Margaux Rifkiss, member of the French fencing team (sabre), gives, once a week, lessons adapted to residents of a nursing home in Seine-Saint-Denis.
La Maison des Vergers is hidden in a garden at the end of an alley by a modern facade, on the border between Vincennes and Montreuil (93). In a separate room, Margaux Rifkiss, team gold medalist at the European Championships in Krakow in 2023 – not selected for the Paris Olympic Games – prepares the equipment: plastic sabers with round ends, blocks of all colors , small foam balls… His students wait a little further away in front of a film in the establishment’s foyer. Students ? The residents of this nursing home, aged approximately 88 to 102 years old. Every week, they meet the fencer for an hour and do exercises adapted to their old age, in a fun way and sometimes even with a touch of competition.
“My grandmother was in a nursing home. I visited him and told him a lot about the training, the competitionsremembers Margaux Rifkiss. She wanted these stories because they took her on a journey. Shortly after his death, the French Fencing Federation sent an email to offer training to adapt fencing in nursing homes for elderly people. I said to myself, ‘That means my grandmother could have done fencing at her establishment.’ She would have loved it so much“, she slips with a touch of modesty and emotion. The 27-year-old young woman, also vice-world champion in team saber, is following this training course for a few days, but also a diploma at the university d’Aix-Marseille in “Silver economy”. It takes a little time to get started before becoming, since September 2023, a regular at the Maison des Vergers.
“I think it’s very rewarding for them to practice an Olympic sport which conveys very good values.”
Margaux Rifkiss, saber team world vice-championat franceinfo: sport
4:30 p.m. sharp. Simone, Marguerite, Yvette, the two Marie-Rose, Monique, Daniel, all settle into the nursing home home. There are eight of them in total – seven women and one man – sitting on chairs or in their wheelchairs. The entire course is carried out seated. They start with small motor skills exercises: each resident has a foam ball that they must throw in the air with one hand and catch with the other. Then, with the ball between their legs, the residents must lift their right leg, then the left, without dropping the small ball.
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The faces are concentrated, the students diligent, sometimes a little dissipated, Margaux is obliged to call to order two residents who are a little too talkative. But the fencer compliments each time the exercise is done well: “The mental health of the elderly is not taken into account enough and yet it is a real problem. There is the degradation of the image we have of ourselves. They feel the memory loss, they feel their body, the loss of strength, the loss of endurance. All of this contributes to this degradation of the image they have of themselves. And that leads to a big loss of confidence. And encouraging them, showing them that they are capable of doing it, helps them regain dignity and self-confidence.”
Once the warm-up is over, the residents can get down to business: the exercises with the sabers. Margaux distributes them and begins with a review of the anatomy of the sword. In heart, the residents recite: the blade, the handle and the shell, another fun way to make them work on their memory. Then comes salvation: saber towards the sky, to the heart, then towards the earth. “Yvette remembers everything, she is an exemplary student“, compliments the fencer. Now for the exercises with the sabers.
The way in which the residents are installed, two rows of four facing each other, allows them to work in pairs or to challenge each other: the first to catch with their saber the plot of a color that Margaux will have defined, or the first who manages to steal the other’s plot. Daniel, one of the centenarians in the group, a tall dry gentleman, dressed all in blue, on respiratory assistance, gets into the game, doesn’t give up in front of Marie-Rose, and starts the exercises again and again as long as he doesn’t. I’m not satisfied. Always with a smile. “They love to be challenged“, notes Margaux.
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And certain personalities emerge during these lessons. Marguerite, 102 years old, plays with Margaux when the latter wants to retrieve the stud on her saber: “I don’t have to give you this plot!“, she says insolently, moving her sword in all directions to prevent him from taking it. Neither surprised nor offended, Margaux laughs with her. In eight months, the swordswoman has learned to build relationships with the residents but also to know their personality: “Marguerite, if she doesn’t complain or make fun of someone, I’ll tell myself that there’s something wrong.”
“They spent an hour having fun together. When in fact we worked on joint mobility, we worked on memory, we worked on endurance…”
Margaux Rifkissat franceinfo: sport
Apart from offering a breath of fresh air in a monotonous daily life punctuated by meals, sometimes family visits and other more traditional activities, these fencing classes improve the health of residents: “I observe that the deterioration is not the same between someone who mobilizes like that, mentally and physically, confirms Laurence Châteauroux, responsible for activities at the Maison des Vergers. IThey age less quickly. When we do gymnastics, and we ask them to straighten their arms, they tell us: ‘Oh no, I can’t do that!’ On the other hand, with Margaux, they forget that they have to reach out and they do it. Marguerite, for example, has osteoarthritis in her shoulders and cannot raise her arms. Well, when she does the salute, she raises her arm as high as she can.”
Thanks to her dual training, Margaux is able to adapt the exercises according to the residents: “I have a sporting background thanks to high-level sport and my university and scientific training is very fine and allows me to have quite in-depth knowledge of this public.“. The nursing staff at the Maison des Vergers also told him about the benefits of these courses for the residents: “I have been told of an improvement in sleep, an improvement in appetite too. Things that are really not negligible for the elderly“.
“Knowing that they have a fun date, it creates hope, it creates positivity. There is a positive energy which is super important. At that age, the mental and physical are closely related.”
Laurence Châteauroux, responsible for activities at the Maison des Vergersat franceinfo: sport
These weekly meetings are also a breath of fresh air for Margaux, who – except on Wednesdays – trains five hours a day: “We live a bit of a ‘fast life’ with trips every three days, internships… Coming here calms me down. It allows me to find meaning in fencing. I’ve been doing it for 17 years… I remember this reaction I had when I came back from a class where I taught them fencing. I took the sword back and it no longer had the same values in my hand. Knowing that it can bring so many other positive aspects away from the high level… It was also important for me to give meaning to the practice of this sport.”