The passing of Maestro Lajos Csiszar
Eric Dew
I heard this evening that Maestro Csiszar passed away sometime last week
(right after the BoD decided to honor him with a lifetime membership or
something like that).
Could someone (A Bullock?) please verify/expand on this item?
EDEW
(former Csiszar student, and benefitted well from it)
Nik Swoboda
Yes, Maestro passed on last week. He died in his sleep last Thurs.
Jim Murray informed me of this, and knowing that he doesn't read news
I asked him to write up something for the group to inform everyone of
his death. This is how he responded.
Nik
_______________________________________________________________
From: jmu...@haverford.edu (Jim Murray)
Subject: Csiszar anecdote
I was always watching the Maestro as a young coach at Salle Csiszar. I'm
getting better (after 20+years) but a young coach explains everything.Often
to excess...
I said to the Maestro.....Maestro, I find myself explaining things all the
time. You never say very much to the pupil......he responded;
Back in Hungary Italo Santelli was invited to give a clinic in Denmark.
Chose not to go, and would send the young Csiszar.
'So I said to Papa, I don't speak Danish!'
......"they are lucky."
_______________________________________________________
Jim Murray
Haverford Fencing
-)-----------
Rick Watrall
Does anyone have any information on the memorial service to take place
this saturday? (time, place etc.)
I learned last night of Maestro's death and would like to pay my
respects. He was a great teacher, and will be missed.
Rick Watrall
Martin Davis
I was a pupil of Maestro from c. 1960 to 1972 at Salle Csiszar in
Philadelphia where much of my life revolved around the salle activities
for those years. He was loved by all of us and will be remembered.
As I recall at least three of us from the club, students of Maestro,
made the Olympic team in 1972. That was a darn good representation from
any single club!
Larry Anastasi fenced epee, Tod Makler- saber and I was on the foil
team. I had had a hot but lucky 2nd place finish in the Nationals that
year which qualified me to become the oldest man, at 35, on the squad.
In the semi- final round of that qualifying nationals, Albie Axelrod
(what a great fencer!), Marty Lang (who went on I believe to win a Pan
American foil title among other accomplishments) and I fenced around
TWICE (no direct elimination then) in a three way barrage to qualify for
one place in the final. I finally made it on fewest hits received as
Albie beat me twice, I got Marty L twice and Marty took Albie twice!.
I'll never forget that titantic struggle among the three of us. I was
darn lucky -and a bit magical- to get by them. Had Albie Axelrod made it
he would have made that olympic team and he was about 50 years old at
that time!
Its not that the level of US fencing was so low but that Albie had
remained strong and fast. The Russians who dominated in that era called
Albie, *the black gloved ruffian* because he alone wore a black glove
and could overpower them.
There was a lot of unfortunate *funny business* as Maestro would say,
surrounding coaching selections in 1972 and incredibly he was not
selected to be one of the team coaches for the 1972 games. There had
been a selection committee of 3 coaches who had promptly all voted
themselves into the team coaching positions. Not that they weren't
qualified, mind you, but it had a bad taste to it. There was a popular
upsurge among many fencers and money was raised and permission granted
to make Maestro an unofficial coach on the team. He went to the games
and as usual put his whole heart into it, working morning to night with
us....
Maestro called me Mishka - Hungarian for Michael -after a great
Hungarian foil fencer, Mishka Fullop (spelling?) although my name is
Martin. He used to say to me, after a disappointing result, *Mishka,
there is no perfect happiness* Let us hope that he has now found a
deserved peace and happiness, close to it, if not perfect....
Martin Davis
In article <edewE65...@netcom.com>, Eric Dew <ed...@netcom.com>
writes
--------------------------------------------------
Martin Davis mar...@astral.demon.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------
use...@ma.ultranet.com
> I heard this evening that Maestro Csiszar passed away sometime last week
> (right after the BoD decided to honor him with a lifetime membership or
> something like that).
>
> Could someone (A Bullock?) please verify/expand on this item?
>
> EDEW
> (former Csiszar student, and benefitted well from it)
The announcement of Maestro Csiszar's death was made on the USFA home page. He
passed away on Feb.20, 1997.
KLauze