My entry into the organization of this sport was being a 40-something woman and fencing mostly just senior opens. They’d be like eight women, and I was frustrated because I wanted a rated tournament. I built a women's tournament in – that's called the Amazon. That's still my club. We've been doing it for over 20 years. I reached out to people. I said, “I'm going to have a tournament. I really want you to come.” I made them feel appreciated for showing up because you can't compete if there's not people to compete against. To make people understand that we can offer more ROCs. But if we want to build them, that's on us as a community to build them into better stronger events.
[00:26:46] BW: That's a great point. Yes. You can say someone should fix this, but you also have to sign up.
[00:26:51] VA: I mean, there's always complaints about the schedule. People love the idea of having the team event at the January NAC, which we didn't – it was thrown in the schedule. We didn't have a lot of input on it. Some people are very upset because it's before their vet age event, and they don't want to do it, and so understanding the constraints. People – I get these calls all the time. “Can you call them and tell them to change the schedule?” I say, “Did you listen into Dan Burke's scheduling talk?” Like, “No, I can't do that.”
[00:27:17] BW: Yes. We turned that into a podcast actually inspired by Dan's talk with the vet fencers at this town hall. People can go back and listen to that. It's not a perfect system, and he would admit this. But listening to that will probably help people understand all the different nuances involved and how it's very challenging.
[00:27:35] VA: I tell people that my job and the job of the vet committee. I think of it not so much as an ambassador, so much as being like a member of Congress. We represent. The question is is this something I can fix. If I can't fix this or if the fix you want isn't possible, this is why, and everybody deserves an explanation. There's been a fairly vocal group of octogenarians who believe that the only reason we don't have Vet-80 at the world level is because USA Fencing hasn't been pushing hard enough for it. Unfortunately, the reason we don't have Vet-80 at the world level is because other countries don't have the same kind of vet. They don't have any Vet-80 tournaments.
You're trying to explain to somebody like, “Listen. USA Fencing supports – we would love to see the 80s have a reason to go to world championship, but you need to reach out to your friends in France and in Germany and in Italy. They need to start putting on Vet-80 competitions, and then we can build something that we can take to the FIE.”
[00:28:38] BW: Yes. That's a great point. It's which one comes first. How about recruiting vet fencers, like growing this community even more? In your mind, who should we be targeting? Is it parents of fencers? Is it people who have kids that have are now in college actually and maybe would be taking up the sport for the first time? Who's the target audience if we had to pick one?
[00:29:01] VA: It’s highly variable. I think it's parents. Parents are always – we certainly have a long history of parents. But it's also people who always had this idea they wanted to fence and making it clear that there's a place for them. In my private practice in which I just left to go to my government job, I had a stack of flyers, and I would say to people, “Look, if you've ever thought about fencing, come to the club. Show up.”
[00:29:24] BW: If they said, “Well, I've never done it before. Am I going to be any good, or am I going to be behind those people who were fencers since they were eight, nine years old and are still doing it at age 50, 60?”
[00:29:36] VA: Sure. But then you may catch up. Look at Lotte Bowie who picked it up in her 60s and now has one individual medal and one team medal to show for it.
[00:29:45] BW: Actually, there's a lot of stories like that of people who started as vet fencers and didn't have any of that history. In fact, maybe some coaches actually like that because they don't have that built-in muscle memory that in some cases may not be ideal for their body type.
[00:30:01] VA: I don't know. I've never heard that from coaches either way, I think. But it's not a natural sport. Everybody, whether you're 10 years old or 20 years old or 50 years old, you feel like it's terrible. When I came back into it, and I loved it so much, I used to tell people that it was like having a crush on a boy that didn't know that I was alive. I was just terrible. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn't do any of the things but –
[00:30:28] BW: Right. It's like making my body do this exact thing. We've been jumping around, but you've also gotten to compete internationally, as we said. What's that atmosphere like on the international stage? Obviously, a bunch of friends and teammates on Team USA. But when I looked around the Hamdan Sports Complex in Dubai, I saw a bunch of people of different countries meeting together, giving hugs, having great conversations, and almost a family reunion in a sense. How do you characterize that having seen at a bunch of these vet worlds?
[00:31:03] VA: Oh, I mean, I think that's great. There are connections being made. I mean, I think more and more veterans are going over to international competitions or – Sandra Marchant has been a couple years to Italy to international camp, and she's got a lot of friends from Europe now and throw a lot of hugs over there. We have fencers who live in America and fence under other flags, and they connect us to other countries, fencers who fence from America who came from other flags, people like Bruno Goossens.
We have, for instance, my coach. My head coach, who didn't come this time, is Polish. But all the Polish fencers know him, and so this enormously tall Polish guy who goes, “Where is your coach? Tell him hello.” I recognized one of the Italians at Italian Vet-50. I was like, “I know that guy. I've seen that guy fence.” That guy was an NIH fellow and was fencing in the DC area in maybe 2005, not long after I started. I'm like, “Yes, I remember him.” You cross paths in a lot of different ways with people.
[00:32:09] BW: It’s like a big family reunion every October. You talked about your patients might pick up a flyer. Let's go down that thread a little bit more, just in the idea of someone who's considering taking up fencing. What's your advice for them when they get started? If they're like, “Okay. Guess what, Val. I signed up. I'm going to go take an introductory class.” What’s your advice to that person?
[00:32:37] VA: I’ll say take a class. I mean, learn a basic vocabulary. I do think individual lessons, if you can afford them, are important. I think you build a lot more muscle memory, so find a coach who will work with you and give you individual lessons. There are vet who come and learn to fence but don't want to compete. My own brother fences now. Did I tell you this? I don't have kids. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. I live around the corner for my brother. He has three kids. Everybody got introduced to fencing. The only one it stuck was the boy, the youngest who's now 25. He fenced all the way through college. He fenced at NYU.
