Art of Fencing, Art of Life

Fencing Links – Websites that YOU can Use

Useful Fencing LinksIf you’re looking for a resource to help you extend your knowledge of fencing, then you’ve found it. Here you’ll find virtually anything that you need in fencing and all things that are related to fencing.

These fencing links are organized into categories. In the list you’ll find a lot of information related to important fencing resources, both national and international.

This post is intended to be a living resource, kind of a work in progress where the information is constantly updated and we will continue adding relevant links. This current list is not complete and by definition will never be, so if you find a resource that is not mentioned here, please comment! We’ll include it in one of the updates, of course with a full acknowledgement of you as the contributor.

Fencing Organizations

Federation Internationale D’Escrime (FIE)

English website is http://www.fie.org.

FIE is a governing body of international fencing. Here you will find a lot of useful information about international competitions, both future and historical results, ratings of athletes in any category as well as national teams, a link to the online edition of International “Escrime” magazine (the official magazine of FIE), different news and more. Definitely a site to bookmark.

FIE recently revamped their website and it looks much better with great pictures!

US Fencing Association (USFA)

http://usfencing.org

USFA is the governing body of US fencing. On this web site you can find a lot of information on national level events and competitions, such as national championships and the North America Cup, as well as all relevant manuals and documents related to the sport of fencing. If you are new to the sport but becoming seriously interested in it – bookmark this site and visit often.

US Fencing Coaches Association (USFCA)

http://usfca.org

USFCA is an organization that strives to provide resources, education, training and certificates to US fencing coaches.

Frankly, this site is not the easiest and most convenient one on the web, and most likely the novice fencer or the parent of a novice fencer won’t find this site very useful.  Nevertheless, once you or your child would like to start attending USFA sanctioned events, inevitably you will need this site.

Your Fencing Division website. 

Every US area belongs to some US fencing division. Find yours. Divisions that are relevant to AFM are those that are located in Northern California, and the Division to which AFM belongs is Central California Division.

The USFA website provides a list of all its divisions and the links to their respective websites.

The Central California Division website is here http://www.cencalfencing.com/

The Bay Cup

http://www.thebaycup.net

The Bay Cup is a cooperative of local clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area that organizes a series of one of local circuit fencing competitions for all weapons, genders, age and skill level. The Bay Cup is very popular among all Bay Area fencers, are very well attended and famous among fencers in other areas, particularly from the Southern California, Nevada and Oregon. In the 2015-2016 fencing season the Bay Cup organizes about 70 tournaments with 150 events.

There are 2 major things you will find on this site.

First – the schedule of all Bay Cup and major regional and national events (RYC’s for Region 4, ROC’s, SYC’s, RJCC’s, NAC’s).

Second – there are a lot of good resources and material here. Oftentimes The Bay Cup compiles some important documents which are useful for many fencers, such as qualification paths and more.

If you do not live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you have 3 choices:

  1. move here (the best option)
  2. attend at least one Bay Cup (we always welcome foreign fencers)
  3. envy and try to replicate similar circuit in your area. Worthy stuff. 

Important International Fencing Resources

In addition to FIE there are several important sites that provide useful information about international fencing. While some are too advanced for novice fencers, knowing their existence will not hurt.

European Fencing

This site contains all of the information about fencing tournaments, athletes and organizations in Europe. If your child has reached cadet level and wants to push themselves to the international scene, this is definitely a resource to keep handy. In addition, the site has a “Nations” label in the main menu, which brings you to a page with the links to all of the different fencing federations of European countries. So if you want to practice your French, Polish, or train Google translator, you will find a lot of interesting info there. When your child has nothing to do and wants to kill a time with TV or video game, send him to this site and have him learn about fencing in different countries 🙂

YouTube Channel of FIE 

https://www.youtube.com/user/FIEvideo

This is by far the most important fencing video channel on the web! All of the highest level international fencing tournaments (for example, Senior World Fencing Championships or Cadet and Junior World Fencing Championships) are live streamed here and then archived. This is a treasure for any fencer and a fantastic and necessary tool to learn fencing and improve one’s game. My advice – purchase Roku and have your children watch this channel instead of Pokemon on Sunday mornings, while you are still asleep. Double win.

Asian Fencing Confederation

http://www.asianfencing.com/

Similar to European Fencing Confederation, Asia has its own. With Asia becoming more and more of a fencing superpower with World and Olympic champions coming from the region, it is interesting to learn about fencing from their point of view. Like its European counterpart, the site has links to its member nation’s federations.

Pan American Fencing Confederation

To judge yourself how popular the fencing is on our continent, try to search for “Pan American Fencing Confederation” on Google. Tell me what you find!

