The South Coast Fencing Center

Good morning! CA has lifted its stay at home order today for the southern California region, which is good news for us! We will be reopening as scheduled on Monday, February 1st. All group and private instruction will resume according to our Program schedule. If you were registered in a group class in December, you will automatically be re-enrolled into that program and nothing more is needed on your part. If you would like to modify your group program schedule, please sen...t an email to our Front Desk at [email protected]. If you were scheduled for recurring private lessons with a member of the coaching staff, your schedule will resume as it was before we closed in December. Please note that all Covid safety protocols are currently still in place at the center (mask usage, hand sanitization, air circulation policies, temperature check upon entry and appropriate spacing of at least 6'). We ask that all students and their families review these protocols on our website prior to returning in February. We are very excited to see all of you again and look forward to resuming training next week!

IMPORTANT UPDATE The Center will be CLOSED until Feb 1 After extended deliberation with our students, their families and members in the medical field, the Board of Directors has made the decision to close the Center until at least February 1. Infection rates are far higher than they have ever been and hospital utilization is also alarmingly high. These are very difficult times for all of us and certainly for youth and adult sport.... Since reopening in May, the staff at the Center has taken a careful and methodical approach to creating an environment that protects our students, their families and our staff while providing the opportunity for our students to practice and continue some semblance of their athletic training. Throughout 2020, we felt that we had a successful system in place that would sustain that environment. As Covid continues to accelerate at an alarming rate in southern California, we are no longer able to rely on that system of protections being enough to protect those at the Center. Despite the fact that complications in younger people remain relatively rare, the likelihood that the virus will spread through them to their families and those that they come in contact with remains high. We have made the very difficult decision to close our doors for the next few weeks and hope that this latest surge abates. As is it impossible to predict what the future holds, we are making the decision to close for the next three weeks, reassessing whether it is safe and appropriate to reopen as we get closer to February 1. Tonight will be our final day of group classes for a little while. Private lessons will continue during this break; if you have scheduled private lessons your coach will be in contact with you about any modifications to that schedule. No class fees have been charged for this month. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at (714) 549-2946 or via email at [email protected]. We are very much looking forward to returning to some sense of normalcy as soon as possible. In the mean time, we wish all of our families a safe and peaceful break. - The staff at SCFC

This morning, mobs have broken into the Capitol. These are times that I never expected to see in my lifetime. I will be cancelling classes for tonight as I am unsure if this incredibly destructive behavior will spill out into local areas. I will be spending tonight talking with my family and our daughter about the importance of civility and the rule of law. I sincerely hope that we as a country are able to take a collective breath and work together to bring the United States back to a better place than what is happening today.

The Center is reopening today after the winter break. You can find our program schedule online, including which programs are currently active. All students and SCFC families: Please carefully review our Covid safety protocols currently listed on our website. We encourage families to take a moment to talk with their fencers about the importance of continued vigilance during these times. www.southcoastfencing.com

Just a reminder that we are currently closed for the Winter Break. We will be reopening on Monday, January 4, and wish all of our fencing families and safe and festive holiday! From all of the staff at the Center, we wish you the very best for 2021 and look forward to returning to training in a few weeks!

As 2020 comes to a close, the coaching staff at the Center wish you a very happy new year! We will be reopening on Monday, January 4 for our regularly scheduled foil classes. For more information on our program schedule, please visit our website at www.southcoastfencing.com. We would also like to ask everyone to take a moment and carefully review our standing Covid safety protocols. Students and parents have been doing an excellent job of staying consistent with the process that we have in place, which has allowed us to continue to provide a sensible environment for our students to train in. We look forward to seeing everyone again next week!

We will be re-introducing our Epee program starting on Thursday, December 3 from 7-8pm with open bouting afterward. We will hold the class on a weekly basis provided that we have a minimum of 6 registered students. If you are interested in the program, please contact the center either by email ([email protected]) or phone (714-549-2946). If we have sufficient interest, we will open it to a Tues/Thurs program.

Congratulations to our top 4 foilists yesterday at the Foil Circuit Challenge! It was a fantastic opportunity for everyone to build on what they have been working so hard on over the summer. Mike Kuzmak David Moran Derek Cotton... Matilda Dumaine See more

Our Youth Program is open and available for registration. This program is available to both experienced fencers as well as those new to the sport ages 7 to 11 years old. The class meets on Thursdays from 5-6pm at the Center. Registration is required (no drop-ins, please) but students may start at any time. For more information and to sign up, visit us on our website at www.southcoastfencing.com

Happy Monday, all! Here is our current class schedule. Please remember to carefully review our Covid safety protocols on our website and register in advance as no drop-ins are possible at the moment. Introduction to Fencing:... Thursdays 6-7pm & Saturdays 10-11am Intermediate Foil Program Thursdays 6-7pm & Saturdays 10-11am Youth Development Program (7-11 years old) Thursdays 5-6pm Competitive Foil Program Mon/Wed/Fri 5-6:30pm (space available) Mon/Wed/Fri 7-8:30pm (currently full) See more

