The Guidelines on Development of Fencing for Excellence for Fencing Clubs under Thailand Fencing Federation

Abstract

                 The purpose of this research was to investigate the guidelines on development of fencing for excellence for fencing clubs under Thailand Fencing Federation (TFF). The 139 populations  in this study comprised 19 executive boards of TFF and 120 fencing coaches registered with TFF.  Semi-structured interview was used as a tool of this study. The samples used in this study were five executive boards and five fencing coaches who used to send the athletes to attend and they won the competitions certified by TFF. The data collection was conducted by interview and focus group methods. The data from the interview were analyzed to create the guidelines on development of fencing for excellence and confirmed by the focus group. The triangulation method was used to examine the data in this study.

                   The findings revealed as follows:

                   The guidelines on development of fencing for excellence for fencing clubs under TFF consisted of five aspects: (1) Organization - the clubs should set up the clear structure, vision and policy for development; (2) Sports Personnel - the clubs should recruit the personnel for administration to support and make all the club activities achieve its goals and the personnel for training to develop the athletes’ skills and techniques; furthermore, they should gradually increase their personnel’s potential; (3) Facility and Equipment - the clubs should provide their equipments including electronic judging machine, Piste (training stadium), and athletes’ personal equipment, swords (Epee, Foil or Sabre), plastron, jacket, breeches or knickers, mask, breast or chest protector, lames, Sabre cuffs, and gloves; (4) Implementation – the clubs should conduct training by making the short and long term training plans  along with the competition plans appropriate to each athlete in each event; (5) Fencing Excellence – the clubs should settle the self-assessment system in accordance with the set vision, policy and action plans to construct the indicators in order to reflect their quality and fencing excellence.