In the spring of 2014 an initiative provisionally named the Club Movement Project was developed with the blessing of the International Fencing Federation President. It was further rebranded and presented as the Club Movement Initiative (CMI) under the auspices of the FIE.
The CMI is aimed at benefitting the fencing community in general, as well as individual athletes, coaches and referees. The main purpose is to generate a boost, to reshape or even revise the existing development system and to take it to a completely different level.
The CMI’s strategic goal is to identify the most prominent fencing locations and use them as leverage to facilitate the development of top-tier athletes, coaches and referees, enabling them to benefit from better programmes. The team running the project includes a group of FIE Sport Department specialists (Director – Dr. Krisztian Kulcsar) and the CMI Coordinator (Mr. Rodion Plitukhin).
The CMI team is studying the infrastructure and the best coaching and training practices of the leading national federations in order to select the most effective ones, and then to integrate them into a newly created global network that will provide productive management and transfer of practical knowledge.
Based on the results of research the FIE will establish a network of up to 10 locations. All of them will be used as training and educational facilities for the benefit of global fencing development. So far the network includes six active fencing locations in five countries with five more in the evaluation phase (including two locations in Asia).
The major costs of the CMI are assumed by the FIE, with support from the International Charity Foundation “For the Future of Fencing”, while the national federations and clubs of the network will guarantee infrastructure, access to their talent equity and effective participation by their staff.
Towards the end of 2014, initial four-week custom-tailored training courses for coaches were hosted by the Fencers Club in New York (www.fencersclub.org) and by Tauberbischofsheim Fencing Club in Germany (www.fechtentbb.de), both renowned for their high performance and state-of-the-art facilities (the latter is the home club of the IOC President Mr Thomas Bach).
Results of the first two sessions will be made available via network and media resources including, but not limited to, photo and video materials and manuals (books and DVDs) that will make contemporary fencing knowledge as well as teaching methods (approaches and “know-how”) accessible for all those willing to learn from the best.
In 2015 similar Advancement Programmes for coaches, to be followed by educational events for athletes, referees and managers of national federations, will be launched in Italy (P.L. Scherma Modica, to be joined by three to four other clubs); France (Club Melun Val De Seine); Russia (Regional Fencing Centre of Stanislav Pozdnyakov and Smolensk State Academy of Physical Education); Japan; and China.
In the first quarter of the year more than over 40 coaches from Americas, Europe, Mediterranean and possibly Africa will be selected to take part in Advancement Programmes.