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Fencing, often called “physical chess,” is a sport with deep historical roots, combining skill, strategy, and athleticism. Its origins trace back to ancient civilizations, where swordplay was primarily a method of combat and self-defense. Archaeological evidence shows that Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans practiced early forms of armed combat, often using wooden or metal blades.

During the Middle Ages, fencing became an essential skill for knights and soldiers across Europe. Swordsmanship schools, or “guilds,” began formalizing techniques for both battle and personal dueling. By the 15th and 16th centuries, fencing evolved into a more codified practice, emphasizing skill, agility, and precision rather than sheer strength. This period saw the development of the modern rapier, a slender thrusting sword that required finesse and strategy, laying the groundwork for contemporary fencing techniques.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, fencing transitioned from a martial necessity to a sport. Masters introduced formalized lessons, protective gear, and rules, creating the structure recognizable today. Italy and France emerged as dominant centers of fencing expertise, and their styles heavily influenced modern competitive fencing.

Fencing made its Olympic debut at the inaugural modern Games in Athens, 1896. Today, it is a highly regulated, internationally recognized sport with three primary disciplines: foil, épée, and sabre. Each weapon has unique rules, target areas, and strategies, challenging athletes to combine mental agility with physical precision.

Beyond competition, fencing has long been celebrated for its ability to cultivate discipline, focus, and sportsmanship. It’s a sport accessible to people of all ages, offering both recreational enjoyment and competitive opportunity. From its martial origins to modern-day Olympic glory, fencing continues to inspire participants worldwide.

Firstly, most clubs will run introductory events including short camps of an initial set of weekly events where they provide the equipment. So no fencer should start out buying equipment until they know whether or not they are going to continue fencing. However soon enough the question will come up of what does the fencer need to buy.

Broadly fencers will need the following:

• Fencing Breeches

• Fencing Jacket

• Plastron

• Chest Protector (young fencers and female fencers, optional for older male children and adults)

• Lame - for foil or sabre but not epee

• Glove for sword hand

• Long Socks

• Appropriate Shoes

• Mask

• Sword

• Mask Chord

• Body Chord

A fencers first competition is going to be a highly emotional and memorable experience. As well as the excitement of competition of winning and loosing theres a lot going on and it can be overwhelming. So before talking about the competition its worth noting that there are different levels of competition and this makes it easy to work your way in steadily.

For terminalology - a competition will consist of multiple events, so a small competition may have just Mens Y10 Foil and Womans Y10 Foil, a large competition may run over multiple days and may have ten or more events across different catogories and weapons.

Local Competitions: many clubs and organisations may run small local competitions, these are likely to be a little more informal and relaxed, and are both a great way to get used to competitions and even when more experienced can be great fun for extra practice. Local competions typically run at between 10 and 30 fencers per event. A competition may just have one event or run a few events and be run over one or two days.

Regional Competitions: these are formal competitions run within the USAFENCING regional structure - the USA is split into six regions. These will be more formal in how they are run but are still very accessible and friendly. For size the events would typically range from 30 fencers to 100 or so.

National Competitions, Junior Olympics, and Championships: these are very formal and exciting. They will have many events typically over 4 days but sometimes a week or more. Each event will usually have betweeb 200 and 300 fencers.

Having talked about the competition types how does an actual event run? Here we will go through all the steps including the competition itself:

• Registration

• Equipment Needed

• Checkin

• Equipment Check

• Warmup

• Pools

• Direct Elemination

• Awards

Fencing is a sport with a rich history, but with that history sometimes comes aspects of the sport which can seem confusing. One of these is the catorization of the events in which a fencer can compete. In reality its not as complex as it may seem at first though there are some nuances that can be confusing.

Fencing in competitions is an important part of developing skills as a fencor, but its also a balance of fencing at the right level, maybe stretching yourself, but not overreaching and either suffering early disapointment or indeed hirthing yourself or developing bad habbits by trying to do more than you are reay for.

For most people starting fencing the first part to understand are the age catagories. These break down into the following:

• Youth - typically elementary and middle school

  • Y8, Y10, Y12, Y14

• Middle School, High School, Early College

  • Cadet, Junior

• Adult level sport

  • Senior

  • Veteran - V40, V50, V60, V70, V80

Where you can compete is based on your year of birth. These get updated for each season. For Youth the season runs from August to July or effectively school years, with the Summer Nationals being the end of the season. For Cadet and Junior it runs from Febuary (used to be March) to January, with the Junior Olympics being the end of the season.

The youth catagories have both start and end years that are different for each age group, giving a natural progression. It is worth noting that many fencers will fence in two age groups (they overlap) giving them easier and harder events. Also worht noting that typically local events are easior than regional which are easier than national.

The Cadet Junior and Senior catagories all share the same year for the starting point - equating broadly to 13 years old - though there are some exceptions in that if you have the right national points in the catagory below you can compete. Naturally the Veteran catagories then have their own starting points which are fairly obvious but again based on year of birth.

The next confusion or complication comes in with DIV which splits into DIV III, DIV II, DIV IA, and DIV I. You will also see references to unclassified events. Some may disagree but the best way to think of these are that they are the senior or adult events, again broadly for those aged 13 and up. However to give a breadth of fencing experience the different between each of these is a skills cap. As a fencer becomes more skilled and earns higher ratings (we will talk about them later) then they cannot compete in the lower DIV events. Thus unclassified events are for those with no rating or U, DIV III is for those who are U E or D, DIV II for those U E D or C, DIV IA  also allows those B or A, and finally DIV I also has a minimum bar of entry as well so all the fencers will be stronger not just some.

Worth noting that for national events there are qualification rules as well.

More detailed information can be found here:

https://www.usafencing.org/age-classification-eligibility

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