Chilwell Blades Fencing Club

your first competition

Whilst for nearly all of us there isn’t much chance of competing in London in 5 years time, there is still a lot of

enjoyment and experience that can be gained by fencing competitively. Most people however tend to be

nervous about going to Open competitions either because they don’t feel they’re good enough or they don’t

know what happens at these events. Hopefully this short article will put your mind at rest on both these things.

Although fencing is great fun and you can learn massive amounts either from the organised coaching or

free-fighting within Chilwell Blades, there is no better way to gain experience than by fighting different and

often very good fencers. I wouldn’t recommend signing up for some of the International Opens just yet, but

there are some good steps along the way.

Firstly, whenever you get the chance, jump onto one of the electric pistes at Chilwell – one of the experienced

club members will happily show you the ropes. The equipment is identical to that you find at most competitions

and opens so this is the best way to familiarise yourself with what plugs into where. You’ll find that for most

bouts at Chilwell we fight to 10 hits. At more formal competitions the first fights you have will be to 5, normally

followed by Direct Elimination (DE) bouts to 15 – just ask if you’d like to practice with these duration fights. It is

also a good idea to practice presiding fights to begin to understand phrases and scoring – but you won’t

have to do this at competitions! After a few goes on the pistes, believe me – you are ready for competitions!

Naturally the first competitions I would recommend are those run by us. We tend to have two internal

competitions a year, summer and winter with the next one planned for early December. All three weapons are

fought so you’ll get plenty of fencing in. As well as our internal competitions we are also looking to arrange

competitions between the various clubs in the East Midlands region. This will give you the chance not only to

fence “strangers” but for one of the legs we’ll visit our opponents on their own turf.

After these inter-club events, I would recommend the East Midlands Region Competitions. As the name suggests

they are open to fencers within the East Midlands and have 3 graded competitions throughout the year.

The first in the calendar is the EM Senior Individual Championships to be held on 28^th January 2007 in Lincoln.

There is no restriction on entry and some of the fencers are nationally ranked – so don’t expect any medals but

expect some very good fights! Following this is the Beginners Steam Competition. This is only open to fencers

with less than 18 months experience and as the name implies is fenced using steam rather than electric foils.

The date for this competition is Sunday 25^th February 2007. Last year Chilwell came away with a Silver Medal

(and only one person went!) so I hope to see more metal this year! Next in the EM calendar is the Intermediate

Foil event. This is for fencers with less than 2 years experience and is being held Sunday 24^th June 2007.

Chilwell did well this year winning Gold and a Silver – again I’m sure we can do better next year!

Andy Smith