Ivie Maren had only one goal for her fencing career: win a Top 8 medal.
Follow her as she navigates the most stressful year of this journey. She learns how to deal with the blurry lines of friendships and the emotional stress of relationships.
To m...
If you don't know much about this sport, I don't blame you. Not a lot of people know that this is a real thing.
Crash Course in Fencing: The Strip:
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The bout starts at the en grade line, one person on either one. If fencing a lefty, the left handed person is usually on the left side of the strip (aka the director's left).
The Box:
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The red or green light goes off when the tip of the sword hits on target for that weapon.
The white light goes off when the tip of the sword hits the off target or floor.
The Three Weapons: Foil: Second lightest blade and smallest bell guard which protects the hand
Sabre (Saber): Lightest blade and has a 'c' curve bell guard
Epeé: Heaviest blade and has the largest bell guard
Each Weapon's Target:
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Foil: Torso area
Sabre (Saber): Anything from the waste up (including head) Saberists also wear lamés, but theirs have sleeves with them unlike foil lamés
Epeé: Anywhere on the body.
Equipment: Foil: Body cord, mask cord, lamé
Sabre: Body cord, mask cord, lamé
Epeé: Body cord
Directors: Certified people who can (for the most part) accurately call movements. Though not everyone who directs is certified. There are some cases were there isn't enough certified directors, so schools* will typically call other fencers to direct.
*High schools will usually do this. If it were for a the Olympics, for example, there would only be certified directors, for obvious reasons. I don't really know how club fencing teams work, but I imagine that they aren't too different from a high school set up.
Penalty Cards: Yellow: Warning card
Red: Repeated yellow cards end up becoming a red card which gives the other person a point
Black: If there is unsportsmanlike actions going on, the director can give a black card which expels the person from the meet
Regular Bout: Target Score: 5 points (or on target touches)
Time Period: 3 minutes
Direct Elimination (DE) Bout: Target Score: 15 points
Time Period: 3 periods each 3 minutes long with a 1 minute break in between if needed
Individual Meets: Individual meets start with (for my conferences) women's epee, men's foil, and women's saber. Each one will fence in their respective weapon's pools. So women's epee has one pool, men's foil has a pool, and women's saber has a pool, and so on with the other weapons.
Each pool can be filled from 5-8 people, but if needed, there may be more people.
After the first round of pools, the second round, with men's epee, women's foil, and men's saber, fences, then the DEs for the first round starts.
DEs are setup as a bracket style chart. Basically, you fence until you loose.
Dual Meets: These meets are where a team of 3 people are all fencing the same weapon against another school's team.
Each person fences everyone on the other team to 5 points.
These meets are based on overall wins/losses against the other schools.
Three Basic Moves Attack: Basically an extension of the arm with a lunge
Parry: Basic defensive move that redirects opponent's blade
Repost: Used after a parry, basically an attack
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That's all I have for this little crash course! I'm sorry if I didn't thoroughly cover all the bases, but it is really hard to explain a sport that requires someone to watch it to be able to explain it properly. If you want to look up more information on this sport, be sure to look at the FIE website
If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments! I will try to explain it to you more throughout the book too!
