California Fencing Academy

The facilities are great and conveniently located. My 11 year old daughter loves to come here and is developing a love for the sport. As for coach Dan and teh apparent negative feedback from other posts, I haven’t seen anything negative. He is a true expert, and he expects the respect that he is due from his students, nothing more.
I never buy into the «stern taskmaster» attitude, (that’s usually just a polite way to say «jerk») Dan is a no-​nonsense teacher who has a great way with kids.

This place has no communication and if they do they are pretty rude. You will see the owners only they announce camps to sign up otherwise once you are signed there are generally no support for the program.

As far as the quality of instruction goes, this place, its staff and facility seem ok. Our biggest reservations about continuing here were with the professionalism of the outfit in general and in particular Dan the owner. Bizarre emails with embarrassing grammar and strange ranting, and in general weak customer service. My 10 year old has better social skills than this fellow. Eesh.

My son has been fencing at CFA for… gosh, I forget how many years it’s been. He became interested in fencing when the US did well at the Olympics, and at the time, CFA ran a promotion on Groupon for free trial lessons. My son went, and he was hooked.
I’ve interacted with Dan, the head coach (Maestro, as he prefers to be addressed by the students) on several occasions, and even had the pleasure of working with him when the club was moving locations. He’s always been very polite, but I can tell that he can be sometimes gruff. And in reading the other reviews, it seems other folks have caught him at times when he’s been stern.
Well, here’s my assessment — Dan is very passionate about his craft and the art of fencing, and he gets downright serious sometimes. I can see how this can be taken as being rude and mean, but I feel that a lot of these reviews are coming from people who are used to being pampered by fake smiles and sycophantic caterings. Nothing wrong with being overly nice and accommodating — if you’re a waiter at a restaurant. But this fencing business is serious business — you want a coach who knows how to fight, who knows how to build strong character in his students. You need someone tough. If you want nice and flowery, send your kids to Gymboree.
Dan (and all the other coaches) have done a fantastic job not only in teaching my son how to fence, but also teaching him good sportsmanship and great work ethics. Keep up the good work, CFA!

I decided to write a review because I feel that the other low ratings are unwarranted and somewhat inaccurate.
My son has been going here for about 3 months now. He loves it! He lights up after every class and just loves fencing.
He did the 6-​week intro class here in the January/​February time frame. Although we were thinking of signing up at the time, but it didn’t happen do to some other sports commitments at the time. (baseball)
So in the Fall, my son decided he wanted to go back to fencing. We weren’t sure if he should do the intro class or the regular recreational class. They had us come in and evaluated him during the into class. They didn’t make us pay until they had figured out the right class for him, which ended up being the recreational class.
They have you sign a month to month contract and do an automatic debit (or charge to a credit card) for the monthly dues based on the number of times you go a week. It is administered by a 3^rd party and they provide you with a letter stating the monthly amount, draft date, and provide you with a phone number to call if there are questions. The contract that you sign has a 30 day cancellation policy which seems reasonable to me. (and is better than most gyms in this area)
We are now moving up to more classes per week and the next level of fencing. Did I mention that my son really, really loves fencing because of this place?
We’ve worked with Ania to order a bunch of fencing gear for my son (electric fencing set) — and she and John we both super helpful in letting us know what we would need and how much it would cost in advance. Since we already had a mask, instead of selling us a new one, they recommended a piece that could just be sewn onto the existing mask to make it compatible for electric fencing. Plus, we’re going out of town for the holidays and it is our son’s Christmas present and she is making sure that we have it prior to leaving and has set up time on two occasions to come in and meet with us (1 for sizing and 1 for picking up the items).
The only con (if you can call it that), is that they don’t have someone at the reception desk all the time. They are focused on fencing rather than administration. So if you are trying to get in touch with them, you can email or call, but the best option is probably just to pop into the location around when a class is ending (the schedule is on their website), and there is pretty much always someone at the desk at that time.

I will introduce you to the email conversation between myself and the owner of this establishment and you can decide for yourself if this is someone you want working with your children.
To set up the circumstances that brought this about, our daughter is not new to fencing but was looking to get back into it. I stopped by the Cal Sports Club aka: Cal Fencing Academy establishment on a Monday and spoke with Ania. I explained I was looking for a refresher, assessment and placement. She advised our daughter could check out a Saturday intro class and be evaluated. Even though the class had already started the week prior I was assured this would not be a problem. After the class was over there was no assessment. We spoke with another staff member and were basically told that our daughter would have to work through all the classes for any advancement. We paid for the class but were unsure if this was the right path. Later that morning we looked into another academy and found they offered a better, more individually based path for advancement. I then wrote the following email, please note that i have removed our daughters name for obvious reasons.

