Direct Elimination Podcast
Where champions take off the mask.
Hosted by elite fencers Ari Simmons and Stephen Ewart, Direct Elimination brings you raw, honest conversations with top performers in sports, business and life. Each episode dives deep into what it really takes to pursue your passion with purpose.
No fluff. Just the moments, mindsets, and choices that shape a life in pursuit of something bigger.
Direct Elimination Podcast
Why We Fence: Ari Simmons & Stephen Ewart on Purpose & Failure | Direct Elimination Ep. 1
Welcome to the very first episode of the Direct Elimination Podcast — where two lifelong fencers and friends, Ari Simmons and Stephen Ewart, sit down to talk about the stories, setbacks, and motivations that define not just athletes, but anyone chasing purpose.
🎙️ In this debut, Ari and Stephen get vulnerable and real:
Their fencing origin stories — from Lancaster, California parks & rec programs to Houston’s Alliance Fencing Academy.
The first time they actually met (spoiler: it involved Adidas Barricade 7s and a close 5–3 match).
Dealing with failure, frustration, and self-doubt — and why failure often plants the seeds for growth.
The concept of going “all-in” — and why sometimes it’s not one single moment, but a series of recommitments.
Their shared experiences at Notre Dame, gap years, and the painful reality of chasing but missing Olympic qualification.
Lessons on mindset: “You can either get through it, or you can get better.”
Why fencing isn’t just a sport, but a lifelong purpose and identity.
Favorite memories, equipment (shoutout to their sponsor Prieur USA), and inside stories from the fencing community.
This isn’t just a fencing podcast. It’s about resilience, purpose, and community — lessons that apply whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or anyone who’s ever asked: “Why do I do what I do?”
⏱ Timestamps
00:00 – Welcome to Direct Elimination
02:00 – Introducing Ari & Stephen
05:00 – Why we started this podcast
07:00 – Stephen’s fencing origin story
17:00 – Ari’s fencing origin story
25:00 – The first time they met on strip
33:00 – College decisions & Notre Dame days
43:00 – Gap years, failure, and missing the Olympics
54:00 – Why we keep going: purpose, sacrifice, and love for fencing
1:00:00 – Lightning round Q&A
1:03:00 – Closing lessons and quotes
💬 Key Quotes
“You can either get through it, or you can get better.”
“Don’t let one touch ruin a bout, one bout ruin a tournament, one tournament ruin a season, or one season ruin a career.”
“Fencing isn’t torture — it’s purpose. It’s what keeps me alive.”
“At the end of the day, when your mask is on, your fate is in your hands.”
Thank you for listening!
🔗 Connect with Us
🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple: https://link.me/directeliminationpodcast
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/directeliminationpodcast/
📺 Subscribe for more episodes: youtube.com/@directeliminationpodcast
Welcome everybody to the first episode of the Direct Elimination podcast.
Speaker 01:If you're a fencing enthusiast, someone who's passionate about anything in life, wants to know more about me or Steven, or just wants to be a part of a community of passionate people, this episode and the ensuing seasons might be for you. On this episode, you are going to be learning about our fencing origin stories how we got to know each other, how we came back from failure, shared adversity, and a little bit of highlights on each of our mindsets, as well as some fencing equipment that we really love. Enjoy the episode. So I guess this is where it really begins, Stephen. Yeah. Welcome. Episode one of Direct Elimination.
Speaker 00:Welcome to Direct Elimination.
Speaker 01:Yeah.
Speaker 00:We're your hosts. Ari and Steven, happy to be here.
Speaker 01:It's surreal to be here, honestly. It really is. It's a little bit exciting, a little bit anticlimactic, a little bit overwhelming, all of the above. I don't want to mess up. Anyways, let's do some quick introductions.
Speaker 00:Sounds good.
Speaker 01:All right. So I would say, should we introduce each other? Yeah, I'm good with that. Let's do that. So for anyone listening right now, The man sitting across from me is Stephen Ewart. He is a many-time U.S. national team member, a Notre Dame graduate, and a current employee in the U.S. workforce who is balancing a full-time career and a full-time athletic career trying to qualify for the L.A. 2028 Olympic Games. Stephen is also a three-time NCAA, four-time NCAA NCAA team champion and has a myriad of other results, including a suitcase load of US national competition medals, gold, silver, bronze, all the colors. And his best result in seniors to this date is a bronze medal at the Buenos Aires World Cup in 2023. He's an extremely established fencer in the community. And he's one of my very good friends. And we're excited to bring Direct Illumination to you all.
Speaker 00:Thank you, Ari. You're welcome. I appreciate that. It makes me sound more accomplished than I think I am. But without further ado, the man sitting across from me, the mayor of fencing, Mr. Ari Simmons. Ari Simmons is a world champion, cadet world champion. multiple-time U.S. national team member, Notre Dame alumni as well, three-time NCAA team champion. He wears a number of other hats or has worn a number of other hats as the U.S.' 's athlete rep for fencing, as well as a mentor, a former assistant coach for Division I-level athletic programs in fencing, a great friend of mine. Gosh, what else can I say about you? What's your best result? No,
Speaker 01:so my best result is always the most recent one I just got.
Speaker 00:I like that. I like that. Top eight at the 2025 Summer Nationals in Milwaukee. I believe sixth place. The
Speaker 01:July challenge, I got sixth place. Steven got 13th. So I mean, I think in fencing, let's just dive right in. I think we're always, you know, everyone is always trying to think about, you know, how good they are relative to to other people, where they're at, what's their best result and whatnot. I think it's good to just level set with everyone listening to this. You're as good as you are. And best result is so weighted of a question. The biggest gold I got individually was obviously my Cadet World Championships gold. But I'm really proud of some of our team national championships at Notre Dame I'm and I'm frankly really proud of my most recent results so I think just always you know investing more into yourself and just constantly being proud of the work that you're doing is more important obviously want other good results in the future too
Speaker 00:most important result is the next one exactly yeah
Speaker 01:exactly so before we fully dive in right we'd love to thank pre your USA our sponsor one other thing that both of us failed to mention is that we are both sponsored by Priur and what is Priur for those of you who either are not in the fencing community or just don't know about it Priur is the oldest fencing manufacturing company on the planet founded in 1788 in France and more recently they made the trek over to the United States to open up a sister company Priur USA and Priur USA has a very strong team of athletes and Stephen and I are lucky to be a part of that group. We're going to have some of them on here for sure in the future. And we got some for your gear here, like these gloves. Absolutely. And this mask. Oh, how'd that get here? Anyways, so why are we doing this podcast, Stephen?