Fencing Equipment

There are many fencing equipment vendors, both in the USA and abroad. As we reside in the US, the most make sense to specify US vendors. While it is impossible to provide all of the vendors, here we’ve compiled a list of vendors we deal with and for which we can make a personal recommendation based on our own experience. This does not mean that others aren’t good – all it means we don’t have any experience with them.

Unlike traditional sports such as basketball, baseball and tennis, fencing equipment cannot be purchased in your regular sport shop or sport department in the neighborhood mall. In some big metropolitan areas there might be some fencing shops, and if you happen to live in one then you are lucky that you can go and buy your fencing gear in a brick-and-mortar shop. If not, you are probably bound to one of the online options.

It is important to note that while some vendors below manufactur and sell their own brands, they also carry additional world famous fencing brands, while not all of them, definitely some. So you have quite a variety of options at each vendor below.

Absolute Fencing Gear

http://www.absolutefencinggear.com

One of the largest fencing equipment companies in the US. Their website is very easy to navigate and it’s easy to see the prices and information. Most of the equipment at AFM was purchased at Absolute Fencing and we are quite happy with them. They are located in New Jersey.

The Fencing Post

http://thefencingpost.net

Another reputable fencing equipment company. Located in Southern California, they have developed quite a good reputation for how they handle their weapon orders. Quite a lot of fencing weapons are ordered from them by the people here at AFM.

Fencing.net

http://www.fencing.net/

This is a fencing equipment company from Atlanta, Georgia. We have ordered few items from them and were very happy with the purchase. However, they are most famous for two exceptional resources that they manage – the fencing forum and the fencing blog.

Leon Paul USA 

http://www.leonpaulusa.com

Leon Paul is very famous and innovative fencing equipment manufacturer that is headquartered in London, UK where they also manufacture all their equipment. They have a subsidiary in USA, which you’ll find linked here. They sell (surprise!) Leon Paul’s fencing gear. While typically nobody will question their quality, their prices are typically on a higher end. Many highly competitive fencers like Leon Paul for many reasons despite the price.

In addition, in my opinion they probably have the best website out there, including video reviews, great articles and completely different level of items specifications and descriptions. The most 21st century fencing online shopping experience, far more than their rivals. Classic.

Again, you might have heard from other parents or from your fencing coaches about additional online stores, and if you like and trust their recommendation – by all means explore other opportunities.

Fencing Stores in the Bay Area

There are basically 2 stores in the Bay Area:

Victory Fencing Gear

https://victoryfencinggear.com/

 

Alliance Fencing Gear

http://www.alliancefencingequipment.com/

Choosing the right fencing equipment is not a trivial thing if you are a novice fencer, so for that reason we wrote an easy to read your first guide to the fencing gear – what, when and how purchase.

Download our buying guide for FREE here!

Fencing Forum

http://www.fencingforum.com/

The most popular fencing forum in the USA (not sure whether this holds for the world as well, if yes – let us know!). You’ll find a lot of discussions here are on different fencing related topics and in general it is a good thing to check it once in a while.

AskFred

https://askfred.net/

Fencing Results and Events Database. All domestic (though not only) fencing competitions, except for national level championships and NAC’s, are run on this website. It is easy to navigate, easy to check historic results, easy to find fencing tournaments and competitions, different clinics and camps. Mostly centered on the US.

Facebook 

Many fencing organizations, companies, teams and fencing athletes have their own Facebook pages and try to update their fans with a lot of information; from fun stuff to announcements to useful articles and facts. Find those you want to follow and like their pages. Fencing is not pop culture, so you will not find thousands of followers and fans, and your participation on social media will mostly count and definitely will be noticed. Same applies to Twitter.

Blogs and Resources from Influencers in the Fencing World

As we wrote above fencing is not a mainstream sport, so good fencing blogs are a rarity. Here we would like to mention the top 6 that we constantly read and recommend to all. Interesting enough, in fencing you wouldn’t find a really great blogs that you can find almost in any other mainstream sports, and this creates both a void and an opportunity.

1.  Better Fencer

https://betterfencer.com

Better Fencer is the most comprehensive fencing blog in a very small fencing blogosphere. Managed by Olympic Silver Medalist Jason Rogers (Beijing 2008, Men’s Sabre Team) it publishes about 2-3 articles each month, and every one of these posts is a fantastic treasure for fencer of any level. Being one of the international level elite fencers, Jason knows first hand what does it take to have a dream and work hard towards making it a reality.