My opening email:
Good afternoon,
I am following up to a voice mail I just left. Our daughter attended the 9am fencing intro class this morning to check it out and we went ahead and provided payment after the class as though she were going to continue but we have since discussed it and decided to take another path that we feel will be better suited to her individual needs.
I would like to void the check I wrote today and replace it for one that only covers the cost of the class she assessed. Please advise when there is a convenient time to do this.
The owners response:
From: Daniel Tibbetts [mailto:calsportsclub@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2013 9:32 PM
Cc:
Subject: Re: Class assessment and withdraw
Hello,
This is the owner. Void your check and I don’t want payment for the inconvenience of other students and staff of you coming after the other class started without arranging it, and not giving your child a fair chance at starting when the class actually starts.
This class started last week so whoever let you into the second class should not have, and I will be discussing that with that staff member who should never have allowed that — probably just trying to be considerate with pressure and surprise you were there. I am the only person who speaks to anybody via email or phone and I never would have allowed you to do this which obviously you did of your own accord.
The reason is that the other students would have suffered because you brought your child after the first day and they already got the basics and would be put back while the instructor tried to help your child. So as you can see this created a worse class for the others and a worse one for your child, yet you base an assessment on this yet you created a negative situation by doing something I would never approve of for just that reason. I would never allow you to «asses» a class or disturb the flow of a class after it already started. My staff will hear from me about letting you do this without any arrangement or permission.
Due to all this I agree this is not the place for you since you came to a second class without permission or notice disrupting the program and staff. I would be happy to refer to other lesser clubs in the area if you like.
I do wish your child the best.
From:
Maestro Daniel Tibbetts
CPT CSMT NCMTB
President & Co-​Head Coach
CAL SPORTS CLUB
Olympic Sport & Adventure
Forging Champions Inside & Out
891 East Hamilton Avenue
Campbell California, 95 008 USA.
*
(Currently for all Olympic sports)
*
* 408.865.1950

If i had 0 or maybe negative, i would have spit it out. This place is the worst fencing experience you can ever get. to tell you the truth, i will be honest and 100% rational here.
I called this place 3 times and no one picked up and then i dropped a voice mail and noone replied. I tried back again and no one replied back and i dropped another voicemail.
No replies in more than a week. I went to them and i told them that i need to talk to someone about my fencing situation. They said that currently everyone is busy, call us and we will get back to you. I told them that i have called you guy X number of times with two voicemails. The owner Dan loudly and rudely insults me in front of everyone saying that «You are gonna lie and talk to me in front of everyone like this. I never got a call, i keep that number with me all the time» I shut up myself because if i spoke something, it would look bad upon him since there were lot of people there and it would have only aggravated the situation.
Next week i go there and join the club. First they don’t know anything about épée, the techniques they are coaching are 200 years old. I fenced with their fencers who have been fencing with them from 3 years and i beat them the first day of my fencing. Literally the first day. I am a very fit guy since i have been a boxer so that helped with speed but fencing is not about speed, its about choosing right tactics with right techniques at right time and distance. Then there is this kid over there who doesnt behave properly and no one seems to do anything about it. He doesnt have any rude behavior etc but he is just innocent and 13 something old kid who doesnt listen to people. I keep telling him that you should not salute like this since the way he saluted, it could hurt anyone and they way he lunges, could break his knees over but none of the coaches other than coach Garett seemed to tell him that. One day while i was telling him to correct his guard position the main owner comes and says out loud to me in front of everyone «Dont ever teach anyone here what to do. Thank you» I found that so stupid and rude that i could just leave the place but i left him again without saying anything assuming that all high level senior coaches are hot headed and egoistic with their accompalishments. I told Coach John and he didnt back the owner too, also every other student said the same thing about owner to me.
This is my last week at this place since i told them i am leaving. I had told them about 25 days before that i am going to leave the academy but since they take money in advance i asked them if they could make a exception. They said no. I completely understand but i told them my situation that i am founder of a non profit organization where i pay for teachers and students dont pay for anything and i am low on money. They said no again without understanding my situation. I still understand that i should not expect any help. Now i asked them one last time saying that its okay you keep the money but since i am not gonna come, cant i buy something from here and in this way you can keep the money too. They never replied. They are so rude that i have no idea. Maybe because i am not a white guy.
My last day:
I was fencing with one of the guys there and it was about 2:30. The assistant teacher comes and tells me and other guy, you guys have only 1 min since other class is starting. I said thank you and we will finish in 1 min. He knew that we are having a bout of 8 points and our score was 7 – 7. Now owner’s wife comes and says please stop the bout. Its time, in less than 30 seconds. I tell that we are done in less than one minute and i asked the other guy «lets finish this quickly». She comes in between and says, i just told you, its time and we remove our masks and she leaves without explaining anything. Now i go to her and tell her we had just 1 min and now she tells me that we had told you before its time and i agreed and told her that we needed only 1 minute. Its my last bout since i am leaving the place. she said you dont listen to anyone blah blah and dont follow the rules. This made me mad and i tell her, listen you guys yourself dont follow the rules, class starts 15 minutes late, there was no coach that day in class. so what kind of rules are these. Then she shuts up and i said its okay. I am leaving now. She tells me you dont seem to be okay, why are you saying you are okay. I tell her that ofcourse i am not feeling okay about the situation but i dont wanna keep holding to what happened. she said then Okay and she acts up using some hand movements «It’s Okay»
then next day the owner’s email of about 2 big pages comes to me «This is not a conversation so dont bothe replying since it will be trashed and he threatens me if i talk to her wife like that again, he will *deal* with me. I still have the email to prove it» I replied back to him saying «Sorry you wasted your time writing email, i didnt read it…“So in short, dont go