Speaker 00:It's a good question, Ari. I like what you've been saying as we've been talking to people about it. At the incredibly passionate people doing a sport that not a lot of people know about not a lot of people follow but we are very intertwined with and involved in and we're doing it because we love it at the end of the day like I I love doing what we do and I think you have to in order to continue to do it for this long to make the sacrifices you need to make in order to continue and so I think we've begun this podcast is an attempt to elevate that sport, present our voices, present our experiences, present the experiences of those that we know, incredible people to the world, and hopefully just Exactly.
Speaker 01:Stephen touched on it right there. Stories. jobs we wear a lot of hats and we train hard and we train full-time and and we work but how did we get here right so i guess for the world to hear for for everyone to see a question for you would be what got you into fencing and second one would be what if you can remember what was the moment that you could define as your all-in moment this i would want to do this sport more than other sports? Because both of us have played other sports in the past. We've done other stuff. But why fencing?
Speaker 00:Well, I grew up in a small town called Lancaster, California. It's out in the middle of the desert. It is the desert. And really have no business knowing what fencing is or having been to the countries that we've been to and done the things that I've done. But luckily, there was a guy. His name was Matt Damron. He started a Parks and Rec fencing program out in Lancaster. He learned from a coach in Los Angeles and just brought it to this small town where I grew up. And when I was seven years old, my aunt gave me Parks and Rec fencing classes as a Christmas present because I was big into Star Wars and knights in castles and sword fighting and all that other stuff.
Speaker 01:Nerd.
Speaker 00:Yeah, no, big time. I was very, very not good at soccer, baseball, basketball, you name it. Ball sports, not my strong suit. Still not my strong suit. But started fencing. Wasn't particularly good, but I loved it. I didn't want to stop doing it. I wanted to keep doing it, learning, getting better. Not even learning and getting better. I think if I, you know, try and think back and remember those days being seven, eight, nine years old, like just... looking forward to Saturdays when I could go and play this game with a plastic sword. I wasn't even using metal swords at the time. I was using these training plastic ones. And I just love doing it. And over time, the coach, his name is Tigran, that my first coach learned fencing from, he invited, he said, you know, Matt, if you want to bring your people down from Lancaster to come train in Santa Clarita, which is a slightly bigger, small city in California. Um, feel free, you know, bring them down. They can fence some better people train. At that time I was competing locally in Southern California and some youth competitions, um, which I'm very thankful for. Southern California used to have a great youth fencing sort of club tournament scene and, uh, started going down for training with Tigran, who was a, you know, an established coach had trained multiple national team members, some big names in the sport. Um, And I just kept showing up. And he didn't choose to give me lessons or tell me, oh, this kid's good. It was just I liked doing it. I liked fencing better people. I enjoyed the better workout I was getting. And I kept coming, kept showing up. And eventually, there was another coach working at this club. And I was practicing one day, fencing somebody. And he told me what to do when I was like I think I was nine and he said oh you're doing this do this and I just did it right and he's like what the hell like kids usually don't listen, right? Like kids just don't, you tell kids what to do and they just don't do it or they, you know, and he was like, oh, do you want to take a private lesson? I was like, what's a private lesson, you know? And from there, just kind of kept going, kept taking lessons, started taking lessons from Tigran as well, and the rest is history. So to answer your, sorry, I've been talking for a bit.
Speaker 01:That was very good, first of all, but we're looking for your all-in. So I'm, yeah. If you have one.
Speaker 00:All in, I don't think there was ever a I'm going to do another sport because I just truly loved it from the day I picked it up. But there's a difference between whenever I interact in a coaching capacity when I go back home or just give people advice, I always think to myself about some beginner fencers. There's a difference between doing fencing and training seriously, right? And I remember that moment for me. I was 13 years old, and I was getting ready for Summer Nationals, and I had been to a couple of national competitions, not done super well. I was doing very well locally, but no good results at these national tournaments. And I remember I was fencing one day and getting ready for Summer Nationals, and I realized just sort of at once that my footwork wasn't any good. And I went, I need to have better footwork. And I, you know, I don't know what made me realize that or what the change even was at this point in time. But I just remember like working a lot harder on the footwork and just in like the span of a week fencing very differently. And then a couple of weeks later, go to summer nationals. And I got my first national medal as a 13 year old. And I, you know, got third in the under 14 age category. And that was, I think, my first moment where I'm like, oh, I am good at this. Right. Like I am serious about this I am good at this and I just need to get more serious and more good at this so yeah that was I that's what I would define as like my all-in moment I
Speaker 01:think that's that's a very fair one and you know one thing that you talked about is like there maybe wasn't one exact moment and I think that's fine we're constantly especially as you get in older you graduate college even graduating high school getting into college you start getting all these other inputs or maybe you you miss a huge goal that you had set for for yourself. You always ask and evaluate, you know, do I want to keep doing this? All that type of stuff. So it's like, you know, maybe any time that you're teetering, you're not all in, right? And then you redefine the moment that you choose to buy back in as your new all-in moment, right? So there might not be one all-encompassing one, but I think you answered about as well as you could have for that question. It was a loaded question.
