After months of Zoom sessions, tennis balls and rulers, it was back to club training for the members of West Lothian Fencing Club.
Training may currently be outdoors and with certain limitations, but for head coach Kev Milne it’s simply good to see his fellow fencers in person once more.
Founded just two-and-a-half years ago, there were fears that the Covid-19 pandemic could hurt the club’s growth - which has been remarkable in such a short time frame.
But as he reflects on running the club during lockdown, Milne admits he’s been delighted with the response.
Speaking to the Courier, the Scotland international commented: “It’s great to be given the go ahead and take training sessions outside but there’s still a few measures in places that we have to work around. Even so, it’s much better than Zoom sessions.
“We have members of all age groups but it was especially pleasing to see that the kids absolutely loved being back in person.
“To be honest, my real fear was that lockdown might have seen them drift away from the sport but there was none of that, so it was really pleasing to see how excited they were to be back in a group training session again.
“We had plans to take them to the biggest event in Europe in May, where there’s around 6000 kids competing in Poland but obviously that had to be cancelled.
“It gives them something to aim for next year though, and we’re already working towards getting them ready for that. It would be a tremendous experience for them if they can go.”
While other clubs ground to a halt during the past few months, West Lothian Fencing Club was able to keep going - and even attracted followers from across the globe with their frequent Zoom meetings and challenges.
Milne says: “We made the decision pretty quickly to stop all club fees and make it donation only. We didn’t want to stop anyone from taking part in the online sessions.
“We also opened up the sessions to everyone so we actually had folk from America, Germany and all over the UK joining. It was a great experience and sometimes there were other coaches who joined and we could bounce ideas off each other.
“We had to be really creative and come up with sessions that allowed you to keep active. Fencing’s not a sport that is really conducive to small spaces so we had to adapt and it was great fun coming up with ideas.”
He added: “Tennis balls were used quite often as they’re useful for things like hand-eye co-ordination games and we would use rulers as fencing swords.
“We had a lockdown challenge and there was a good number of folk who competed. It was just a variety of challenges over the course of seven weeks designed to show that practice can lead to improvements.
“It was trying to teach things like balance and hand-eye co-ordination that are vital to the sport. The final challenge was to learn to juggle which I’m sure provided everyone with a laugh.
“As a club, I think we adapted to the challenges really well but we’re delighted to be back out and training properly.”
For more information on West Lothian Fencing Club, including how to get involved, check out their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/WestLothianFencingclub.