I should have written an update a while back. Sorry.
So yes, the class size was immediately cut down to half the 2^nd session as promised by the owner, and my child had fun. The owner also offered a free class (the 4^th) the week after our last session, but we had plans for that Sat already so we could not go back. I thought of asking whether we can do the free class on the 5^th week, but my husband refused to go back thinking that it would be too advanced for our son anyway since he skipped a class.

Took a few introductory archery lessons along with a friend as part of a groupon deal. The instructor was great and very helpful. The class size was also small. Unfortunately, they don’t have archery classes late in the evening and so we could not continue. But this looks like a great place to learn archery for beginners.

Please find enclosed the best email EVER from the owner. How rude and unprofessional. I call yesterday, Wednesday. Tuesdays are Wednesdays apparently. I did call back today, Thursday and obviously Thursdays are also non– working days. No one called back or picked up the phone. So please… «send it with a check»
Daniel T
sender-​time: Sent at 10:36 AM (GMT-07:00). Current time there: 6:55 PM.
reply-​to:
to: st st*​*​*​*​*​*​*​*​@​gmail.​com
date: Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 10:36 AM
subject: Re: registration fencing and archery
That’s because tuesdays I spent the day with my son. You simply fill out out our reg form and send it with a check. It’s on a PDF flier on our fencing site
.
From: stephanie b st*​*​*​*​*​*​*​*​*​*​*​@​gmail.​com
To:
Subject: registration fencing and archery
Sent: Thu, Aug 30, 2012 12:03:17 PM
Hi,
I would like to register my son for fencing and archery. He is 9 years old. We tried to call you 3 times yesterday without success.
Please let me know how to proceed.
I would like infos on horseback riding too but for adult.
Thank you,
Best Regards,
Stephanie B

Hardly have I ever had to deal with a business ower as rude and arrogant as the owner of this club. For my first phone call to inquirey about groupon reservations the Maestro (???) could barely communicate — asked him to speak slower and he became rude. Went down to the class at 970 S. Bascom (after my own mistake of N Bascom). No energy left to travel another 20 minutes in traffic. Came home and sent an email — the following is his response. –note the address he uses in his response.”
I will gladly send my first email and response to his email to anyone who wants to read it — but think twice about registering at this club. If the Maestro doen’t think you are worthy — watch out. If I had gotten his email (yes, I check junk file) would I not have made note and gone to the correct location???
You were notified of the move via email and my email system verifies your specific email as being delivered.
Also it was the owner (me) you talked to. We have the adress change also on our website, and it’s on our door and had banners up for two months — what more do you want. I prefer when people get the facts and have a «conversation» before resulting to incorrect judgement making.
Also the voice mail box filled up in one hour due to more than 50 groupon procrastinators — nothing I can do about that. It was cleared within an hour of it happening.
The phone goes directly to my cell because we have a dedication to customer service — what buss owner does that.
Also you would have been pleasantly suprised how I might have made up any inconvenience to you.
So be it — you decided the attitude you wanted to take. Good luck.
From:
Maestro Daniel Tibbetts
CPT CSMT NCMTB
Club Director & Head Coach
Cal Sports Club Inc.
Fencing, Archery, Horsemanship
970 South Bascom Avenue
San Jose California, 95 128 USA.
Club: 408.865.1950
Cell: 408.210.2655
Fax: 408.353.2005

Joined after an INTRO Class at their original Saratoga locaion. My son loved the fencing class and after a couple of FREE classes he joined.
They let him borrow equipment till he knew if he wanted to train in FOIL, SABER or EPEE. He choose épée and only bought his equipment after a year of lessons.
We moved to the new BASCOM location and it is super convient to our SJ home.
The best means for communication is just walking into their location and having a chat with anyone at their front desk. They’ll direct you to lessons, help with questions about the sport and then if you want to compete they’ll help you with that too.
My son has now been fencing for 4yrs. He started w/​just Saturday lessons, and then took group lessons a couple nights a week, and now takes private lessons 1/​wk along with the group lessons.
Finally my son participated in the JUNIOR OLYMPICS at UTAH in Feb 2012 for EPEE fencing. How many kids get that opprotunity?!
He has this opprotunity due to CFA.

I was very disappointed by a customer service I received from Club Director and Head Coach of California Fencing Academy Maestro (seriously?) Daniel Tibbetts.
I got two Groupons in November for my two sons. Both fencing and archery were interesting for them.
I choose to start in March, since it was only month we could do classes before Groupons expire. I tried to call to the place few times before we would start classes. This is what I do when I get Groupon– call to the service provider and ask all details about what exactly can be done with Groupon. I prefer personal conversation, because it is most beneficial and efficient way to know what to expect, than reading pages of general rules and regulations on web.site.
Unfortunately, only answer machine was available and I did not want to talk to it. So, I send an e-​mail to the address indicated on
. I stated that I have two Groupons for trial classes, when can my kids start. Response was:“send an email to
with names, ages, sport, days, and times to reserve a spot.” (from e-​mail).
So, I did it on Friday, March 16. I asked for fencing on Wednesdays for my younger son (5 and a half y. o) and Saturday for archery for older boy (8 y. o). We came on Saturday, March 17 to take first archery class. I brought my younger son along, because there was nobody I could leave him with. Staff was very nice and friendly and accommodating. During the registration, I asked Tracy — archery instructor, why my 5 y. o cannot take archery. And she told me that the reason was, that younger kids could have difficulty holding the bow and pulling the string strongly enough. I asked if my son might try and she was kind enough to allow it. And he did great. He hit the target board most of the times and followed the instructions not worse than a guy in his 30s, doing archery at the same time. But, I had reservations, that bow might be too heavy for him and fencing would be more fun after all. Tracy supported my idea. I thought that we should come next time on March 24, Saturday, at 10 am, so both boys could try fencing and than stay for archery. That would complete three classes for both of them. I sent e-​mail to Maestro asking about it. His response was short, cold and not very comforting. Basically, he said that my youngest cannot attend archery classes for multiple reasons (which, apparently, known to him only, since his staff had no clue about them) and he missed introductory fencing class Saturday morning (which we never intended to attend anyway) and he is out for current classes. Now, what are we supposed to do? My 5 y. o son has to sit and watch his older brother playing archery for the next two Saturdays and not being able to attend fencing either. Grupons expire in July, and we will not have time to use them again before that. I was shocked how inflexible and not very customer friendly Mr. Tibbetts’ attitude was. I responded by telling him that that scenario would not work for us and I would ask for Groupon refund. He sent me a long message elaborating how incorrect, inaccurate and clueless I was about the whole Groupon classes and wished me good luck on getting my money back and added: «In the meantime I took them (boys) off the roster until further notice.» And that was end of it. He basically, kicked my sons out of the classes.
My perception of Groupon deals is to learn about businesses I have never heard and never considered. Try and have fun with new experience at a discount. And then, if you like it, invest more time and money and follow all contractual obligations. And that was exactly my experience with all the previous businesses, I was introduced to by Groupon. They all were happy to see new customers, very flexible, very accommodating.
Mr. Tibbetts, on the other hand, created such a big deal out of three trail classes with time constrains and age limitations and inconvenient communication system, that it is justexhausting.
Anyway, I got full refund for two Groupons, and I am sure we will find what to do for three Saturdays in the middle of the day.