Air quality update and Club status for this coming week: The AQI continues to be poor in the Orange County area, although we are indeed fortunate compared with many other parts of California at the moment. You can monitor air quality conditions at airnow.gov and get up to date local information there. We will be open this week for our normal classes. We understand that some of our students are more sensitive to poor air quality and encourage you to stay home if you feel u...ncomfortable. Our doors will be open and air circulation will be strong per our standard Covid safety protocols. In addition, our classes will be geared towards lower intensity activity while air quality is an issue. www.southcoastfencing.com

The Center is closed through the end of this week due to air quality ============================================ Due to elevated air quality issues, we have decided to close the center for the rest of this week (Thursday, Friday and Saturday, September 10-12). ... On Wednesday, I was teaching my fencing students at CSU Fullerton outside and, not only were we being dusted with ash throughout the class but we were coughing up ash despite having masks on. Our primary concern is the safety of our students and staff and this is not a safe athletic environment to train in. I have polled the students and parents of SCFC and the overwhelming majority prefer not to attend training under these conditions. Currently, the Air Quality Index for Costa Mesa is 95, with 101+ being considered Unhealthy. We will close through the end of this week and update everyone on Sunday about the coming week. I hope to see an improvement in air quality in the coming days and am hopeful that we will return to training as usual on Monday. We will be updating our website with current schedule adjustments as they are made.

Fencers: The Center will be CLOSED tonight for group and private instruction due to current air quality conditions. The index is 60 and ash is falling today. Due to Covid restrictions, it is not practical to close the doors and keep everyone inside without air circulation. We will continue to monitor the air quality on a day by day basis.

We are expanding our course schedule starting in September: Introduction to Fencing Thursdays 6-7pm & Saturdays 10-11am Intermediate Foil... Thursdays 6-7pm & Saturdays 10-11am Youth Development Program Thursdays 5-6pm Competitive Foil Program Section 1: Mon/Wed/Fri 5-6:30pm Section 2: Mon/Wed/Fri 7-8:30pm To register for classes, go to www.southcoastfencing.com

Schedule update: Our Competitive Program M/W/F 7-8:30pm section is currently at capacity. We will be opening a second section on M/W/F from 5-6:30pm starting on Monday, August 17. If you were thinking about returning to fencing but were cautious about Covid, the Center has been consistently implementing safety protocols since mid-May. We take temperatures at the door, ensure handwashing, enforce 100% mask usage and structure our class time and sizes to ensure social distan...cing. If you are interested in this program, please contact the Center to be added to the registration list. If you are interested but not quite ready to return, let us know and we can add you to our notification list. Existing students: if you want to switch to this earlier section, we can accommodate that as well.

We are happy to announce that the first phase of our renovations is complete. Thanks to all of our generous GoFundMe donors, we have been able to replace all of our lobby and office flooring as well as install a new fan circulation system in the Center. This will dramatically aid in sanitizing the center's flooring as well as provide excellent air circulation while students are training. Combined with thorough Covid safety protocols (mandatory hand washing, temperature c...hecks, 6 feet distancing and 100% mask usage), the fans and open doors allow a tremendous amount of continuous air flow through the building. We are still planning a few more improvements and our funding campaign is still open. We would like to replace our mezzanine fencing strips (currently wood flooring) with the new interlocking fencing flooring that we installed last year. We are also looking to enclose all utility paneling in the main hall with cabinetry. If you know someone who would be interested in helping in these causes, please direct them to our GoFundMe page here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/center-renovations

We wanted to give everyone an update on our GoFundMe renovation campaign. We have completed our first phase of our re-flooring project with the funds generated. The Center now has new flooring for our lobby, armory, office and stair area. Next on our project list is extending the flooring into the central hallway, bathrooms and kitchen area. We will also be installing new mounted fans on both our main fencing level and the balcony area. We appreciate all of the fund donated so far; please know that they are going to very good use for our students!

We are happy to welcome new students into our program. If you are new to fencing and and would like to try it out, we are offering introductory courses in foil and epee starting this month! If you were previously in one of our intermediate foil or epee programs, we have now restarted those courses as well. Please see our website for a current listing of program schedules. Please remember that students need to have their own gear (we are not currently able to rent or loan equipment out) and our staff is happy to coordinate with you on getting you whatever you need.

We would like to thank everyone has donated to our renovation fund for the Center. With just a few days in, we are already nearing our goal with $4,400 toward our project goal of $6,000! We will be re-flooring in 2 weeks thanks to this support. If you have not yet donated and would like to do so, we have a GoFundMe campaign set up. In addition to flooring we are replacing a few pieces of furniture, repainting and installing mounted fans for maximum circulation. https://gf.me/u/x7294m

Hi all! We are working on some important renovations for the Center this month as we begin to welcome students back from the hiatus created by Covid. Of the various improvements we are working on, our top priority is to replace the carpet in our front lobby and student areas with a new composite material that is easier to clean and sanitize. We are asking for your help. Like many businesses, Covid has hit our fencing community very hard and making critical improvements like these a challenge. We have created a small GoFundMe campaign to help with these steps. Much of the work is volunteer-based (we have already done quite a bit of work toward repainting the Center) but some requires essential funding. We deeply appreciate any support that you can offer for these projects!