Chris Howser is available to give private 1 to 1 lessons in Yarwell (PE8 postcode area, 3 minute drive off A1/A47 Junction near Peterborough).

Individual lessons are £60 for a 1 hour session.

This rate covers the hour of coaching, hall hire (in our local village hall) as well as any kit that may need to be borrowed for the lesson.

If there are several people coming together for consecutive lessons or you wish to purchase a group of lessons in advance, rates may be able to be reduced, please contact Chris for details..

Chris is available to travel to you to give lessons, however there would be an additional charge for travel time/fuel etc.

For more information, or to book a lesson, please call Chris on 07887 522714, or preferably email chrishowser@hotmail.co.uk..

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Background – Chris Howser

Chris Howser was the 2005 British Epee Champion and has won medals at the Senior British Championships on 4 occasions in total. He has been ranked as the British Number 1 in epee and has won silver medals at 3 Commonwealth Championships. With over 30 years of fencing experience, of which he has been a qualified coach for 20 years, he has a great experience in Epee fencing to pass on to his pupils and is still highly competitive having been in the Top 20 in the British Ranking in January 2013, has been the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 Northamptonshire Champion as well as reaching the top 8 of the British Championships in both 2012 and 2013.  In 2023 he reached a ranking of 6th in Europe on the Veteran Rankings for Category 2 (aged 50-59).

Chris initially qualified as a coach in 1990 and steadily improved his qualification and is now a Registered England Fencing Coach (Level 4). In total Chris’s fencers have won 10 British Epee championships ( from Under 12 to Senior level between 2002 and 2011) as well as a similar number of England Youth Championship Epee titles.

After several years working in the financial sector in the City of London, Chris started to coach full time in the 2001/2002 season and developed a very successful training set-up in the Redhill & Reigate area of Surrey, creating links between school clubs and the Redhill & Reigate Epee Club which Chris founded. In 2009 Chris had over 250 fencers doing the sport in the local area within schools and the club which Chris organised/coached at.

Between 2001 and 2010 the level of fencers in the Redhill & Reigate area has improved steadily to a point that in 2011 Epeeists from the Redhill & Reigate Epee Club (www.redhillandreigateepeeclub.com for details) won 2 out of the 6 England Youth Epee Championships that took place and had an additional 5 medallists from the club.

Having been a Pentathlete as a teenager, he has a great understanding of the different tactics used in one-hit Epee, as used in Pentathlon, and has coached many Pentathletes in the South East and East Midlands areas. Over the last 9 years Chris’s fencers have won numerous fencing events at the British Pentathlon/Tetrathlon Championships (well over 20 in total) as well as a similar number of overall Pentathlon/Tetrathlon National Championship titles. In 2009 fencers from R&REC won 5 titles at the British Youth Pentathlon Championships (out of only 8 age catagories) and most of those pentathletes were at the top of their fencing events which had a great effect on the overall titles.  Two former R&REC fencers went to win Gold at the Tokyo Olympics, with both Joe Choong and Kate French winning taking the Modern Pentathlon Titles.

In 2010 Chris moved up to Yarwell (East Northamptonshire), just near the A1/A47 junction close to Peterborough, and started to develop the same structure of fencing in the local area that he had so much success doing in Surrey since 2001. Unfortunately R&REC closed over the Covid break, with fencers moving to other local clubs.

By 2023, well over a dozen fencers that Chris has started in their fencing path or currently coaches at OPS Epee Club have represented Great Britain at International Level as part of GBR Epee or Pentathlon teams, with fencers representing GBR at World Championship level in Under 17, Under 20, Senior,as well as Veteran age-groups.  Fencers from OPS have been winning British titles at multiple age-groups to continue the general development of the sport locally.