Speaker 00:No, no, it's a good question because I do think in, you know, there's a saying from one of the strength and conditioning coaches at Notre Dame that I What's his name? Or her name, sorry. Mike
Speaker 01:Zamborski. Mike Zamborski. We're shouting you out right now, Coach Mike. I never worked with you, but everyone that has said you're a beast.
Speaker 00:He was a very good strength and conditioning coach, very cool guy. I really enjoyed learning from him, but he told us on day one as our strength and conditioning coach for the two or three years that he worked with the team, he said you can get, with any workout or really anything you do, you can get through it or you can get better right and I think doing I mean we know this firsthand through training but I think you can apply it to even your job or your school work right it's being present and engaged with what it is you're doing versus just trying to do it and get through it and I think fencing for me is or training in general is an outlet for that where I want to be present and I want to be getting better. And the hard part is in school or in work, instead of just trying to get through my day and get through my tasks, do it 100% correct. Do it as well as I can and try and improve. Try and learn while you're moving about your day. But yeah, I think that's an important distinction just in anything you do is are you getting through it or are you getting better?
Speaker 01:Absolutely. And that's one of the things that we really want to highlight indirect elimination, at least I do. You know, I think. We've heard it our whole lives, you know, our entire lives, excuse me, my whole life. I've been hearing, oh, the skills you learn in your sport translate directly to X, Y, and Z. And I just remember being in class, like, I'm going to be super transparent with you and everyone listening. I didn't go nowhere to play school. I think that was made apparent to everyone that ever interacted with me. And it's, you know, I didn't feel that, you know, oh, yeah, I work really hard in the gym. All of a sudden, like, I'm going to work hard in the classroom. No, I'm tired. But the older we get, you brought up a great point. You can either get through something or you can get better and improve. And the more that I learn about myself through fencing, the more I learn how to become a better version of myself off the strip. And I think that's part of the reason why I'm still doing it. That's one of the reasons why I keep buying back in. Because when you do something for so long, you can either get through it and just keep doing it or you can continue improving. And at this point, fencing for at least you and I, given the conversations we've had over years, you know, it's a tool for self-reflection and self-improvement. And yeah, I also kind of want to talk about how I got started, but I also want to jump into my moment.
Speaker 00:I
Speaker 01:had a very similar moment.
Speaker 00:Give us your backstory, please. How did you end up doing this? Yeah. This awesome sport. Look at
Speaker 01:these gloves. These are awesome. No other sport lets you wear this on your hand. I
Speaker 00:mean...
Speaker 01:But in all transparency and seriousness, I got into the sport in a fun way. You know, around the age of four, I befriended a guy named Anton Peskovatskov, and we became very close friends. And neither of us knew how, you know, you're four. You don't know how long your friendship's going to last, how deep it's going to go, what doors it's going to open for you. And, you know, I was like, I think I benefited quite a bit from that, and I think that he unintentionally opened a bunch of doors for me. His mom, when we were eight years old, married a fencing coach, and that fencing coach had started a fencing club in 2004, so right around the time we were eight. So right around then, he had started a fencing club, called Alliance Fencing Academy in Houston, Texas, which is where I'm from. And at the age of eight, Anton was forced into fencing because his stepfather, a new family member, ran a fencing club. It made sense. I don't remember Anton loving it. He would come to school. I remember being in fourth grade, and he was telling me, like, I still don't like it. I cry when I put my mask on, stuff like that. And over time, I think he started liking it more. I went to go watch a competition of his. And then all of a sudden, next thing you know, I'm being requested by my mom to find a new sport, which is fencing. At the time, I was doing gymnastics and soccer maybe. My mom never wanted me to play any of the standard American sports. I loved football. I was so passionate about football, NFL. I loved basketball. I loved all that stuff. She didn't really love them, so she geared my life towards more interesting sports. sports, in her opinion. I did ballroom dancing, taekwondo, gymnastics. Soccer was allowed because they had that in the Soviet Union where she was from. And then fencing was next on the list. And frankly, I fell in love from day one. It was super fun. I did a summer camp at the age of 10 at Alliance Fencing Academy. And I was bad. You know, like some people, they start and you can tell that they're a natural talent. And at this point, we've interacted with a bajillion of those people. and some people their talent comes out as they grow and they work more mine was not there to start I loved it and I fought really hard and maybe I would win blah blah blah all this stuff but first tournament I ever did dead last you know I know people it's like oh yeah I won my first tournament and that's when I knew I should do this no first tournament dead last but I am a competitive tough workhorse and that was the first trigger of like I want to do this again I want to get better but it wasn't a true true I want to work hard and you know that moment that you described so that's not my all-in moment that was just the competitive itch getting scratched a little but in order to actually get better you can't just fight hard on the day of you got to put in the work
Speaker 00:right
Speaker 01:I'm a goofball got kicked out of class all the time fencing school whatever and simply just because I took talk too much. I like talking. I like what? Yeah. Shocker, shocker, shocker. Well, here we are talking and getting recorded talking. But I wasn't a stellar student alliance. You know, all the other fencers started to progress a little more than I was. Anton was top of the class and in both our club and very quickly we found out in the country. Anton was awesome to watch. Really great competitor. Great technique.
Speaker 00:I will say that Anton and his brother Jonathan were both incredible fencers to watch. Yeah,
Speaker 01:still are.
Speaker 00:Still are, really. It's stuff you can't teach. Yeah, no,
Speaker 01:absolutely.
Speaker 00:And just beautiful, beautiful at this sport.
