As our nation considers another round of lockdowns, we at TMFC thought we should share our list of 4 ways to keep fencing safe and fun in the age of Covid-19

Number one: Purchase athletic, reusable, washable, masks. Brands from Adidas and Nike all the way down to the tiniest Etsy craftsman are designing better, more comfortable, more stylish masks every day.

Number two: purchase multiple sets of masks! Keep extra masks in fencing bags, in the car, in your gym bag or locker, wherever you have easy access to. There is nothing worse than traveling to practice only for a mask to break, be forgotten, or left out of reach!

Number three, and this is for coaches as well as for parents: make reminding students to cover noses and faces a matter of fact delivery – no drama aloud! Everybody loses track of their noses from time to time, especially children. But if being told to “cover your nose” becomes normalized, fixing a mask stops disrupting practice, keeps everyone safe, and keeps everything running smoothly.

Number four: Make Covid specific rituals at the club. Each ritual will have to be discovered organically and be appropriate to the look and feel of each club and community. Personally, I have picked up my father’s penchant for over dramatization, the occasionally made up word or phrase (He loved reading Dr. Seuss to me when I was little), and self-deprecating humor. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I have found myself shouting made the made-up phrase: “Squirt-Squirt!” to signal time to wash hands. “Mask break!” has replaced water break – after of course training children to walk outside and social distance before removing their masks. And the ritual that I had the least control over: the Sabre Shake.

The Sabre Shake was developed by our students at the club. After I explained to a particularly bright eyed eight year old named Sophia that we don’t shake hands at the end of the bout, little Sophia took off her glove, stuck it on the end of a sabre, and offered it to me as a replacement for her hand. Very quickly everyone in class followed suit and started offering their gloves from the end of a sabre (and within social distance parameters), and a new ritual was born. It required a quick reminder about the importance of not waving even a gloved sabre around at an unmasked teammate – but you can understand how much fun the children had with their new habit.

These recommendations are of course not the end all be all – they are simply a starting point for making the best of the terrible, no good, rotten virus. But if we can turn safety practices into fun, lighthearted rituals, then we might be able to make it through the coming winter.

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