A few years ago we had a fencer with an interesting habit. Before every bout she performed the same routine: adjusted the mask three times, tapped the guard twice with her left index finger, took four steps back, then advanced to the en garde line. She’d been doing this exact ritual for two years. When I asked about it, she shrugged: “It just feels right. When I don’t do it, I feel… off.”

Welcome to the world of competitive superstitions, where lucky socks can feel as important as proper footwork, and a worn-out t-shirt becomes a crisis of confidence.

Superstitions are universal human experiences. Every culture has them—black cats bringing bad luck, walking under ladders, throwing salt over shoulders. But alongside these shared cultural beliefs, we each develop deeply personal rituals that feel uniquely our own. Fencing is no different. Athletes create their own superstitions and follow them religiously, convinced these practices help their performance.

I know a highly successful  junior girl who brings her teddy bear to every competition, carefully placing him near the fencing reel so he can “watch” her compete. There was a boy in our club who insisted on wearing the same t-shirt under his uniform for every tournament—despite the fact that it was worn to holes and barely held together. His parents have offered to buy him identical replacements, but he refused. Only the original will do.

And I’ll admit something: when I coach, I have my own superstitions too. I’m not going to disclose them publicly because they’re as ridiculous as any other superstitions and cannot possibly affect any outcome. Yet I find myself following these patterns, even while intellectually understanding their absurdity.

Every fencing club has such fencers: the one who won’t compete without their stuffed animal mascot, another one who eats the same breakfast before every tournament, a fencer who must run at least once on a podium strip during the warm up. These behaviors might seem irrational, but they serve important psychological functions that we can understand and even harness for competitive advantage.

Why We Create Superstitions

Superstitions emerge from our brain’s fundamental need to find patterns and create a sense of control in uncertain situations. Competition, by its very nature, involves uncertainty—we can’t control our opponent’s actions, the referee’s calls, our equipment’s malfunctioning, and even if our body would serve us reliably and not cramp at a crucial moment.

When faced with this uncertainty, our minds desperately search for connections between our actions and positive outcomes. If a fencer happened to wear a particular t-shirt during their first big victory, their brain might forge a connection: this shirt equals success. The next time they compete, wearing that shirt feels like stacking the odds in their favor.

This pattern-seeking behavior served our ancestors well in dangerous environments where recognizing real patterns meant survival. In modern competitive settings, it persists because it provides psychological comfort and a sense of agency. The fencer who performs their pre-bout ritual feels like they’re actively contributing to their success, even if the ritual itself has no objective impact on their performance. I think everyone has (or at least had) some superstitions in their lives, from going to a school test to job interview and to anything in between.

Superstitions help reduce anxiety, enhance confidence, improve focus and instill a sense of control.

Familiar routines create predictability in an unpredictable environment. The fencer who follows their established pre-tournament routine knows exactly what to expect from themselves, which can calm pre-competition nerves. Since superstitions are often associated with past successes they can trigger memories of previous victories, boosting confidence before stepping onto the strip. Rituals require attention and concentration, which can help fencers transition to a competitive mindset. Even though fencers can’t control their opponents or tournament conditions, they can control their rituals, giving them a sense of power over circumstances.

The Dark Side of Dependence

However, as almost with every area in life, benefits come with risks. When routines become rigid requirements rather than helpful habits, they can create more anxiety than they alleviate.

I once had a lengthy discussion with a fencer who had developed an unusual anxiety pattern. For no apparent reason, he would become incredibly nervous when connecting to the scoring reel for certain matches, while remaining completely relaxed for others. This didn’t correlate with opponent difficulty—often he’d be calm facing strong competitors but anxious against much weaker ones. After observing this behavior for many tournaments, I finally recognized the pattern: anxiety arose when he connected to the side of the strip that had just lost the previous bout. A single glance at the scoring machine would dictate whether he felt confident or terrified. It took considerable time and patient discussion to help him overcome this completely irrational but powerfully limiting superstition.

