I entered my second competition with a tall task as I readied to take on fencing. I barely know anything about fencing and only watch it when it comes on in the Olympics every four years. To sum up: I didn’t know the difference between avant-garde and en garde.
The club I was about to compete against wasn’t just any fencing team; I would consider it one of the fencing blue bloods in the state of North Carolina. The Tigers are three-time state champions, their most recent championship coming in 2014-15.
I was welcomed to the fencing practice by co-captain and state champion, senior Zoe Miller. When I say “welcomed,” I mean immediately put under fire about my technique, or lack of it.
The first move I learned was the “advance,” where the back foot is pivoted at a 90-degree angle and the front foot is pointed forward. It doesn’t sound hard, but I swear I looked like baby deer
trying to walk for the first time. It obviously showed because Zoe quickly commented that I looked like “an old man.” I was off to a good start.
We went through some stretches and warm-ups and then proceeded to put on gear. I was given a foil, which is the sword-looking thing that is used during competition. The notion that I was essentially given a three-foot-long knife was unsettling, considering the fact that my classmates in journalism don’t even trust me with a pair of scissors. And with the new Star Wars movie premiering, I had to remind myself that, no, this is not a lightsaber.
After a short session of drilling, I faced off against junior Ethan San Pedro. The rules seemed simple enough: touch the person in the chest area for one point, and the first to five points wins.
The director (head judge) said a bunch of words in French, and we were off. Ethan made a move towards me, and I made a half-hearted dodge. As a baseball player, my instincts are to catch whatever comes near me. Stupidly, I swung my hand on my chest to try to stop the advance. I’m pretty sure that isn’t allowed, but either way, it didn’t work.
I ended up salvaging one point in the 5-1 loss. What really surprised me were the quick, explosive and strategic moves that are needed to succeed. I learned quickly that just moving back and forth isn’t good enough. Competitors need to have advanced hand-eye coordination in order to stop an opponent’s attack and answer with a move of their own.
After my first match, I started to get the hang of it. I used fakes and quick movements to make advances on the opponent. I walked away with only a 5-4 loss: nothing to hang my head over.
I have to attribute my (sort of) success to Miller and fellow senior Laura Cheney who are in their second year as co-captains of the fencing team. “[Fencing] is thinking on your feet in the most literal sense of the word,” Cheney said. “Fencing is not like other sports where it’s just brute force.”
When Miller was a freshman, the fencing team only had four members, and, during her sophomore year, a shortage of members threatened the existence of the club. “The team was actually going to be canceled,” Miller said. But determined to keep the club afloat, Miller reached out to her friends and appealed to Cheney, who joined with many others. The team has now grown to 18 members.
The club wants not only to win another state championship, but also to create a positive atmosphere. “Our goal is also building a community of people who want to be passionate about this,” Cheney said. The Chapel Hill High School fencing team is undoubtedly on the rise.