Positives: Place has some good trainers, but pretty over crowded classes with 15 – 20 students in beginner and mid level classes. For USD 250/​month and at two 45 min classes per week, that is $ 30/​class. In such big class size it is difficult to learn anything much or the instructor cant focus or observe much on any particular kid and hence the learning is not that much. One on One classes are expensive and I am not sure what exactly they will be teaching or intend to teach or the kid would be learning. In other words, they dont have a standard set of techniques or lesson plan, that will let us know if the kid is learning. They talk about one on one but without lesson plans.
Negatives: The administration, billing and support is TERRIBLE and PATHETIC. They steal money literally. Though we were on summer breaks or vacation, and want to stop class for a month or two and inform them well in advance they dont stop billing. They indicate that they will give credit and not charge in the future, but they keep billing for the current cycles as scheduled. They dont honor that commitment later and pretend they forgot or dont give credit to use those two months when we did not attend for one on one lessons or adjust payments to other months. And worst thing, even if we inform them well in advance, they argue and make things terrible. Pls dont go into long term agreements with this Academy, it is worse than going into the Health Club plans where they keep ripping you by automatically charging your card or direct with drawl from your bank account.

Okay they’re REALLY REALLY BAD as a fencing academy also they’re STEALERS! They will NOT let you cancel your membership with them and they’ll keep on charging your credit card. That East European bitch Ania doesn’t speak English and tries to steal your money. They will never reply your email, phone! Also, if you try to talk to them in person, they usually try to avoid your question. They charged me about $ 300 even when I didn’t attend that place for months. YOUR PLACE SUCKS! NEVER EVER GO THERE!

I have really mixed feelings about this place. On one hand, this is a fairly large club so they have multiple sessions per week. On the other hand, their focus is on developing high level competitors. If you do not aspire to become a national champion, then this may not be the place for you. However, if you are a young kid and want to become an «elite» fencer, then this is a great place for you.

The pluses:
This is a good place to start learning fencing. The coaches are good and the people who run it are committed to doing a good job. It is an encouraging atmosphere. I think your child is just starting out or at a high level this is a good place to be.
I have seen evidence that they are completely committed to good coaching and will not tolerate unreliable or poor behavior on the part of the coaches. They have a high standard and they hold their staff to that standard.
In fact I have only good things to say about the coaching aspects.
The minuses:
There is almost no administration and it is really hard to get administrative things dealt with. Its hard to quit and they have no system of stopping your membership if you are going to be gone a few weeks or a few months and good luck getting credit for those times as you are supposed to be able to. They are faster about collecting then they are about crediting and if you don’t want to be paying extra you really want those things to work at the same rate.
To be fair this is clearly not any attempt not to be fair its just a lack of resources focusing on the administrative aspects of running the business.
I found that the focus on the top and the bottom leaves the kids in the middle a little bit at risk of losing motivation.
Financially — it is not cheap but you are getting excellent instruction. On the other hand you almost have to pay for private lessons to make progress.
In summary: this is good place for someone to learn fencing and you can have confidence that the people who run it care about doing a good job and about the team. However be prepared for a certain amount of frustration on the administrative aspects.

Just to correct Kris O’s review about Mt View. Both are run by the same owner so if you cancel your classes at SJ it’s still a pain in the ass. (Also, this club has moved to Bascom)

Pluses: Nice staff, casual atmosphere
Minuses: The floorplan here is a little strange and inconvenient for fencing and the class was a bit unstructured. Cancelling the membership was a bit of a pain.

Since this is the only fencing academy we’ve ever been to, I’m not sure if this is a great one or just a good one — so four stars. The membership works like most martial arts clubs — you pay monthly and show up for as many (or few) classes as you want.
They also have summer camps for kids, but due to low enrollment the 2008 intermediate camp has been moved to the San Jose location.
I have no personal experience with the adult/​teen classes, but they sure look like fun.
My experience is as a parent, child in the age 7 – 12 group. Our son is a classic know-​it-​all. His natural tendency is to stick to what he’s good at, and feign disinterest if he’s not immediately good at something new. We tried out a four-​week fencing seminar through a school group and he was terrible — but since he thought he was good, he continued. He joined this fencing academy, and the other students quickly took him down a peg. He clowned and disrepected, trying to gain social status among them. It didn’t work.
A good coach knows how to handle this, and he did a good job of keeping my son and the other goof-​off students working. After a couple months, all of them were markedly improved in fencing and in listening skills. They pay attention to the coach and work to do their fencing right.
A summer beginner class has just joined the intermediate class, an outburst of ill discipline that reminds me of when my son joined a few months back. I realized then that I had to Unilocal about this place — what a difference the coach has made in these sessions!
So, if your kid has a «listening problem», bring him here. Maybe giving him a sword will help his ears.
Update: Our favorite coach left this club a while back, the location has changed from our original location, and now that my son has been to other fencing clubs I can say there are better ones than this. I’m knocking off a star from my original review taking it down to «OK». According to other fencers who have left CFA recently, «OK» is more than they deserve, but I can’t really give a lower rating without more recent experience.
My son’s enthusiasm for the *sport* of fencing remains.