Speaker 01:Truly beautiful fencing. And I think that I didn't put two and two together. I was upset because I was coming to all the practices that Anton was coming to, and not just Anton, other people at our club. I can name Michael Popovich, Darius Sakarakis. They were starting to show a little success, and I don't think I was. I medaled at a super youth circuit that was very small, but then hadn't medaled since. And super youth circuit is like a pseudo national competition. And it wasn't any of the big national competitions. And I think I was around 13, same as you, and Andre, the head coach of this club, had a conversation with my parents and said, You know, we cherish Ari. He's at my house a lot. I know your kid. I know you guys. But I don't know how much money you should be investing in his fencing because he doesn't try that hard. He doesn't put in the work that the other students do, and he's distracting to the other kids. So he spends a lot of time sitting out, and you guys are spending money on him sitting out. And then you guys go to these tournaments. We've gone to some national tournaments, and he's losing really early. I'm not a data scientist, but it looks like there's a trend here. And my parents took it in stride, and they looked at me and said, is that true? How do you feel about this? I don't remember exactly what they said, but I just remember fuming silently because... Deep down, I knew that he was right. And I knew that I was wasting their money and their time and his time. And I wasn't sure what to do with that frustration. Luckily, that summer, right after another national competition that I performed abysmally at, we got a new coach at Alliance. And I kind of got paired with him to work with. His name is Sergey Danilov. Oh,
Speaker 00:you guys aren't close at all.
Speaker 01:Yeah, not at all. He unlocked, it all came together. Having this new coach who was motivated to coach and grow his career and his resume and having recently dealt with this, I also hit puberty right around then. So I had all this new hormonal, maybe imbalance or whatever, and I wanted to work. And I realized how right Andre and my parents were And I wanted to invest. And that was the moment for me. And from then on, I trained really hard, got my first national medal in some 14 and under age group, also third, funny enough. And then just kept going and kept going, kept going. And the doors kept opening. And I would get down on myself with the losses, up on myself on the wins, more motivated, regardless of what was coming my way. And that hard work just became obsession, became love, became passion. And it became me. And and it was something that has really led my life to where we are now and it's opened so many doors to you know college admissions to meeting people from all over the world getting to interact with other people that also are pushing themselves chasing their version of greatness it's opened my life to high performance like I've done so much and I owe it to Anton thank you anyways I think the that is probably a great segue for me into where we met right and I want to just talk about a little bit of our background and kind of get that part of the story straight so I remember the first time that I actually met you was and this doesn't count for like our friendship obviously but it was at a December knack in 2000 yeah in 2000 and And I was dealing with an Achilles injury.
Speaker 00:It was in Dallas?
Speaker 01:No, this was 2013, actually. December 2013. It was in Dallas, December 2013, because that 2013-2014 year, I ended up not making the national team. I thought... No, no. I remember for a fact. I remember for a fact. We can check the car facts later. And you were like this up-and-coming, like you must have been that year. 14? it was I finished cadet which means that it was your last year of the 14 age group right and I was very eager to be you and I just remember in this match I was like oh this kid is talented it's only a five point match so we didn't have a lot of interaction but I was just like oh he might be a problem but I remember trying really hard and I think I yelled a lot but yeah you know what is your recollection of us meeting.
Speaker 00:So I remember the match. I remember, I think I lost 5-3. It
Speaker 01:was 5-3. Why do we remember? We need to fill that space of our brains with investment knowledge or something. Oh my gosh. Anyways.
Speaker 00:I remember you were wearing custom Adidas Barricade 7s. See, this is wild. How do we know this? It's true. We're best shoes people. But he was wearing red, white, and blue custom Adidas Barricade 7s. And I went, those are awesome. And obviously, Ari's awesome. Great fencer. Someone that I'm happy I get to fence. For
Speaker 01:context, everyone, I'm almost three years older than Steven. So at this point in time, I'm like 17. So yeah, 17 or
Speaker 00:about to be 17 or something. You're like 14. Yeah, I remember seeing the shoes. I was like, man. He looks sick. He's really feeling himself. It would be pretty funny if I beat this guy. And I didn't. But I remember being like, oh, I think I could. I think I could find a way. He beat me. There was no question about it. But I didn't feel like I... I felt like I lost. I didn't feel like I got destroyed. You know what I mean?
Speaker 01:And you didn't get destroyed, right? Yeah. You probably made some bad decisions. I got lucky. I was probably nervous. No, not lucky. Hit a few. Not lucky, but lucky that you were nervous. Anywho.
Speaker 00:But I do remember some of our early interactions as well, just friends of friends, hotel room parties. My
Speaker 01:sister was friends with
Speaker 00:you. Yes, I was friends with your sister first. Camille. Shout out Camille. I have a funny story that I definitely can't say on this podcast Don't share.
Speaker 01:We'll start a separate podcast
Speaker 00:for that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a lot of funny stories for a separate podcast.
Speaker 01:That one will be faceless, though.
Speaker 00:We'll wear paper bags, and we'll have the boys walk first. Yeah. Anyway. But no, so we've been connected through Camille initially and just through mutual friends in the sport. I remember, funnily enough, so just for context, this was before I committed to to Notre Dame. We were at Junior Olympics together in Cleveland.
Speaker 01:Yeah, we fenced in teams. We did. Yeah.
Speaker 00:Oh, God.
Speaker 01:Yeah, we did. I
Speaker 00:remember, yeah, you guys beat us in the what, the round of four?
Speaker 01:It was eight, I think, or four. It doesn't really
Speaker 00:matter. It doesn't matter. No, I think it was the four because we got bronze. Okay, yeah. Or no, we lost for bronze.
Speaker 01:We got silver. We lost to the New York Athletic Club, funny enough, that we both fenced for New York Athletic Club now. Anyways. I
Speaker 00:don't remember if we got bronze or fourth, but anyways. And I remember we got dinner together. Ended up chatting with a homeless dude at a pizza place. Oh, with
Speaker 01:TJ Petrasevich. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was super funny. So TJ still brings that story up. That's hilarious. And Jonathan, right?
