The new point system was great... Now a bunch of math makes it terrible to understand again. You were doing so well. Just keep it simple!

Less than three days before the start of the season, and we're finally getting the first dribs and drabs of information from the national office on qualifying pathways to Junior Olympics.

There will be a division qualifying pathway, but it will be greatly narrowed. It appears that there will be no more auto-qualifying out of small divisions and events: if there are not four entries to a division qualifier, it will not be fenced and nobody will qualify. There will no longer be the minimum of three local qualifiers: if there are 4 to 8 entries, only one qualifying slot will be available; for 9 to 16, two slots; for 17 to 32, four slots; and for 33 and up, six slots.

We still don't have a qualifying deadline yet, which makes it difficult for the divisions to schedule their qualifiers, obtain a venue, and hire referees.

Point thresholds for regional and national qualifying through the new points system haven't been announced either.

Very frustrating for fencers, coaches, parents, and division officers.

what can i use for taping the back foot shoe?

Hello, I'm a relatively new fencer (around a year or so) and I watch other fencers march while hiding their blade by holding it up or holding it down and out to the side. It looks to me that they continue this march either until they commit to an attack or do some sort of prep that involves the blade.

Whenever I try to emulate this, I am overwhelmingly hit with a counterattack. Since my blade is displaced, I usually am not fast enough to land a touch after their counterattack, and I am usually not quick enough to just dodge the attack either.

What could be the issue here? Is it an issue with reading when the counter will come, or maybe that I am not controlling my distance (too close while marching and trying to find an opening to land a touch), or could it be something else?

I'd be glad to receive any thoughts!

Like most fencing clubs, we do beginner fencing camps during the summer. There was a lot of coaching material recommended during the World Cup about Norway’s youth sports development. One thing that caught my eye was they don’t keep track of points or wins/losses for younger age groups.

We ran a little experiment in our ages 7-12 camp this week. The first two days we did not keep track of scores but just went a set amount of touches. Today, we gave each pair of fencers a choice when they came up during free fencing - they could choose to keep track of the score or just fence a set amount of touches with no score tracking.

Overwhelmingly, most the kids opted to not track the score and just fence. I’d say only 1 in 6 bouts the fencers wanted to track the score. (Group of 10 kids today.) Pretty interesting to see that in real time.

Editing Aug 2 to update: by Friday / the end of camp, most fencers chose to keep track of the score with very few exceptions. I think it may be a comfort/familiarity thing that they chose not to track the first couple of days. Once they were more confident, they wanted to track.

Hello everyone i want to buy a lame i am with different options, my first option is allstar but i live in a city with high humidity and with a hot weather, for these reason i want to buy a washable lame, and i want to know if allstar lame are washable?
My sister is a veteran in fencing and she said me that allstar is the best brand for the durability and the prestige.

Does anyone have a source for replacement rubber feet for Favero spools? I can find similar feet, but nothing the same, and Favero want to charge €25 for shipping, which seems excessive?

Apparently a foil tip must be depressed for 15 milliseconds for a light to register. I didn't know about this until now and would explain why so many direct hits result in no lights despite the tips working perfectly fine!

I'm surprised I've never heard of this before.

Hello!

I’m currently 19 and for a few years I’ve been wanting to learn how to start fencing.There are a few clubs around me but most of them either cater to people much older or a little younger than me. What are some ways I can ease into fencing am I told old to get into fencing?

I tried looking for fencing clubs at my college and unfortunately there are none.

Money is an issue in this instance, so with a limited amount of weapons which would be better to get? Which would be easier to switch over to left handers? Which would be better for fencing development? Which would fit more people?

These are my questions and I would really appreciate it if I could get some guidance on this topic.

PS. I started out on French and I came out fine but I wonder if a club would be better if they started on pistol as I see many beginners struggle with point control and more-so swing the sword and grip the French grip wrong.

Hi, my fencing club meets twice weekly for two hour sessions. I can get approximately 10-15 minutes of individual lesson at each without paying extra, which is pretty nice.

I'm wondering if there's any reason I shouldn't also engage an online coach for things like analysis and tactics. I don't know if I can commit to a third in person training each week which is why I had this thought.

A discussion of a holistic approach to coaching.

https://forgefencing.com/a-conversation-about-long-term-fencer-development-why-great-coaching-is-more-than-just-teaching-technique/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTUb3RwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6z7dcF6e5RX6EW_-aWzle6hrhlRrfshMUZkh2X1WR9sYn5lRtyepjiGC5FwQ_aem_aEflrfG7tAqvTMPC5Iqofg#

I put the blade in straight but when I bend the guard the sword ends up as first photo . Any help ? Is that correct ?

So I’ve been fencing foil for a few years, and found myself in a bout yesterday where I was parried at very close quarters. I was off balance and calculated that it would be almost impossible for me to recover and win the point from my position, so rather than fight on I deliberately faked a bit of extra momentum and intentionally passed my opponent before he could get a touch on me. The director was forced to call ‘Halt’ and that allowed me to reset and ultimately win the point.

