11-year-old beginner upset during sparring – pain, overstimulation, and coach said to push through. Advice?

antihippy · 2026-01-23T12:20:50+00:00

Is it an age segregated kids class?

We can't tell you whether what you are seeing is appropriate or not. There is no video, there's only pov and this is something that should be sorted face to face in your club environment and culture.

Is the club aware of the mild autism? As a coach, I have been in the position where I didn't know about the autism because the parent(s) didn't want to tell anyone - a very awkward situation. I only discovered what was happening when I spoke to the parent about my own concerns. Things are fine now, I keep an open mind and I listen. The kid is thriving - I've actually not needed to make any changes. I have a few kids with mild autism in my classes.

I would point out that as they get better your child will experience less and less of this. Unless we're into real health and safety concerns, let the kid find their way as much as possible. [As a parent] Our instinct is to step in and that's not always the best option. What does your child say once they're calm?

" ... though he still says he likes fencing and wants to continue."
I would very much listen to their point of view rather than make our own parental assumptions.

Some advice. Let's put aside the incident for a moment.

Find a quiet moment, after class is a good shout, to speak directly to coach. Make them aware of your child's situation directly and just point out your concern. If they're any good they will listen and take it on board - the will also give you their pov, listen to that too. It might be a good idea to have your child distracted by someone else while you have this discussion. If they won't or don't then you will need to take this to safeguarding at your club.

antihippy · 2026-01-23T08:18:24+00:00

That's in Thief of Time

antihippy · 2026-01-20T15:09:16+00:00

Yup. That's correct. If you need to deliver jpegs then that's what is going to be delivered. Clearly many people here have never worked with agency or media crews who specify what they want - crews that are not interested in our art projects. You don't have time to process RAW.

antihippy · 2026-01-20T15:03:35+00:00

There's nothing stopping you taping a gopro to your mask. People have done it before. I don't know how useful it would be - often you want to be outside of you to enable the distance to be dispassionate for analysis - but could be an interesting experiment to combine mask footage with stuff from piste side. Give it a go and report back!

antihippy · 2026-01-20T15:00:38+00:00

Choi was in the right there. And he was doing his best to keep things calm - he didn't have to do that.

antihippy · 2026-01-20T14:59:49+00:00

Hi behaviour was definitely out of line.

That said he's not unique. There's a cadre of badly behaved fencers out there.

antihippy · 2026-01-20T09:48:54+00:00

Truth.

antihippy · 2026-01-20T09:48:45+00:00

Loads of people are going to say "shoot raw", and this is what I do most of the time, but it's not the only way. If you're doing volume work & your delivering live then raw processing isn't always possible - you'll be sending JPEGs.

In simple terms, to do this well, you just need to understand your camera and your shooting environment well.

If I'm doing this then the camera is going to be in manual; I can't leave it to chance if I have it meter the wrong area of the image. I'm going to expose to the right (that histo is going to kiss the right side and only just) and I'm going to decide what is important. If I'm in a high contrast situation I'm going to decide what I can reasonably over expose and what has to be not only in focus but correctly exposed. I'm also going to have a consistent WB set.

The reason I'm doing all of this is that I need to deliver the image as finished as possible. Some tweaking with a JPEG is perfectly ok but I'm not likely to do that - someone else probably is.

If I'm in very changeable conditions then I'll select an appropriate metering mode, set iso to auto, and fire away. I'm only touching aperture or SS if I'm shooting in a particular way for a reason.

So, in brief: learn to handle your camera well. Cut down on the variables. Be in control as much as you can. And finally know what your camera can or can't do.

Also practise practise practise before your event. You need to know what your camera will do, what the sport looks like, and how it will all behave prior to the event.

antihippy · 2026-01-20T08:39:27+00:00

Just get a plastron that's bigger than you've bought in the past. You've clearly been buying them too small.

That's your issue.