Speaker 00:No, no, that was different. That was Richmond. Oh, okay. Anyway, we need to rework our memory banks
Speaker 01:here. Yeah. A lot of homeless people we've interacted with at fencing tournaments. Yeah. But really, you know, the point of all this question was I forgot that there was lore before
Speaker 00:the war. Yeah, anyway. But I remember I was committed to Columbia at the time, verbally committed to go to Columbia University and fence there. And you were trying to introduce me to some of my future Columbia teammates that you knew through your time on the national team. And, you know, we went around that night and met different foil I remember
Speaker 01:that. I actually vividly remember that. And then we spent some time together in France shortly on the U.S. national team together. That was funny. World championships. And then the story really took flight when you came to visit Notre Dame. Yes. I was a freshman. You were there on a recruiting visit just trying to cross your T's and dot your I's before you made an official college decision.
Speaker 00:So if I may tell that story. story.
Speaker 01:You can, whatever you feel comfortable sharing. This is, this is public.
Speaker 00:All right. Well, there's a, so at the time I verbally committed to Columbia university, Columbia just won a back-to-back 2015, 2016, uh, NCAA national championships or no, sorry, 2014, 2015, no, 2015, 2016. Yeah. Sorry. Got to do my math. Right. Uh, 2015, 2016. So in my mind, in the nation's mind, they were the premier, the best fencing school. And I went, I'm going to go there. everything I did was geared towards going there verbally committed all as well and I was at summer nationals again in Dallas Texas and a referee or the the Notre Dame coach Cedric who's like a father to both of us came up to me you know hey how's it going haven't really spoken to you in this recruiting process I had known Cedric from some other competitions had like some rapport with him and he went would you like to you know chat about coming to Notre Dame and I said oh sorry I'm already he committed to Columbia. I went, okay, thanks, walked away. And there's this referee and a Sabre coach from Southern California that had known me since I was like nine years old, fencing, like I said, the youth Southern California circuit. He came up to me, he's, you, and he was, pissed. You idiot. What are you doing? I talked to them for you. They wanted to offer you a scholarship and you won't even go visit? I was like, whoa. Nice to see you too, I guess. And just do me a favor. Forget it. Just go visit. Just go see the school. You're doing yourself a disservice by not going to see the school. And I went, okay. So I had my dad reach out and contact Guy and Cedric and say, hey, we'd like to set up a visit if it's okay with you. We're very transparent. He's committed to Columbia, but we've been advised that we should go check it out. And so I showed up at 7 in the morning on campus at Main Circle. My dad dropped me off. Ari was there, and he said, all right, here we go. We're going to class. And that was where my visit started. We can tell more more of the visit story if you want. On the other podcast.
Speaker 01:But yeah, we spent a lot of time together at Notre Dame. So I was at Notre Dame for five years, four years of school. One year, Steve and I both took, or Steve and I, you and I both took gap years and tried to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics.
Speaker 00:That went really well.
Speaker 01:Well, I mean, I think that's why I want to kind of highlight it. So I want to touch on two things. First of all, NCAA sports and NCAA athletics. where we both have a vast amount of experience. And the other part falls in with the passion stuff, right? So I want to hear your take on this too because, you know, you've taken one gap year. I've taken two gap years. I took one after high school and during college, both for the same goal, to qualify for an Olympic Games, and both times I fell short of that goal. And both times that caused for a lot of self-reflection, right? A lot of I took this year of my life to pursue a goal and you know what what does it mean to not accomplish that who am I you know am I does that mean that I can't accomplish does that mean that I shouldn't have taken this gap year and I know you took a gap year we took one together you know I I want to talk but I also want to listen I want to hear you know what what your take is on that or or Because at the end of the day, the goal of this conversation is that other people can relate so that other people can learn. And so much of what we do, so much of what everyone does is invest time and resources and energy into a process for a result. And then they constantly grade themselves by the result rather than looking at the process. And you and I had this very, vivid and challenging experience where the result did not meet our expectation and we're left with the process and the learnings and the memories and the experiences. And I guess to make it an easier question to answer, would you do it again knowing that we didn't make it?
Speaker 00:Okay. Well, I'll answer that question in a moment. With a question. No, I'm just kidding. But, you know, I... I don't think about the gap year a lot. It's good to reflect on it, to talk about it, to hear your perspective as well. Because at the time where we had to make that decision, you and I were ranked like five and six in the US in the senior rankings, which if you gotta be top four a year later, like that's some pretty good odds, right? But it didn't stick, right? And I think we both had a very challenging year watching results go downhill. and training through it and having nothing to do but training. And, you know, it was, what I will say is this, is that I think you and I together with Cedric didn't do a great job of structuring our lives like Olympic athletes, right? Like we were living and breathing a training center. But, you know, you live and you learn, right? What I am very thankful for is one, two things. One, We basically got an extra year of college with no class because Ari and I both, because of our love for the team and our belief in the structure that Notre Dame fencing had, did this gap year at Notre Dame. So we were living and breathing the college experience without ever setting foot in a classroom. And that was pretty awesome. I would say that was definitely a highlight. That was really cool. And we were doing great. bad. So it's not like we were traveling all that much. And at a certain point, it became no longer mathematically possible for us to make it. So we were truly living college without going to class. So that is something that I think is a very unique experience. We took away from that and it was pretty fun. The second thing I'm thankful for, and this is nobody had any way of knowing, was a COVID hit. So we didn't have really any material impact to our lives because of COVID. We weren't sent home to do classes online. I don't know your COVID experience, but mine was great. I went home and I didn't have anything to do. I could do whatever I wanted. I wasn't held down by work or school or anything. I was meeting up with Justin Yu during lockdown, one of our very good friends who's going to be on this podcast. And we were learning capoeira together from YouTube and knife fighting and anything we could, you know, put our minds to and had a lot of, had a great COVID because of the gap year. So I'm very thankful for it. The one, you touched on it, but I think it is difficult to fail at something like that, where you've labeled your life as, you know, there's the gap year, right? We are trying to make the olympics like even now it feels taboo to say like when you said it on the podcast oh we're trying to make the 28 olympics i'm like don't say that like it's you have you have to own it you have to accept you have
Speaker 01:to own it and i think i want to let you speak but like it's good yeah it's good to talk about the fact that you're even feeling this right as you hear it yeah yeah and that's something that yeah um i'll let you check
Speaker 00:yeah but it it you get through it right at the time you know it brings a these questions because we're all the main character of our own story, right? We all think, or maybe we don't, but I do, that you're the main character. There's this destiny lying before you, this storyline. You come up with the ideal one and you work hard to make it happen. And all of a sudden it doesn't. And because of the success we had in fencing leading up to that point, right? There was a sort of confirmation that maybe we were the main character, right? We were incredibly successful at a until that point in our careers, like the success was still coming in. And then for it to be taken away with such a lofty goal, that was, it shakes your beliefs in yourself, in this storyline you've played out in your head. And I think it, you know, to some people it's like, oh, how, you know, the hardest part is getting back up after that. But for me, because of these things we talked about, like fencing Fencing's a part of my life. Fencing's a part of your life. It's part of what we do. It wasn't a question of, like, do I get back on the horse? Do I try again? It's this is what I do. I'm going to keep doing it, right? COVID's going to be over eventually, or it's not. But eventually, more likely than not, there's going to be another fencing competition, and I got to be ready. And I'm going to continue to be ready until I can't compete anymore, right? until my life's in a place where I'm not competing anymore. So I think, yeah, the takeaways from that are just it sucks, it's challenging, but what are you going to do? And for me, what I was going to do is I was going to keep fencing.
