Organizer
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Coach Ryleigh Sweet
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Email
rsweet@modernduelists.com Coach Ryleigh is one of Modern Duelists’ original members and has over a decade of experience under her belt. During that time, she’s been involved in nearly every area of the fencing world: high-level competition, refereeing, armoring, and of course, coaching. She has an incredible passion for the sport, and it’s easy to see her genuine level of excitement for everything she teaches. Unsurprisingly, her classes are known for being high-energy and often high-intensity. Her favorite thing to teach is strategy, and she’s a big believer in making sure her students understand why they’re doing something instead of just how to do it.
Other Organizers
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Coach Justin Tirrell
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Email
justin@modernduelists.com Coach Justin began his fencing career at the University of Delaware and has been a member of the Modern Duelists’ community for nearly ten years. He regularly competes at local, regional, and national levels and has been coaching all age groups since 2017, at all levels of competition. Coach Justin is a certified referee and is working toward a Monituer coaching certification through the USFCA. He is passionate about the sport, enjoys sharing his competitive knowledge with other fencers, and loves individualistic problem-solving with his students through bout analysis and deep-dives into their unique body mechanics.
Location
- 505 Blue Ball Road, Elkton, MD
Modern Duelists is located in the Triumph Industrial Park, just minutes off of I-95. Classes are held in our 3,600 sq.ft. fencing room, equipped with five regulation fencing strips, two practice strips, and over a dozen different wall, standing, and hanging targets. Students also have access to a fully-stocked armory for equipment repairs, a weight room for auxiliary training, and a break room/kitchenette.
Senior Training Class
Ages: Adult (18+) & cadet (13-17)
Levels: Intermediate & above
Duration: 1.5 hours
CLASS TIMES
Mondays @ 6:30PM | Wednesdays @ 6:30PM
Our Senior Training Class is our core fencing class for students ages 13+. We focus on arming students with the practical skills that they need in order to win bouts and progress as a fencer—no fluff, no mindless drilling of technique just for technique’s sake.
Classes start with footwork, where our focus is on moving smoothly and naturally; making quick changes of direction; taking explosive attacks; and keeping distance tactically. For our main lesson, we gear up and examine a realistic bouting situation: What techniques do you need? What caused the situation? How and why would you purposefully create—or avoid—the situation? Students get the opportunity to problem-solve for themselves, and then we reconvene as a group to practice our bladework and fine-tune the skills we discussed.
Classes are an hour and a half long and meet two times a week.
Want to learn more about joining our Senior Training Class?