Lexington High School’s fencing team has been quietly achieving successes in the fast-paced combat sport. In fencing, two competitors in protective gear aim to score points by hitting their opponent in a certain target area with a specialized sword. The sport is divided into three main disciplines: foil, épée, and saber fencing.
“For foil, what you have to do is hit a person’s target, which is only their torso. For épée, it’s the whole body that can be a target. And for saber, it’s the torso and above,” Emilia Shen, a sophomore and one of the captains of the team, said.
The largest focus in the sport is the ability to respond to an opponent’s movements and adjust to a variety of scenarios. To do so, LHS athletes put in long hours to focus on a variety of skills, such as explosive movements, core strength, footwork, and blade work. With such an intense time commitment, training sessions are among one of the greatest hurdles to participating in the sport.
“I have training basically every single day of the week. Sometimes it’s shorter trainings, and we have private lessons; we also have group trainings that are two hours long with other people in the class. So I think in total, it can be up to 12 hours [of practice a week],” Shen said.
Even with the challenge of navigating the demands of high school life, fencers at LHS find the sport rewarding in numerous ways, with members of the LHS community placing in national competitions and excelling through the various levels of fencing.
“This weekend, our men’s épée and our men’s foil team got second place at the state squad championships. And last year, we [both men and women] got second at states as well,” Ethan Xu, a senior and another captain of the team, said.
Due to liability issues and a lack of recognition from LHS, the team is unofficial, and thus reliant on external practice space and events.
“The captains organize meets. They tell us when and where the meets are, and we go there and fence other schools,” Rory Wang, a sophomore and member of the club, said.
Most of all, the sport offers many benefits: besides challenging athletes to improve their mental and physical capabilities, fencing teaches athletes perseverance and competitiveness while simultaneously emphasizing team support.
“[Fencing] requires your entire body to be extremely active and it’s also a great way to socialize, because there are lots of tournaments, and everybody there is in the sport, in the hobby. They’re all very nice and respectable, and they’re usually very welcoming too,” Wang said.
In the future, many LHS fencers are looking forward to more opportunities to fence within the school community .
“This year we’re not an official club, but next year we’ll become one. If you’re at all interested in fencing—you can be a beginner, or have never even fenced at all—please join our club next year. We’ll teach you how to fence,” Shen said.
