After a six-year absence, fencing instruction has returned to St. Bernard's in the newly constructed fencing room on the seventh floor mezzanine. The construction was underwritten by the St. Bernard's Parents Association; the room has been named in memory of the late athletic director Louis A. Tambini.
St. Clair Clement stands in the middle of the fencing mat in the Louis A. Tambini Fencing Room demonstrating the new electronic sensor fencing scoring system. When fully engaged, both light and sound occur when touches are scored against opponents. "The art of fencing is unlike basketball, football, volleyball, and several other sports," he explains. "Fencing requires a student to learn and to develop personal face-to-face survival intelligence with light-speed decision-making offensive and defensive skills."
As a child, Mr. Clement was "quite impressed with the swashbuckling movies, like The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo," he recounts. "I loved the movement, the swordplay, the action; I teamed up kids in the neighborhood, and we held mock battles up and down the sidewalks of Harlem." As he grew older, he traded in his sticks for foils at the YMCA at 135th Street, and fencing became part of his life.
Mr. Clement studied communication at the State University of New York prior to serving in the United States Army as part of the Second Pentomic (atomic) Unit stationed in Gelhausen, outside Frankfurt, Germany from 1959 to 1964. While there, Mr. Clement was able to study for ten months with Italian fencing master, Pierre Angelini, who at that time was twice world champion, seven times European champion.
When he returned to New York in 1965, Mr. Clement continued his education, pursuing a degree in business at Baruch College, and co-founded the Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO) with his marketing instructor. Now in its thirty-fourth year, the free entrepreneurial workshop is in twenty-eight locations in eight states. Mr. Clement also began a successful career of thirty-five years in advertising and public relations. His clients ranged from the New York City Board of Education to American Express to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He has his own agency, St. Clair Associates, and is the producer and director of People to People, a cable television news magazine focusing on positive news and information. And through all this time he continued to fence and to teach fencing (at such unusual places as Ophelia DeVore's charm school for girls at 53rd Street and Broadway). "Fencing was the thread that kept my life balanced," Mr. Clement remarks. "As time passed, fencing became more and more my focus."
In 1988 Mr. Clement created the first New York city-wide off-season open fencing program for all city high school fencers and coaches. In 1991 he co-founded the East Harlem International Fencing Club at the NYC Parks Department's Thomas Jefferson Recreational Center. Mr. Clement also produces the annual James D. Wolfensohn Fencing Tournament, which began in 1994. (Mr. Wolfensohn is currently the president of the World Bank.) In addition, Mr. Clement established the Alexandre Dumas Fencing Society to help promote fencing throughout New York City as an avenue of self-development for people of all ages. Fencing students from a high school team in New York City who were trained by Mr. Clement were selected to appear in a video honoring Ralph Lauren in 1998.
"Fencing teaches a boy to take a chance on himself, not be afraid to fail, and to win," Mr. Clement explains. "A fencing student must conduct the entire competitive action, on a strip four to six feet in width and 44 to 46 feet in length, to defeat the opponent, with a fencing weapon in hand. He must develop mentally to make immediate real-time decisions in a rapidly changing environment to score points in milliseconds to win a match. A fencer must think six or eight moves ahead--it's a mental chess game with muscles."
"Fencing is also uniquely different because it is face-to-face consideration," he continues. "And with the added element of being able to touch one's opponent, fencing gives an immediate reaction and gratification. It's interesting to see how the students come alive when they are on the mat. They quickly develop a sense of trust and a strong sense of confidence, a new level of assuredness. It's a matter of channeling their energy, that pent-up emotion they can't seem to express."
"Teaching fencing is intense--you have to get out of a student what you need in a short time. As a fencer, I need to be able to read my opponent's body movement and mind. As a teacher, I have to look into each individual student and find that response, that trigger, which will help push him to the next level."
This fall, Mr. Clement hopes to expand the St. Bernard's fencing program to include fencing teams and a fencing club. "Fencing is a lifetime sport, a skill set that the boys will take with them forever. Part of my job as a fencing coach is to encourage the students to transfer the executive decision functions they develop on the fencing strip to the academic world and beyond."
No. 25, Fall 2000, page 14