Speaker 01:No, it's good. It's good to hear other people's takes on this type of stuff too because, like, we handled it differently and we continue to handle it differently, and it's good to learn from each other and share that. You know, for me... when COVID hit, call me a sheep, but I was a COVID pessimist. I was like, oh, nothing's ever going to be as it was. I am done. I'm redefining myself. I was like, I'm going to gain weight. I'm going to grow out my hair, and I'm not going to care. And then we got kind of called back in and summoned, and it was challenging. I had a really hard time finding love for the sport again. I was really burnt out. I've always loved fencing, but it was just in a different capacity and I love being back but my body's real beat up had a lot of injuries but yeah for me making that choice to do the gap year I was really weary to do it I took a gap year like I said out of high school and that one was really challenging for me it inspired a lot of self awareness that I don't think I had prior but some of it faded as I got to college and there was just a constant battle of trying to gain more and more self-awareness and self-mastery while fighting impulse. And during that gap year, I feel like truly was tested yet again of an opportunity to engage in self-mastery while being surrounded by nothing but impulse because we didn't have homework. We didn't have due dates. We just had fun. I don't think we did everything we possibly could to be professional, like you said. I think we fenced well. And I think that something interesting that you said is the main character. I think every single time you get on strip, you get to be the main character and you get your own destiny in your hands. And it was really humbling to accept that, you know, that Olympic cycle was the opportunity for some other main characters to have their moment. And at the time it was, it was really devastating, but at the same time, it was just another moment for growth. Like we weren't ready. And that was really hard to stomach. It was really, I wasn't ready the first time around either. Whether or not we think we have the chops, let's make one thing really clear. You got what it takes, I've got what it takes. We both know, and plenty of other people have what it takes. That's not necessarily what sets you apart. It's what do you do with that what it takes that makes you special. And we see some people, even teammates of ours right now, that are really trying to holistically capitalize on what it takes. Tristan Sapari, for one. Like that's someone who we've seen grow a lot as someone who's a bit younger than us and clearly established himself as a strong competitor, but like is making a lot of the right changes in both training in terms of what to add to the game, but also like how to balance life and all this stuff. And he's, that's just a random example that popped in my head cause he's our friend and we train with him a lot now. You know, what do you do with that X factor? that's what sets you apart. And you and I weren't ready. We weren't, I frankly think that one of the things that makes us friends is that deep down, we like being kids and we're not, we're not as mature as we need to be. And, you know, coming out of that gap year though, and coming back to school a bit older than a lot of other people that we were in class with, I think that was one of the first steps that helped me start growing towards where I am now and understanding that at a certain point, point when you spend enough time somewhere, you either can keep getting through it or you can improve. And it just redefined my experience with fencing where I became more of a mentor to a lot of the younger fencers on our team. And it just kept growing from there. I got to go and coach in college, right? I coached at the Air Force Academy in Duke and those were very formative experiences. And then here we are, UN and I missed another Olympic Games and not without trying, right? We both fought really hard. And it's funny because in some ways, the scar tissue builds up and you get kind of desensitized to it the longer you're in it. But at the same time, it's all perspective-based. I feel like when you don't achieve these goals, when you have to measure up against what you thought you were going to do, it's really healthy to use that as a mirror. You look in that mirror, you're like, okay, I didn't accomplish a goal. That's the best teacher right there when you can ask yourself why. Be honest. And the hardest part is being honest. Do I still want to do this? Do I still want to grow? Do I still blah, blah, blah? And then you just be honest with yourself. You ask yourself, is there one thing or two things or three things that I could have done differently? What are they? Identify and attack them. And I think that we're getting better and better at doing that. And I think that that's one of the fun things about fencing for me and probably for you as well where that is a really really intense place for us to experience this this growth and this this iterative process and then the older you get the more you realize that everything is intertwined your relationship and your interaction with fencing or whatever passion for us it's fencing can inform how you handle those same scenarios on a micro or macro level in other areas of your lives relationships work knowledge new passions new hobbies projects this right like we'll study the tape we'll see we'll see what we could have done better and then we'll iterate on it and you don't get stuck on one product one result it's the process that really defines who you are so the reason I asked you about the gap year is because it's a painful thing to rehash right like you said it we labeled the gap year we you know we didn't make the Olympics. It's this thing. People, once you spend enough time competing at our level, everyone you know that is an offender asks you about when the next Olympics are. You know, can I watch you? Oh, my God. Are you going to make it? Do you have a shot at making it? And you just have to get used to fielding those questions. And my challenge for you, Stephen, is to comfortably tell people that you are training for the Olympics. It's not about... It's not going to happen. No, no. You can say that, but it's like you don't have to say I am an Olympian that's a lie right you're not an Olympian today but it is one of the things you're training for and it is the big one and in order and this is for everyone listening like if if you want to accomplish anything in your life I truly believe that one of the things that we've learned from this process based approach that we've done with fencing is like you have to be able to believe that something can happen and or will will happen before you can see it happen. Because at the end of the day, anybody can see it for us, but we are these main characters that come out on the strip. At the end of the day, when your mask is on, your fate is in your hands. And if you don't see, it doesn't have to be the Olympics, if you don't see yourself winning that match, how are you going to get to the Olympics? And I understand the perspective. It's like, okay, why think about the Olympics when you have to think about the next touch? I totally agree with you. Oh,
Speaker 00:I
Speaker 01:didn't know that I say that. Ask yourself why and try to address it. That comfort with discomfort is a key towards building more success. But that's kind of pulling away from what we're talking about. I think you probably have some questions for me. I think I would love to talk about what you have for me.
