Still in the game.
My name is Ari Simmons. I started fencing at Alliance Fencing Academy in Texas, where I was coached by Sergey Danilov and Andrey Geva. They built the foundation everything else stands on.
The path.
At Notre Dame I fenced for Cedric Loiseau and came out a four-time All-American with 3 NCAA Team Championships and many other accolades. I was awarded the Lee Kiefer/Gerek Meinhardt Award twice, voted by teammates and coaches for going the extra mile for the team.
Between 2021 and 2024 I worked as an NCAA épée coach at the U.S. Air Force Academy while training under then-head coach Omar Elgeziry, and had 2 épéeists qualify for NCAA Championships each season there. Then, I followed Coach Elgeziry to Duke University for the 2023-2024 season, where we sent two more épéeists to the NCAA Championships, with one earning First-Team All-America honors.
I’m currently training in New York City with Misha Mokretsov and Dylan Nollner. I’m a top-ranked US men’s épéeist and working to qualify for the 2028 LA Olympic Games. Every coach I’ve named has shaped how I fence.
Selected highlights.
- Cadet World Champion
- 6× World Championship Team Member (2× Senior)
- 2× Senior Pan American Team Champion
- 40+ Senior World Cup + Grand Prix Appearances
- 4× NCAA All-American (2× First-Team)
- 2× ACC Team Champion
- ACC Individual Champion
- Junior National Champion
- Senior Team National Champion
- Division I NAC Champion
Built because I needed it.
The framework didn’t start as a coaching product. It started because I needed it. After winning the Cadet World Championship at 16 and then making a Senior World Championship Team at 18, I spent years losing bouts I felt I should win, carrying pressure I didn’t have tools for, and burning out on a sport I loved. For almost a decade I’ve worked with professional sport psychologists who helped me build the system I compete with now. What I teach is the framework underneath it, shaped by their work and tested in mine, every time I step on the strip.
Why I coach.
Fencing has given me a lot. I think the people who get the most out of it are the ones who put the most back in.
That’s why I co-host Direct Elimination, a podcast about the sport with Stephen Ewart. It’s why I work to help the fencers around me fence more like themselves when it counts. And it’s why I coach: so I can hand the framework I built because I needed it to the fencers it can help most.