2.   Fencing University 

https://fencinguniversity.org/

This website is a platform that Tim Morehouse created to promote fencing in the US and his organization Fencing in The Schools. In particular, they have a great blog that promises to become a major source of fencing related articles. Given Tim’s unstoppable power we believe this blog will become one of the key educational platforms in fencing.

3. The Fencing Coach

http://thefencingcoach.com/

A blog led by Damien Lehfeld, is a good source of coaching and parental advice and insights. Sometimes Damien has a quirky sense of humor (or rather it should be “has not” 🙂 ), but his observations and revelations are oftentimes just great.

4. Sabre Coach Kate

https://sabrecoachkate.wordpress.com/

This blog is a personal blog of coach Kate Sierra from the Cutting Edge Fencing Club in Texas. Sometimes you will see some really good material here.

5. Race Imboden’s Personal Blog 

http://www.havefoilwilltravel.com/

Given Race’s competitive fencing career, him being World #1 ranked fencer (at the time of this writing), and a busy model, it is not a surprise he finds very little time to write his blog – so don’t expect a ton of content, but do expect great content when it’s there. This blog is a mixture of fencing, fashion and musing, and the fencing part is good.

6. Fencing.net Blog 

http://www.fencing.net/news/

Fencing.net one of the best fencing resources out there. There are two valuable assets they feature – a fencing forum (http://www.fencing.net/forums/) and the blog, which appears on their first page as a “News” category. This is a must to sign up for any fencer and their parent.

7. A Nice Bonus – West Coast Fencing Archive

http://www.westcoastfencingarchive.com/

This relatively new fencing resource, which has gained a lot of popularity, because it tries to resurrect the history of fencing here, on the West Pacific Coast (and hopefully later on they will expand their reach). It’s called West Coast Fencing Archive and you will find a lot of interesting fencing articles, stories, and memorabilia from the beginning of last century. A really nice bonus for fencing aficionados.

And of course the news section on the USFA site as a good resource for nationwide news and announcements in the world of fencing.

BTW, if you happen to stumble upon a great fencing blog, leave a comment below!

AFM Online Resources

We at AFM believe in educating our members in particular and the entire fencing community in general.

Our website contains some useful information divided into specific topics. Read on for a short description of what look for and where to find it.

AFM Blog

https://academyoffencingmasters.com/blog/

Our blog is primarily targeted toward fencing parents. Here we strive to describe a lot of topics related to fencing, to provide as much useful information as possible in areas such as sports parenting, coaching, health, rules and regulations, fencing trends, different fencing related questions and more.

The AFM Blog has been a source of education for many parents and you will probably find answers to most of your questions here. Use tags, categories and the search bar to find the topics that you need to know about. Also, send us email or comment on some articles and we will address all your inquiries. Maybe we will even be inspired by your questions to shed more light on some specific topics of your interest!

AFM eBooks

We’ve published several FREE ebooks to help parents to find the most relevant information all in one place in a concise and easy to read fashion. Our books are targeted to novice parents for the most part (novice in our definition includes almost every parent with up to 1-2 years of fencing parenting experience).

Check out these three resources!!

Beginner’s Guide to Fencing

Our Beginner’s Guide to Fencing is more than 50 pages packed full of useful information about everything from how to get started with competition to why fencing is important for kids to useful terminology. This resource is truly one that we’re proud of.

Fencing Equipment Purchase Guide

Our Fencing Equipment Guide allows novice parents understand how to choose their first fencing equipment and where to purchase it.

Fencing Summer Nationals Made Easy

There’s no doubt that Fencing Summer Nationals and NAC’s are a complex but exciting time for fencing families. This book will help you to know all about how to prepare for these high level national tournaments with descriptions of how to make travel plans, what to pack, where to find information and what to expect on competition day. Hopefully a useful resources for anyone seriously interested in competition!

AFM Newsletters

At the beginning of each month we issue a newsletter to our members and subscribers. It mostly covers news and updates that are relevant to our local community. You can find all AFM newsletters on the right pane of our blog, read through past issues in the archive and subscribe for the updates, especially if you are local to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Parting Words 

Well, here we should put a big & fat 

Because as we mentioned at the beginning, this post is a living resource. We would like to make it useful to as wide fencing community as possible, so please share in the comments section below your thoughts, links and any material you believe will be interesting to other members of our small and charming world.

 

Previous

Is My Child a Fencing Genius?

Next

Best Fencing Club Honor AND 2nd Anniversary for AFM!

1 Comment

  1. I do some fencing cartoons and drawings, mostly post to Instagram, but there are some on the website as well. In addition, there are fencing tees and gifts with my original illustrations available for sale

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén

%d bloggers like this: