How To register for US Fencing NACThe most common question we are asked by novice parents is how to register for the US fencing NAC’s and National Championships, such as Junior Olympics Championship and Summer Nationals.

When competing at local, regional, and sometimes national level tournaments,  most parents become accustomed to using the askFred interface and intuitively try to search for NAC registration there as well – to no avail!  NAC’s and National Championships are tournaments that are organized by USFA and are managed at their portal, called Railstation. So you won’t find them on askFred.

Unfortunately the Railstation interface is not the most intuitive, and without some guidelines it might be quite challenging to figure it out by yourself. With the upcoming March NAC and the regular fee registration deadline just in few days, I’ve decided to write a simple explanation that will help you to sign up your child.

Step-by-Step

Here are step-by-step instruction on how to register for US Fencing NAC’s.

Get In

  1. In your browser, go to www.usfencing.org
  2. Go to “Membership” → “Manage Your Profile”.
  3. The login screen will be shown. Enter the email and password that you created when you registered for US Fencing Membership.

Check Your Info

  1. Upon logging in you will be taken to your profile. Check it out for correctness by scrolling down and verifying that all important fields are correct.
  2. Take special note of your club affiliation. It is very important that your information is recorded correctly since it might affect how you will be seeded.
  3. If you changed any information, save it by clicking on the save button – otherwise it will be lost.

Find Your Tournament

  1. Click on “Tournament Schedule” in the main menu.
  2. This will bring you to a page with many tournaments, including international ones, most of which will be irrelevant to you. You can either scroll through the pages until you find the NAC that you want to register for, or use filters to navigate to the desired competition faster. For example, right now if you choose “National” in the drop box on the right which says “Select level”, you will be narrowed to only few national level tournaments and can easily see the March NAC.
  3. The format of the page is a table. Find the row with the tournament you wish to participate at and click on “INDIVIDUALS” in the column called “Entry Form”. You will be brought back to your profile again, where you can verify your details again if you forgot to do it before, and click on the “Next button”.
  4. Finally you are in the event selection page!

Select Your Events

  1. Chose all of the events you wish to register for and click on “Next”. You will be brought to the waiver of liability page.
  2. Read through it and click on “I agree to this release” and fill your details to sign if your child is still minor. Click on “Next” and proceed to the page with payment.
  3. Enter the credit card details, and voila! You have registered your child to the USFA Fencing NAC and National Championship! Congratulations!

Important Notes

Please note that the mere fact that you registered on USFA site does not mean that you are approved to participate. All USFA National level tournaments, such as NAC’s and Championships, require qualification and thus your status will be “Registered”.

Upon registration the national office will check that you met the qualification requirements. If yes, they will change your status to “Approved”. If they deem that you did not meet the requirements they will send you email about that. You will need to provide a proof that you are qualified. If you received such email from USFA, do not panic! Go to the tournament page on usfencing.org, read the qualification requirements for this particular tournament, verify that you’ve met them, and if this is the case indeed, write an explanation email back. If not, consult your coach about this situation.

As you see, registering to USFA fencing NAC’s and National Championships is easy and quite straightforward. Not the best interface and somehow hidden way, but nevertheless, once you know how to do it – it is easy.

Now that you know how to do it, so it is no excuse not to participate at upcoming NAC! See you all there!