Self-Assessment                     

Before going to practice, each fencer must complete a daily health self-assessment: Do I or anyone in my household have any one of the below symptoms in the past 14 days)? 

• Fever or chills
• Cough
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Fatigue
• Muscle or body aches
• Headache
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Congestion or runny nose
• Nausea or vomiting
• Diarrhea

You may not go to training if you answer YES to any of the above questions.

What WE do to help minimize the risk

• Temperature check at the entrance for both parents and students
• All the coaches wear a mask
• Fencing in small groups of up to 10 fencers

What YOU need to do to help minimize the risk 

• Fencers and parents must wear a face-mask at any time while at the club.
• Cover your mouth while sneezing, coughing
• Bring your own water bottle. The water fountain will not be available
• Consider buying at least your own mask and glove.

Personal Fencing Hygiene

• Every fencer should bring their own face towel to prevent wiping sweat off their face with their hands. The towel should be clean every day

• Every fencer should bring their own hand-sanitizer and disinfectant for your mask and electric jacket
• Do not breathe heavily next to someone, even if they are 6 feet away
• Regularly wash your hands with soap and water or disinfect with sanitizers
• Keep your bag/equipment in designated club areas only to maintain physical distancing
• Keep your belongings close by your bag. Only bring the equipment you require for practice. Leave other belongings at home or in your car
• Reels clips and last part of the cable should be disinfected after each bout
• Do not shake hands with your opponent after a bout. Just salute instead
• If you start to feel unwell while you are fencing, you should stop training immediately and leave the facility. Let your coach know that you are not feeling well

Yes! Fencing is one of the safest sports with one of the lowest athletes injury rates.

This article summarizes it well.

Due to the high degree of safety in using protective equipment (Jacket, Pants, Mask, etc…), injuries from using Fencing equipment (eg: Foil/Sword) are very rare; if not almost 0. “Fencing injuries are typically pulled or strained muscles, bruising, or sprains. With proper training, warm-ups, and stretching, these injuries can all be prevented and minimized”

The United States Fencing Association (USFA) requires that all athletes are registered and insured through a membership. The insurance is required prior to taking classes. You can register for a recreational membership here

2x/week to stay fresh, 3x/week to accelerate improvement, 4x/week to be highly competitive, 5x/week to get ahead of the competition at a national or international level

Very important. Fencing is a very intricate and finely tuned sport. A private lesson gives the coach an opportunity to focus on a single fencer and all of the things that fencer is doing to improve and fine-tune their actions. a group lesson gives a general understanding, whereas a private lesson fine-tunes that general understanding specific to the individual.

No equipment is required! Beginners are expected to wear track-pants or work-out pants (no shorts), a t-shirt, and indoor gym shoes.

At some point yes. That is if you want to be competing in tournaments. A club fencer who just wants to practice and learn the sport for fun may never actually need to buy anything as long as we at CFA have fencing clothes and accessories which fit that person.

No, but we sure like to have all of our fencers dressed for success at tournaments. It also adds a sense of team spirit and fraternity to our club.

When you start fencing national competitions, you’ll need your name on your uniform. It’s best to get this professionally done, so that it looks good and doesn’t interfere with the conductivity of the lamé. Very often at big tournaments there are companies that do uniform stenciling and you may be able to stencil your uniform on the day of your event.

Once a fencer completes an introductory fencing course with us, we generally feel comfortable to get their feet wet in competition.

We will generally make everybody in the club aware of what tournaments are coming up for their fencers. Our coaches will also be happy to help you sign fencers up. 

The two websites which have all tournaments listed are the following: 

• www.askfred.net for local and non- USFA sponsored tournaments. Clubs or universities which hold tournaments in their own spaces for smaller capacity events usually list their events on this webpage. Also so-called House Cups are also listed here.
• www.usfa.org for all regional and National events which provide points and ratings.

Please see the list of items you would need to have at a tournament here.

All tournaments are run using electric fencing equipment. That means in addition to the uniform, your fencer will need a lamé (scoring vest), mask with the electric bib, 2 electric foils and 2 body cords. The extra foil and body cord are required in case there is a problem on the strip.

Lots of beeping sounds from the scoring apparatuses in the venue. Some nerves. And adrenaline. Before you go to a tournament outside of our club, you will have had plenty of experience fencing in our own internal House Cups. So it really won’t be that different, except you may see a lot of fencers who are not known to you with very different fencing styles. That’s part of the fun of all of this. Our Academy is Russian based in its teaching methods. Other academies might be Italian-based, Hungarian based, West Coast based or a combination of various styles. 

Get to the venue as early as you can so your concert can warm up and work with the coach before getting on the strip to bout.  Bring extra water, gatorade, sports drinks, fruit, energy bars, lunch and anything else you may need to the event. Remember that you may be out and about for a good three to six hours, or more.

The general guidelines for a tournament are a first round of multiple five touch bouts followed by direct elimination. The seeding for direct elimination is specifically contingent on your results from the first round of bouts. Again, by the time you are participating in tournaments outside of our club, you will already have a good understanding of this format from our House Cups.