La Belle Fencing Club

Midland, TX

What is Fencing?

Fencing is a sport based on sword dueling practices of 17th-18th century Europe.  Dueling even spread to the United States.  Some of our founding fathers participated in duels.  After dueling was outlawed, it transformed into a sport.  It is a part of the Olympics and many US universities and military branches have fencing teams.

Modern sport fencing takes place on a strip or piste.  Two fencers compete against each other for points our touches.  Depending on the type of competition, bouts last to five or fifteen touches.

Fencers wear protective clothing to avoid injury.  A heavy cotton or nylon jacket and pants, leather glove and a steel mesh mask are required to compete.  The pants resemble baseball pants with suspenders.  This is to avoid exposing skin while fencing.

Fencers compete with one of three weapons: Foil, epee or sabre. 

The epee closely resembles the rapier, the dueling weapon it replaced.  It has the heaviest blade of all the weapons and the entire body is the target area.  There are fewer rules covering epee bouts than foil or epee. 

The foil is a light weapon originally used as a training weapon for the epee.  It is the lightest of the three.  Foil bouts are fast and challenging.  The front and back of the torso is the target area, making it a challenge to score a legal touch against your opponent.  The vast majority of fencers are initially trained on foil since it employs all of the fundamentals of the sport. 

Sabre is the sport fencing version of the cavalry saber.  It is the only weapon where hits may be scored with the "blade" rather than just the point.  Everything above the waist is a valid target, including the arms or head.  This is due to the weapon's history as being a cavalry weapon, where it was considered unethical to injure an enemy's horse.

Fencing has evolved from bloody combat to a safe, exiting sport.

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