Month: February 2021

The history of fencing might surprise you – even if you’ve got a long history in the sport yourself. 

We are an unusual sport because of our origins – conflict. Just about as far back as you go with human history you’re going to find conflict, and in order to be great on the battlefield, you had to practice. It’s baked into who we are, which is part of why fencing feels so compelling. Kids naturally pickup backyard sticks and start swordfights, it doesn’t matter that they aren’t training for real battles. It’s like we can’t help ourselves, we want to challenge one another. 

That’s all fine and good, but we want to know more. Fencing as a sport has some surprising roots, and our sport was an actual sport much further back than most of us realize. 

To understand the scope of fencing history, from as far back as we can trace it, we’ve broken this down into three parts. The first is what you’re reading – Part I: Fencing in the Ancient World, where we delve into the earliest history. We then move onto Part II: Old World European Fencing, which follows through the time when fencing developed into something more like we know it to be today and the rise of high fencing styles. Finally,  in Part III: Modern Fencing, we trace back through the last couple of centuries, including the Olympic Era. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get going!

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The last year brought us to a wholly new and sad reality, and though we are making it through, it has been a year of survival. Recovery has to come sometime, but when?

One sad reality of this last year is just how hard fencing has been hit. It’s not clear how hard just yet, but the last twelve months are world-changing for our sport. Whatever we think the ramifications are, or whatever our hopes for a quick and smooth return to what we used to have, it is increasingly clear that the path forward is going to be much harder than we would like. It’s clear that our sport will need time to bounce back into shape, and the loss is not going to be easy. 

Survival mode

Part of what keeps us going during hard times is the ability to prioritize what is in front of us. This year, we have put our heads down and looked at only what is directly in front of us, only what is needed for our immediate survival. Looking too far ahead creates a sense of unease and a feeling of being overwhelmed because we don’t know what the future will look like. 

In fencing, there has been a lot of it. We held onto hope for Summer Nationals through April of last year, when qualifying events were canceled during that first harsh lockdown. At the time, no one knew what this would all look like. Then they were postponed till the fall. Then they were finally just outright canceled. Looking back, it’s easy to see that there was never a chance for Fencing Summer Nationals to happen in 2020. At the time, everyone was taking things one step at a time, looking at what we had in front of us to make the best determination possible. That was hope, and it’s a great thing that got us through. 

We are lucky to have had the opportunity to keep going, and we’re lucky that the precautions taken by USA Fencing have meant that there were no large gatherings that created outbreaks among our fencers. It could have been a lot worse. 

One of the good things about the survival mode that we have all been in for the last year is that it allowed us to block out what’s coming. As time rolled on and the stress of just making it continued, many of us learned to let go of fretting over the future. Lots of us have found solace and meaning in our families, which is a good thing. Our worlds got smaller in quarantine, giving us a different focus. Survival mode can’t last forever though, and now as we are seeing vaccines come into our communities and the numbers of cases dip down from their dizzying, terrifying heights, we can start to look forward. 

Looking forward isn’t going to be easy. Keep reading and you’ll see why. 

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