I’ve been a fencer for about five years. My sister actually did fencing before me, so I picked it up after her. 

I started fencing around sixth grade when my mom found a group plan for this introductory fencing class. After I tried it out, I knew I wanted to continue because towards the end of the program, the last bout that I had, I finally won. And that made me want to feel that thrill of winning again. 

I do epee, which is one of three types of fencing. The difference is that epee, you the viable target on your opponent’s body is their entire body. So you can hit anywhere on their whole body, and it would count as a point. But for the other two types of fencing, this isn’t true, because they have specific areas on the body that you can hit, and the other areas don’t count for points.

Within the five years, I’ve taken two breaks, and they were both really long. One was because I broke my ankle, and I couldn’t go back to fencing for six months. The second one was because of COVID. Now I usually go to class two to three times a week, and classes are two hours long. I also take private lessons, which are an extra 20 minutes separate from the regular class, and I compete twice a month. 

Something about fencing is that you have to be really competent, and you can’t be hesitant to do things. That’s been hard for me because I’ve always liked to think things through before I take action, but you can’t do that in fencing because you’re always moving really fast. Because you have to do things at the moment and you can’t think about them before you react,  fencing taught me how to be spontaneous and not overthink things.

One thing that I enjoy about fencing is that you have to find different strategies with different people. Everyone has a different style of fencing so you have to figure out what method you want to use to get the point. We observe people while we fence and then respond based on our observations.

I’m still fencing because I’ve been doing it for so long, and I’m pretty committed to it. I also enjoy doing it. It’s the only sport I do and something about the competitive aspect of it keeps me going. I’m definitely going to keep up with competitions and going to classes and everything, at least until the end of high school. After that, I’ll have to see where my life takes me.