Speaker 00:All right. At least one. I'll pull up the question list.
Speaker 01:Okay. We're running out of time here. Time is of the essence, and we've been rambling quite
Speaker 00:a bit. We have. So I guess because we're kind of getting towards the end of this, I'll skip to the end of my question list. Actually, I'll do two. First, what is your favorite piece of equipment from our sponsor, Preur?
Speaker 01:I would say that the first piece of equipment that I was exposed to from Preur that I got to use, because they're known for these iconic masks, you know, really divisive in the community. Some people think they look bad. Some people think they look good. They're supposed to be not antique, but retro and classic. And they do definitely embody that look. I always knew what it looked like, but I didn't start using it until I had bought a full kit for myself as an adult. But I was exposed to the grip on the Epic. They pre-euro grip and through that I ultimately wound up using these gloves and then one thing led to another I bought the full uniform and then next thing I know we're both sponsored by them so I think my favorite piece like if I had to if I had to the gun to my head get rid of all of it except for one piece of equipment I would say the glove. How about you?
Speaker 00:Hands down, for me, the glove, no questions asked. My favorite feeling in the whole wide world is a brand new Priora glove, fresh out of the bag. Smells like
Speaker 01:leather.
Speaker 00:That leather, it's grippy feeling on the blade, but the feeling of that fresh leather on the hand, better than sex, TM. Keep that in, take it out. I don't care. It is... I truly feel that it elevated my fencing. It elevated my feeling of the blade, feeling of the grip. So whether or not they were our sponsor, I love this piece of equipment right here. I think everybody should use it.
Speaker 01:I've never had sex, so I'll have to take your word on that. No, that's awesome. These are great gloves, and I do love them. What's your other question?
Speaker 00:So my other question, the reason we did this podcast in the first place, the question that we will eventually boil down to with everybody that we have on. So right now we're pursuing something beyond having a career and living a productive life as a 20 something year old, right? We're sacrificing a lot of time. We're making sacrifices in our everyday relationships, in our work relationships with our bodies to fence, right? To do this thing and support ourselves doing it. And it's a difficult life. Why the hell do do you do it why do you put yourself through this torture this sort of sandbagging yourself preventing yourself from other opportunities and making all these sacrifices what why do you do it
Speaker 01:so this is so funny I've been through a lot of sports psychology and I know you know that because I always talk to you as though I'm like some type of sports psychologist even though I'm not but it's all about perspective right you mentioned torture I don't think I've used that word to describe train the lifestyle that we have In a very long time. A lot of it's about perspective. And you're asking me in a really interesting time. So for those of you who don't know, I'm just coming back from two season ending and for some people career ending injuries. I had a full repair in my shoulder and I had surgery on my meniscus in my left knee. And I... That answer, it's harder to give concisely than I would like. But basically, this sport is one of my life's largest passions. And this sport is an all-encompassing thing. The community, the experience of actually getting to fence someone, the lifestyle that goes along with it, and the feeling that I have that I'm not done. and that is not just because I have more to give as an athlete but I have more impact to give to the sport from a mentorship perspective from a friendship perspective from an enablement perspective of enabling other people to connect with one another from telling stories from creating videos like we do it all I do it all and I want to keep doing it and that's why I keep doing it because it makes me feel alive and I feel lucky to have something in my life that gives me purpose and I have seen so many people that I've surrounded myself with also be filled with purpose and some of us a lot of us obviously fencing is something that gives us purpose but I've also seen plenty of people that I know who don't have and it is painful for them it is challenging and it is you know it's such a blessing that I have a purpose and that purpose can shift over time but right now it's surrounding this beautiful sport that we get to play and that's why I keep doing it and it makes it all worth it it makes the sacrifices seem like things that just needed to happen and they weren't sacrifices they're just things that were always going to happen how about you?
Speaker 00:You know, I've joked to people before, like, oh, what do you do for, you know, tell us, small talker, like, introducing yourself, like, what do you do for fun? What's your fun fact? Like, oh, I love playing badminton. Like, what about fencing? I'm like, well, fencing's one of those things where, like, if a fish stops swimming, it dies. That's, like, that's sort of intrinsically how I feel about it. Like... I don't ever want to stop doing fencing in some capacity. And it's been tough. It was always something. There was a structure, and there was a route for us to go. There were people supporting us. And there are still people supporting me. I don't mean to make it sound like there's not.
Speaker 01:Thanks to New York Athletic Club, Preure USA, and plenty of others, girlfriends, parents, et cetera. Yeah. And jobs.