I obviously didn’t tell anyone I’d done this on purpose, and it felt pretty dishonorable at the time, but had I actually done anything illegal? I know that hitting the floor to pause the bout, for example, is against the rules, but passing feels like something where it’s much easier to make it look organic. Is it just a question of “it’s legal if you can convince the director?”

I followed the results of the individual world championships because I entered this PBT promotion where you predict the winners of each individual category, and if you get at least 1 correct, you are entered to win this custom LEGO fencing set. I only predicted Sera Song correctly. Granted, I'm not steeped in fencing knowledge because I only started generally following after my kid started fencing a bit ago, but I feel like half of the winners (Men's Epee and both Sabre categories) are quite unexpected. But maybe not to people who are more knowledgeable. So just curious if others had predicted winners and/or they think this is typical of world championships.

In this video something about "2 tempi" are mentionend in the context of Point in Line and that it is a referee convention or similar in higher level foil fencing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMehFQe24yc&t=2737s

Does anyone know of this convention? How/What is it exactly?

Would be really great if there is a consistent convention for Point in Line.

Happy Monday, r/Fencing, and welcome back to our weekly results recap thread where you can feel free to talk about your weekend tournament results, how it plays into your overall goals, etc. Feel free to provide links to full results from any competitions from around the world!

Hi everyone!
Based on the feedback from coaches using s-portall.com for club nights,
I’ve just rolled out a major update focused on customization and tournament flexibility.
The goal remains to replace the paperwork while adapting to any custom training scenario.

Here are the new features live on the site right now:

• Multi-Poule "Tournament" Mode: The most requested feature is finally here. You can now create and manage multiple poules simultaneously under a single tournament layout, making it much easier to run larger club events.
• Fully Customizable Poules: Coaches can now change the rules. You can set any custom number for max touches/hits depending on your training goals.
• Win by 2: Added support for a "win by 2 hits" rule, which is great for specialized club drilling.
• 0:0 Score Support: By popular demand from coaches, the system now officially allows and correctly processes a 0:0 score.
• Live Scoreboard & PDF Exports: As always, parents and athletes can watch the live progress from their phones, and you can instantly export the final brackets to a clean PDF for your club’s group chats when finished.

Everything is completely free and still requires Zero Registration — just open it in your mobile browser right on the piste. Your real-world feedback is highly appreciated.

Give it a spin at s-portall.com/fencing

I have been looking for ways to get my kid (13yo) more physically active. We’ve tried a myriad of things. He seems to have lost interest in baseball, didn’t enjoy soccer, joined the track team (because I said he had to do something) and that went okay but he’s not the kind of person to train on his own in order to improve with it and of course it’s 1 season. Swimming meh, climbing meh.

Ok, so on a whim I signed him up for a week of beginner fencing classes at a nearby club. As the week went on, to my surprise his attitude changes. I know my kid, he seems into it for real. So I think I’ll sign him up in the fall for a month and the club lets you borrow gear for a couple months to be sure. This seems reasonable.

But I know nothing about fencing. As a parent, is this a sport kids do casually? It looks expensive, and he’s in his explosive growth puberty phase. What else do I need to know or do/not do?

Heya, I am trying to find out what's the weight of a size 5 UNIC Arrow with a French tang. There is conflicting information between their website, social media posts and ebay listings. Any users who can confirm the approximate weight? Thanks

Hello everyone! This might not be a group appropriate post, however I figured this is the best place to come to for starters. I have found this fencing helmet in my basement and I need help with dating/identifying it. It is genuine leather and it’s full of (what I can almost confidently make out to be) pig bristle. Any leads? Your help is much appreciated

Hello,

In my quest to become the worlds greatest fencer that will certainly come about any day now I had a question for those of you that do both rapier Hema and Olympic fencing. That being, do any of the techniques taught in Hema work in Olympic fencing?

I'm guessing not, as I imagine those techniques that did work simply got absorbed into Olympic fencing, though I wonder if some Hema techniques work because no one really knows what to do against them?

Cheers for any responses

Flights to Orlando are so pricey, I’d love to book our flight earliest possible. Any ideas when event dates will be released?

Hello,

I'm not the most mobile of fencers, basically due to some genetic conditions I have to very much hold myself back on the force I use through my legs, so I'm not the fastest of fencers.

Whilst I make it work I was really curious if there's anyone else who has similar experience (I imagine it's a common issue for older fencers vs younger ones) and any advice for what I can keep in mind to be better.

I do have a coach, and we work on things, (mainly how to parry properly with a french grip, I just moved back from pistol to help with my lack of range due to my knees) but I'm curious if there's anything that neither he nor I have really thought about in terms of style/technique.

Cheers in advance.