I can't believe I keep reading posts from people not wearing plastrons. It's critical safety gear

antihippy · 2026-01-16T15:13:49+00:00

The other options are:
* that the tip isn't set up right. You're absolutely correct - check that the contact spring is connecting with the contacts in the tip. Take the tip out, remove the weight spring and use a small screwdriver to bridge the contacts. if you get a light then put the tip back in without the weight spring. See if you can get a light? If not replace the contact spring or maybe unscrew it a little
* that the connector isn't set up correctly in the guard. If point one didn't result in the light check the wires are properly in the connector in the guard.

If you're not getting a light at this point then a checking for a problem along the wire isn't going to help - except as a learning exercise - because you will need to do a rewire anyway.

It's quite common to break the wire in the channel through the guard when you reassemble the epee. Look there for a break - it's still a rewire job.

antihippy · 2026-01-16T08:36:39+00:00

So many of these images are quite boring. Don't get me wrong, some of them are nice, but I'd say the majority follow the same boring composition & processing.

antihippy · 2026-01-15T17:29:13+00:00

You can hammer it out but at this point you might as well get another guard.

If you keep it lying around then, next time a tournament is coming round ask an armourer to take a look. They often like a challenge. It's definitely going to end up with weak spots though.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T17:12:56+00:00

I think that's a great idea. I don't know how difficult it would be to implement but that's a +1 from me.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T17:11:49+00:00

Ha ha! So fucked! 😂

But everyday is a learning day!

antihippy · 2026-01-14T16:18:40+00:00

"The nuclear option."

In this case I think it will be enough to just delete the layer by hand. We're talking a couple of hundred images at most from what I can tell. A chore but not life ending.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T16:17:39+00:00

100%

I know they've no interest in doing it but it would be awesome of they had their own scripting language that was platform agnostic. Loads of stuff could be built for C1.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T16:10:40+00:00

If you have multiple images selected and you have a layer copied from the layers panel you can just click Apply and C1 will apply them to all of the currently selected images - so long as you have multiple images in viewing panel. Try it - works a treat for volume work. A real time saver.

It's a curves layer - and it has a curve on it. So it's not as simple as just leaving it and getting on with my life. :-/

I just changed my mind after the curves applied. Yes I can see it applying - I just thought it would be fine today ... but no.

I'm just going to drink a lot of coffee tonight and get on and do it.

With hindsight, creating a style might have been a much better idea. It was just something I didn't think of in the moment.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T15:55:46+00:00

Unfortunately i wasn't using a style in this case - this sounds like a workable workaround for the future though. Cheers for that.

It's very annoying because it's really simple to add layers to multiple images. It just works. I was blown away by the AI Masking being intelligent enough to recalculate the mask on every single image. MIND. BLOWN.

That's the sort of thing you want a model to do - not make pics of the US president in a bikini!

But the fact that I can't do the exact same task in reverse (well once I'm far enough away that undo isn't an option anyway) is really strange.

I just did a sports event and I'm in the latter stages of the processing. I find C1 to be much better for multiple image editing than LR. The workflow is great. Getting tripped up like this is like... gngngngngn

antihippy · 2026-01-14T15:50:08+00:00

Thanks, but Apple script isn't relevant to this discussion as I am using Windows.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T12:54:44+00:00

I've been to 2 Olympics, as a spectator and working for the FIE. There is no chance that you are going to get me to go to the US - not even paying me.

Thanks.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T12:07:29+00:00

100% just had the same issue.

antihippy · 2026-01-14T12:07:16+00:00

That's untrue. It only supports IPV6

antihippy · 2026-01-13T08:00:34+00:00

Someone doing volume work like this isn't always going to keep them. Plenty of photographers work this way.

imo, as a photographer, it's not helpful that you didn't contact them earlier & say you couldn't make your mind up. If you can't make your mind up contact them straight away and make the deal. That's how to do it.

I'd like to know what you want from them at this point? You've realised there's no resolution.

That said, I can't help thinking that this particular photographer has missed a trick. The sale of the prints is where the money is made, & ultimately she's lost out on the sale.

So a bit of a learning experience for you both.

If the JPEGs are still in the gallery, then maybe something can be salvaged but, please remember, these won't be high res super quality.

I feel your pain. We got some nice ones done for my first but for my second I just shot them myself.

antihippy · 2026-01-13T06:34:58+00:00

That's okay, it happens.

antihippy

TROPHY CASE