New York, NY (May 12, 2021) — Adversity challenges people to be creative.
In the case of one foil fencer in Florida, the pandemic and shelter-in-home orders forced her to find a new club, a new coach and a renewed desire to win.
Haivyl Lopez, 44, ended 2019 on a fencing high note — she earned a North American Cup medal at the December 2019 NAC in Salt Lake City. When things shut down in spring 2020, she wanted to keep training. Unfortunately, her local club in the Miami area was only offering classes for kids, “and I’m advanced enough to deal with more,” she says, having started training at age eight in her native Cuba.
She turned to the web, Googled online fencing, found Tim Morehouse Fencing Club and reached out. She was connected with Coach Daniel Bass and they hit it off.
“She was one of my first online students,” Bass says. “It was a little unusual because we were expecting more youth students and I’m working with vet age fencer from Florida. We had a couple of trials, she told me what her goals were, and the rest is history.” He adds: “We’ve been doing three or four lessons a week since.”
Lopez says the coaching goes beyond technique, footwork and the like. “We talk a lot about the mindset of the sport and how fencing has a lot to do with how you approach life,” she says. And, “it helps me with my career as a wealth advisor.”
With an abbreviated fencing season this year, Lopez is planning to make the few competitions, but she’s playing the long game. “I want to make the US team and compete at the international competitions. I will qualify six years from now, when I’m 50,” she says. (International Veteran fencing events start at 50.)
And working with Lopez has opened up a whole new category of fencers for Coach Dan. In the past, “I have not coached a huge amount of veteran fencers. Now I’m working with three vet fencers online — Haivyl, a woman in CT and a man in the VA/MD area.”
And someday, the two hope to meet in person. For now, they’ll continue their virtual meet-ups.
“We haven’t met in person but we’ve bonded tremendously,” Lopez says. “Coach Dan is a true professional… Working one on one with him has been great.”
