Sunday, November 23, 2008

How to deal with a bad director

Today I would like to talk about directors. I spent today directing at my alma mater, and it went ok. I got to see a few old students, and even more old friends. I had to direct sabre though, and while I’m OK at it; it is by far my weakest weapon to direct. I did some foil directing as well however, so it worked out ok. I had the chance to think and observe quite a bit though, and I will not pass my observations off to you.When a director makes a tough or bad call, we generally know it. Rather, at least the reasonably good ones know it; we’ll delve into how to deal with truly awful directing at a later date. Giving the director a real hard time about it will not change anything, a good director knows that you can’t change your call once it has been made, and excessive arguing is simply going to make him or her ticked off at you. That said however, if a director makes a bad call, you can always ask for clarification, or ask him to explain; simply shouting out how you really feel about that last call will put you on their bad side ASAP. Instead, refrain, and ask your director to repeat himself. A director is not required by the rules to answer your question, and a mean one will probably just tell you to get en guard, but most of us are pretty reasonable people. I was told a story today of a fencer who all but threatened to punch a director in the face. He was subsequently black carded. Don’t be that guy.

I noticed today an opposing coach attempting to convince, almost bully, a team into fencing out of order to speed up the match. Let me outline the situation for you. There were only three women on the squad. Unfortunately, one had fallen and injured her ankle, and was presently having it wrapped up by the trainer. The opposing coach was trying to convince the remaining two girls that they should fence, because he wanted to get home. Know this, you are NEVER required to fence out of order, or double strip (I was threatened with a black card last year for refusing to double strip a close meet), or anything else similar to that. As a director, I was presented with a moral quandary. Do I remind those girls that by USFA law, their fencer had 10 minutes of injury time which she could use, or was that too partisan? Quietly, I took one of the girls off to the side and reminded her of this fact. I’m interested however, how would you handle it if you had been in that same position? Leave a comment and let me know!

Continuing on the subject of aggressive coaches, last year, in the same meet in which I was threatened with a black card, there was a director who was being bullied by the opposing coach, in epee no less. Frankly, we couldn’t do much of anything besides argue back, and this is an important point. While it may seem to run contrary to what I said above about not pissing off your referee, if you can see that they are being pushed around by some external influence, you need to argue that, and you need to argue it well. Do not get riled up, and do not start cursing, you need to argue your point lucidly and concisely. If it continues, you should call the bout committee.

In the end however, you need to remember that it is about fencing, and no matter how awful the director is, if you fence well, you can make sure only one light comes on. Also, if you have someone there who can argue on your behalf, so that you can keep your mind on the fencing, that is really the most ideal case. To close out the story with which I began this entry, I eventually saw the quality of some of the other people directing sabre, and I felt much better about the job that I did. Remember, there is no perfect director, and nobody will make all the right calls.

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