Consider the fencer whose lucky t-shirt finally wore out after years of use. If their confidence was genuinely tied to that piece of clothing, they face a psychological crisis exactly when they need to feel strongest. The athlete who must eat the same breakfast before every competition struggles when traveling to tournaments where that specific food isn’t available.

More troubling are superstitions that interfere with practical preparation. I’ve seen fencers refuse to change elements of their routine even when those elements were counterproductive—insisting on inadequate sleep because they “always” stay up late before competitions, or refusing to adjust their warm-up routine even when it clearly wasn’t serving them well.

The most dangerous aspect of superstitious dependence is that it places the locus of control outside the athlete’s actual abilities. When success becomes attributed to external rituals rather than skill, training, and mental preparation, the foundation of confidence becomes dangerously fragile.

Harnessing Superstitions Effectively

The key to beneficial use of superstitious behaviors lies in understanding their true function and maintaining flexibility. Here’s how to make rituals work for you rather than against you:

Treat them as tools, not requirements. A pre-bout routine should enhance your preparation, not control it. If adjusting your blade, bending it on your front shoe every time when you stay on the en-guard line helps you focus, that’s useful. If you panic when the referee is annoyed with that habit and prevents that routine, it becomes harmful.

Focus on controllable elements. Build routines around things you can reliably access: breathing patterns, mental rehearsal, specific warm-up movements. Avoid dependence on external objects that might not always be available.

Understand the underlying function. If your lucky t-shirt makes you feel confident, ask yourself why. What does that confidence actually feel like? Can you access that same feeling through other means—mental imagery, positive self-talk, or physical preparation? Can you try to intentionally substitute it with something similar but more generic, gradually training yourself to see them as equally valuable alternatives. For example, as a first step to personal freedom, instead of clinging to a specific black t-shirt with a USFA logo on it in which you won your first competition, elevating it to the rank of lucky, purchase several black USFA t-shirts and attribute this feeling to all of them. At least you can pack all of them into your bag and have a valid alternative when one is dirty, lost or worn out.

Create backup systems. For every superstitious element, develop an alternative that serves the same psychological function. If your lucky mask breaks, have a mental routine that recreates the same feeling of readiness. And definitely never have a lucky blade as it will be the first thing to fail you!

The true test of healthy versus unhealthy superstition comes when the ritual can’t be performed. How you handle this situation reveals whether your routines serve you or control you. If the venue doesn’t have a final strip or it is unavailable for your warm up, panicing wouldn’t help you.

Always remember the cause and effect. Your lucky t-shirt didn’t win those tournaments—you did. The final podium didn’t warm you up properly – your warm up routine did. They might have helped you feel confident, but your training, skill, and mental preparation were the actual sources of success.

The most important thing to realize is that your superstitions are about the feeling they create and not about the element itself and its false dependence. And so ask yourself how you can access that feeling in more controlable fashion – your breathing, posture, or mental imagery?

You actually can control these superstitions. Instead of deciding you must always eat oatmeal before competing identify that you need complex carbohydrates consumed at a specific time. Instead of insisting on drinking red Gatorade substitute it with NUUN electrolytes dissolved in your water bottle.

You should also occasionally compete without your usual elements, starting at less important for you competitions. This builds confidence in your ability to perform regardless of these superstitious elements.

Ultimately, superstitions reveal something important about competitive psychology: our deep need to find confidence in uncertain situations. The most important is to learn to distinguish between what you actually control and what you merely wish you could control.

You control your preparation, your effort, your tactical choices, and your response to situations. You don’t control your opponent’s performance, equipment malfunctions, or referee decisions. Building confidence around what you actually control creates much more stable performance than depending on lucky objects or rigid rituals.

Superstitions aren’t inherently good or bad—they’re tools that can be used skillfully or unskillfully. The most powerful “lucky charm” you can develop is unshakeable confidence in your own abilities. External rituals can support this confidence, but they should never replace it.

Your skill, preparation, and mental resilience are the only things that you can rely on in every tournament. Everything else is just decoration—sometimes helpful, sometimes not, but never essential to your success.

Image by: Jehane