Greg Massialas
A two-time US National Champion and three-time Olympic team member in foil, Greg trained for several years at San Jose State under Michael D’Asaro. After his competitive career, he was a sought after International fencing official and also began coaching foil.
He founded the M-Team in San Francisco and has produced spectacular results with his foil program, including former world #1 ranked Gerek Meinhardt – the first US foilist to achieve that ranking, and Olympic Silver Medalist Alex Massialas, his son, who also held the world #1 ranking. Greg’s progam continues to develop both men and women foilists who are achieving top results in Cadet, Junior and Senior World rankings.
READ MORE...Greg has also been named the US National Foil Coach and travels tirelessly in support of our US competitors.
Articles
In Vino Spiritus
The Latin meaning of that, according to Google Translate, is “Wine of the Spirit”. As a philistine in the ways of Latin, I’ll have to accept it. No clue. Truly.
Voices From The Past
A number of people over the years have done impersonations of the inimitable Hans Halberstadt and they range wide in both style and substance. Charlie Selberg knew Hans well and would often quote him during fencing lectures or footwork drills.
August and Everything After
I’ll say up front that I’m sick of my desk and computer. I still spend long parts of my day here, but motivation to string my thoughts together in a coherent way have been sparse.
Short Stories
A number of things have come my way recently through various paths. Taken individually, they add to the collection in nice ways, but don’t necessarily give me the grist to crank out a full story around them.
The First Selection: Ted Lorber
I’m not sure of the original source for the story, but it goes like this. In the early days of the AFLA, precursor to today’s USA Fencing, the East Coast was in charge.
Not Hans Halberstadt!
The above picture has been assumed to be Hans Halberstadt for a very long time. I thought so myself, even after scanning it (thanks Kathy Krusen!) at high resolution and having every opportunity to review it with a critical eye.
The Premier Maestra?
One of my favorite subjects to write about it the famous foilist and Olympic champion, Helene Mayer. There are numerous photographs of her in the Archive collection and since she was based in California for many of her competitive years, her story fits my focus.
Helene Mayer by Romaine
After spending the better part of this week running down stories that haven’t yet fully revealed themselves, I thought I’d revisit one of my many favorite subjects: Helene Mayer. There are a lot of photographs of Ms. Mayer out there, but several of the following are, I believe, unique to the interwebs until now.
Time Traveling with Hans Halberstadt
A recent gift to the Archive has me dumbfounded. It’s existence was something I had speculated about in a vague way, but never dreamed of finding proof for. Much less, having the proof come directly to me as a donation to the Archive.
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