My brother loved being a fencing dad. He loved fencing club. He just – that was a fantastic atmosphere. My sister-in-law doesn't really like sports, and my nephew said it stressed her out. My brother was always the one who was there. Yes. My brother was there. Kid goes to college, right? On Monday night, we have what's called footwork. It's a group training class, and there's music, and my brother often put together a playlist. The kid’s in college, and it's Monday night, and my brother shows up for footwork. He’s sitting on the sofa, and I'm like, “Why are you here?” He's like, “Well, I like being here.” I said, “Listen, you're a guy of a certain age. There are teenage girls here. It’s fine if you have a kid, but it's a little weird if you don't have a kid, so you have a choice. You can learn to fence, or you can go home.”
My brother's like, “I don't like group lessons.” I'm like, “That's fine. I'll sign you up for one of our coaches. I think it’d be perfect.” My brother, Jacob, is 25, so this is like seven years. My brother comes regular to the club. He has his lesson. He has no desire to go out in the national circuit and compete, although he follows everything very avidly. Some people may want to be recreational fencers.
For the people who want to compete, you're never going to feel ready. I always tell people. It's like learning a language. You just got to go to the country and speak it. If you go to a tournament, even if you get blown out of the water, if you come away with an idea of like, “Ah, that's why I need to practice this. That's what's happening in my lesson.” Going to a tournament and it could be a ROC. It can be a little – if you're a woman, [inaudible 00:34:41] women's tournament. It can be a D and under. Going to a tournament gives you a context for what you're learning if you want to compete.
[00:34:51] BW: Yes. You can experience it and say, “Oh, that's why my coach was really driving home that specific lesson. Now, I’ve got more data for the spreadsheet folks out there, more data to put down and improve on.” I love that. Then to wrap up, I'd love to know what excites you most about the future of vet fencing in the United States. What you would love to see as the sport moves forward. We talked a little bit about the Vet-40s which always or at least have ever since I've been in fencing have been part of our national tournaments and are now moving internationally, so that's exciting. What are some other things that really excite you about the possibilities here?
[00:35:32] VA: I'm excited with the fact that we created a system in the vet committee last year for how we choose the coach/captain for the team events at vet worlds. That was better organized, but it also – by identifying the coaches ahead of time, that let us give them a little bit financial support for the time they dedicated to the team event. Since we are all self-funded basically to take a little bit of the funding of coaches off of us and to pay for that, and so we found money as one offs for the last two. But I think it's something that I think has a good chance of staying in that system. I think that would be – that's very helpful to us.
I'd like to see us – I'd like to have clubs create opportunities for vet fencers to train together. Every Labor Day weekend, which is about a month before vet worlds, the club that Walt belongs to in Vegas, I think he used to be an [inaudible 00:36:28] because an [inaudible 00:36:28] coach is there. Labor Day weekend, it is all vet fencing, epee fencing. It is not a camp. It’s not a training camp. There's nobody telling you to do drills. It is not a competition. You got to fly yourself to Vegas, so that expense, and put yourself in a hotel or Airbnb. But we basically – Friday night, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and half Monday. Basically, some of the best vet epeeists in the country show up, and we just bout, and then we go out to. It's really awesome.
[00:36:59] BW: I didn't know this. This is great.
[00:37:00] VA: Yes, yes. It’s Walt's, and this is Walt's baby. It’s like when I first came, Cristina Gordet and I came, hardly any women. Now, really robust numbers of women are coming, and it's just fun. It's a really constructive training atmosphere. They have a lot of strips. I think they run their classes Saturday morning, so we don't get until Saturday at noon. Basically, the club belongs to us. It's a very oldies playlist playing.
[Joe D inaudible 00:37:32] wants to recreate that on the East Coast over [inaudible 00:37:36] weekend at our club. But I'd like to see coaches say, “Hey, here's a time when the club isn't being used.” What you need is like – Walt's obviously a towering figure in men’s epee, and so people say, “Oh, yes. I want to come fence. Walt's there.” If Mark Lundborg or Chris Matt or Ron Thornton or any of these guys said, “Our club is hosting people. Come.” They don't charge us a fee for this. We basically come. We don’t get a fee.
[00:38:03] BW: You got to get yourself there basically, and that's it.
[00:38:05] VA: Got to get ourselves there. Yes. But I'd love to see all the weapons finding clubs that will give them those opportunities because I think it's been fantastic for epee.
[00:38:17] BW: Yes. It sounds like a lot of fun, too. It’s at a good time as far as you wanting to ramp up your training right before vet worlds as well, so that's smart. But it also is just a great opportunity to bond with your other epee fencers. That's awesome.
[00:38:31] VA: I'd love to identify clubs in all the weapons and parts of the country that could think about times when there's maybe some – when they're less used and maybe a three-day weekend where maybe Monday, it's closed. When you can invite people to come and use your facilities. I mean, maybe you charge a small fee. Maybe you don't charge a fee but to make it manageable. I'd love to see those opportunities grow across the geography and the weapons.
[00:39:02] BW: Yes. That's a great idea, and that's a great place to leave it on that inspiring and hopeful note with some great ideas for the future. Valerie Ashers, thank you so much. Congratulations on all your success so far. It's been fun learning about fencing from you not just today but in our conversations in the past. Looking forward to the next time we get to connect and chat some more. Thank you so much.
[00:39:25] VA: Thank you.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:39:26] 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 a 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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