Over the years of teaching fencing I have acquired both a system of instruction and an entire kit of tools to use in passing on the art. Here's a short summary of some of the lessons I have learned. I hope these will be helpful for both the beginning instructor and the more experienced, who are looking for new ideas and angles to their work.
Teaching is not instructing
Your main outcome is a positive change in your students. While it is harder in a group setting, you should always seek for that spark of understanding in your students. Both theoretical and practical. Going through the motions is not enough, there needs to be some rewiring happening behind every pair of eyes.
Know your system
Build a system and you will never run out of material, answers or inspiration—or what to do in an exchange of cuts and thrusts.
Controlling your own state
Never lose your temper and patience. You have to control yourself to control the class. This is a safety requirement, among other things.
Class plans
I'll just paraphrase Vladimir Vasiliev, an instructor of a different martial art: "Class plans are great, but best left at home."
Red thread
Build on the previous lessons and maintain a theme, but keep it subtle. It's not relevant that the class know you had it in mind, it's relevant that they improve.
Don't look, see
It can be overwhelming, but use your sensors to see underlying causes, patterns, and to predict what is to come. This will make you a better instructor and lead to a safer training environment. Practice your awareness of the periphery while zooming in. See the internal mechanics that cause a movement. See the structure behind a position and so on.
Trees and the forest
When you spot something to correct on an individual, look for it in others. It might be something you can correct for the group, and perhaps the root cause was something you can improve in your demonstration.
Let them forget
Build an environment that requires recall and the students will eventually remember.
Invest in failures
Optimism aids retention and people look for positive experiences. But we learn through trial, error and success (positive reinforcement). Maintaining an environment where everyone would be constantly challenged and succeeding is idealistic, so it is better to make failure a positive experience. Just never compromise on safety.
Learning beyond the comfort zone
Deliberate practice allows learning within the comfort zone. But it can become uncomfortable due to tedium, at which point I'd just go for harder challenges that are beyond what the students or I can comfortably do. Learning something completely new might require re-aligning, or expansion of our internal models. This can be uncomfortable all the way to causing a painful sensation, but it is transient. Once we push through there will be a lot of room for deliberate practice that is still engaging. Sometimes we can also step into chaos in order to learn, such as fencing against an opponent whose skill level is too high for us to control. For us, it will feel chaotic, but eventually we will recognize the patterns and learn to reason about it. Given that safety is not compromised, this might not have to be all that uncomfortable, even.
Minding the gap
Since time immemorial, historical fencers have spoken of "bridging the gap" between drill and free fencing. I think this is a lost cause. The ultimate drill is free fencing, and basically that's the only thing you absolutely need—especially if it is done to impart knowledge or to deliberately improve. But there are a lot of reasons why fencing practice shouldn't be only free fencing. A child will learn to speak a language from communicating with their parents and other people, but more is needed if they later choose to pursue mastery in their language—or other languages.
In fencing, you need to practice also when you're alone. Practice a little bit every morning, every night. Practice your cuts when cutting bread, practice footwork when you navigate in a crowd. True understanding, especially one that exists on a meta-level and which you can pass on to others, requires understanding the basics. Knowing the alphabet in addition to knowing how to communicate.
But you should start from the why, and if your goal is to learn or teach fencing, then define what it is and work yourself down to discover the angle at which any individual should approach it.
Part of it is show business
If you see yourself as an actor and entertainer, you will be a better teacher. The class always gets excited when you include some dazzle, element of surprise, intentionally getting a bit carried away with your drills, a bit of extra, some humor and a lot of good energy.
Tempo of a class
You control the tempo of the class. Learn how to use this to invigorate or to calm down, and to keep it engaging. If an individual correction takes too much time, consider turning it to a demonstration for everyone. If you sense people getting bored, change the tempo—but try to make it natural, don't punish the class for your own inability to control the pace. Compare yourself to a speaker who wants to captivate their audience, or a DJ who wants to keep the party alive.
Making contact with the audience
Listen, watch, read them. Engage them. Keep them positively alert. Surprise them. Interact with them. Be among them. Be interesting to them.
Finding demonstration partners
Always have a strategy for picking demonstration partners, and figure this out the moment you know what your group is. Have a go-to default person who knows the exercises, can move in sync with you, and can help amplify your signal. If you need to, or decide to use someone from the audience (which can be a very powerful tool), be honest about what you are expecting. It might be a good idea to demonstrate a private lesson instead of demonstrating a technique or an exercise in that case.
Forms, why
If the tradition includes forms, teach them. Forms can be more than embellishments, as pedagogical devices that might have been used by the original masters. How well they work, and to what end, is hard to say—but if someone wants to learn calligraphy, they won't be taught touch typing. Know what you are teaching and let that guide what goes into the lessons.
Forms, how
Cuts, thrusts and positions comprise actions, actions comprise plays, long plays become forms. There's a correlation between solo and pair practice and the length of the sequence. A shorter sequence is often easier learned in context, whereas the memorization of a long form happens solo. Play with these variables, practice parts of a form solo, with a partner and then string them together solo, eventually practicing the long form together with a pair. There is no one correct way, but the variations are a form of over-learning that will help harden the basics.
Measuring success
The goal is self-improvement of some sort. These skills won't be used in earnest, but your students will want to validate their progress. Offer ways for this, but make them individual and introspective. Not hierarchical and comparative to others.
When you make a mistake
Acknowledge immediately, mitigate any immediate issues, root cause if necessary and try not to repeat it the next time. Have self-compassion, you owe it to those who want to learn from you. Making mistakes makes you more human, and in that setting, how you deal with them can be a lesson for your students just as valuable as anything else.
Taking risks
Don't take risks with your students. Don't make them do drills that are unsafe (fencing and martial arts are inherently risky, but do what is reasonable to prevent injuries, especially serious ones such as eye injuries, concussions or repetitive minor head trauma, punctures and lacerations). When demonstrating, I have taken a lot of risks with my own health in the past, but these days I would suggest doing all pair demonstrations with a mask at the very least. This would be closer to what I am expecting the students to do as well. You'd be surprised how many times I've had a group begin to practice the exercise without masks after demonstrating it without masks. And I can't really blame them, now can I?
Create a safe space
It's your job to create, foster and ensure an environment that is both psychologically and physically safe to everyone. Don't expect yourself to know how to do it, but do it anyway and always try to become better at it. I cannot stress this enough.
Cliffhangers, canvas size
Towards the end of a class, make the class understand why you practiced what you did. Show them what is next. Give them a taste of what they will eventually learn. Step outside any class plan, any rule, show what you can do with the art. Transcend drills and any tedium. This will leave them feeling like they are on the path and will bring them back the next time.