Any fencers?

[Seriouslymole]

DS (13) and DD (11) both fence and have their first tournament this weekend. I have no idea what to expect as I have never fenced in my life and it's a totally new thing for me. They both love it and have been doing it a little under a year.

Any advice on what to expect?

@Seriouslymole, my DS (15) has been fencing (epee) for a few years but has only started to do competitions since last summer.

I'm still pretty clueless about how it all works but I think generally competitions begin with a qualifying round (called poules) where competitors are put into small groups (around 6 in each group?) and each competitor fences all the other people in the poule in a series of shorter bouts. Based on those scores, some of the fencers from each group reach the elimination rounds, which involve longer bouts. In the elimination rounds, the loser is out of the competition and the winner progresses to the next round, until the final bout between the last 2 remaining fencers.

So every fencer gets at least a few bouts at the poules stage before they might be out of the competition, but beyond that it depends on how far they make it through the elimination rounds. Because of this it's quite difficult to predict how long you might spend at a competition, and there seems to be a fair bit of waiting around at the poules stage because there are rarely enough pistes for everyone to fence at once.

There are usually very strict rules about how much coaching can be done during bouts and how vocal spectators are allowed to be - worth reading up on competition info in advance.

Do you have your own kit or use club equipment? Competition instructions often say each competitor must have 2 blades and 2 wires - DS only owns one of each and relies on club equipment if he needs a spare. Definitely take plenty of drinks and high-energy snacks.

Good luck to your DD and DS, hope they enjoy their first comp!

Hope they enjoy it. I've been fencing best part of 20 years, mostly refereeing recently.

Main thing is to know where they need to be. Listen for their name or quite often now, look on the app.

When they get their poule assignment (first round) go up to the referee on their piste (they have number labels on them) with their mask and show their underplastron to the referee. Then take note of when they are on next, do not wander off during this round. If they need the toilet go straight after they have done a match and tell/check the referee they are going before the ref starts the next fight.

Chat to other parents/coaches/referees who aren't refereeing at the time. We like to help parents understand!

I fenced epee for a while in school and did a lot of opens etc, was regional gold for a few years, in my experience it was pretty laid back. I have flat feet as it is so I wore normal nike trainers vs the proper fencing shoes, went to posh school so all my kit was provided. Used to wind people up something funny since I also found a loophole in the rules to wear funny socks, they asked for my equipment to get tested a lot. I always found it more mentally tiring than physically, was a bit spaced after competitions and could never eat anything. If it's a kids contest they'll be good at directing them to what they need to do. Been to quite a few competitions, especially my first beginner ones, where there weren't enough girls entered to bother with a poule.

Comfy equipment will help, and gloves that fit, otherwise you'll have assholes like me hitting them so it goes through the gap for the wire since it hurts and means they dont fence as well for following points.

It depends what weapon as well, sabre is basically just screaming at the ref about why you deserve the point. Can look v aggressive if you're not used to it.