Speaker 00:And corporate America. Yeah. Where was I going with that? But it was challenging and it was very, very difficult. One of the more difficult times in my life to move here, to be in the workforce, not knowing what I'm doing, adulting and failing at fencing in a time where it was going very well for me prior to leaving university. But the thought of stopping really never crossed my mind. It was more just that fear of ultimately failing. But once I kind of reasoned with myself and got over that and realized that you're committed to this, right? You've made a commitment to yourself, to this sport, to pursue your goals and to try and achieve something that not a lot of people get to even try and achieve, right? For at least the next four years, that's just the thought I go back to in my mind is, you know, it doesn't matter what I think now. It doesn't matter how hard this gets or whatever doubts I have, whatever fears I have, you're in it, right? So while you're in it, Like, it's not going anywhere. Are you going to rise up or are you going to shrink away and sort of get through it? Or are you going to get better? And that sort of comforts me when I start to doubt it or I start to feel less than good about pursuing these goals. It's just, well, you're in it, so what are you going to
Speaker 01:do? Yeah, I think it's a good perspective to have. You know, obviously you and I differ in the way that we think about things, but I think that that understanding of, like, I made a commitment to do this and I want to do it. So how am I going to handle this adversity? I think that's really important because that's where this all boils down to. One thing I will say is that as an adult, one of the things that's really fun is that it's the first time in our lives in a long time. I think neither of us touched on this, but you'll agree with me. It's one of the first times since we were kids that we got to choose to do fencing. Like, it is a choice. We chose to move here. We choose to do this every day. And, you know, like I said, I'm coming off this serious injury. I didn't have a choice but to stop. You saw me. I would come to the club and just observe and hang out. Like, that's still my community. But, you know, I've chosen the sport, chosen to do it again, and now we're back. Yeah, great question. So...
Speaker 00:That's sort of the overarching question of the podcast. And as we wrap up here, moving forward, we're going to bring in... have similar conversations with a lot of people that we know from the sport, tangentially related to the sport, through sports in general, and ask them that question, right? Absolutely. Why do
Speaker 01:they do what they do?
Speaker 00:Why do they do what they do? And we hope that people will take things away from that, find relation in their own lives, find motivation, find advice, and hopefully some of these cool people we know will be vulnerable and tell us some some good
Speaker 01:stories. And we will only get more vulnerable. We're just getting warmed up. Yeah. And I think something fun to do is we rank people's answers for why they do this. Starting right now, who has a better answer, you or me?
Speaker 00:Yours is probably more well thought out. Mine's pretty simple, I think.
Speaker 01:All right.
Speaker 00:I'll give you the win on this one.
Speaker 01:How about we do the nice thing and vote for each other? All
Speaker 00:right, so we're tied. The community is going to decide.
Speaker 01:Yeah, you guys choose. Let's do a little speed round of some questions.
Speaker 00:Okay.
Speaker 01:Know why, know anything, but the question is not best. And this is also off the top of your head, just so that people can get names to check out. We want to grow the sport. And we're going to start with at-bay fencing right now, but we'll have other fencers on later. Favorite two fencers ever right now, go.
Speaker 00:Matteo Tagliarelli, Jerome Genet.
Speaker 01:All right. Those are two very, very amazing fencers.
Speaker 00:They're very beautiful fencers. Lightning round.
Speaker 01:Lightning round. My turn? Yeah. All right. As of recently, been spamming a lot of Wang Lei. Yep. And I would say Ruben Lomardo.
Speaker 00:Interesting. Why Ruben?
Speaker 01:This is a lightning round. Calm down. Because he's the LeBron James. James of our sport. Ruben, never quit. I want to fence you when you're 55. And, I mean, he's a very, very established guy. Next question. Favorite city that you fenced in?
Speaker 00:Hita, Japan. Okay, cool. Favorite city, go.
Speaker 01:Favorite city for totally different reasons, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. All right, next question. Favorite coach you've had. Just kidding, just kidding. Next question. Least favorite city that you've fenced in.
Speaker 00:Belgrade, Serbia.
Speaker 01:All right.
Speaker 00:Least favorite?
Speaker 01:I would say Virginia Beach. Sorry,
Speaker 00:Virginia. Virginia Beach is better than Belgrade. All
Speaker 01:right. Last question. What percent scholarship do you? No, I'm just kidding. No, really, just thanks. It's awesome to start this with you. It's awesome to start this. Yeah, this has been very fun. I think that we're going to do better and better every time for the listeners, obviously. But really, it's just nice to get the ball rolling on this and to share a little bit of our passion shared history and what not with each other and just reignite some of that and share it with the world and it's only going to get better because the people we're bringing on are super interesting and have lived pretty unique lives and that's kind of what we want to highlight here and I also want to show everyone that it's okay to do this type of stuff as adults it's okay it's not just you know I have to do it in college and it's not all about the results it's about growing and becoming the best version of yourself. So there's a quote that was given to me by our chairman of the New York Athletic Club fencing program, Michael Offredig, when I was a little bit down on my luck, and I'm going to leave you and everyone else with that. Thank you. Do not let one touch ruin a bout. Do not let one bout ruin a competition. Do not let one competition ruin a season. and do not let one season ruin your career. He claims that Seth Kelsey gave him that. Seth Kelsey is one of the best men's epeus, if not the best men's epeus in U.S. fencing history, and great even on the international scale, just awesome, awesome fencer, very dominant, and currently our U.S. national team head coach, and a really cool guy. And I don't know if he came up with that quote, but it's been impactful in my career and hopefully all of yours. Yeah. How do we sign off of this? Great job, Ari. Great job, Stephen. Thank you. All right. Yeah. If you like this episode, make sure to like and subscribe to our channel as well as leave comments. Let us know what you want to see more of, who you want to see on this podcast. Yeah, we're making this for ourselves, but we're making it for you too. And we'd love to hear what you have to say. And ultimately, your support means everything.
Speaker 00:Thank you to our sponsor, Without your
Speaker 01:support, episodes like this and lifestyles like ours would not be possible. So thank you for making it happen, and your equipment is the absolute best.
