Carter Henman
chenman@uwyo.edu
The Fencing Club hosted a fencing tournament on the University of Wyoming campus on Sunday, which members are calling a great success.
“This was the biggest tournament in the history of the University of Wyoming,” Amanda Markus, sophomore and secretary of UW’s Fencing Club, said. “We had 34 registered fencers, which was fantastic!”
UW hosted competitors from regional schools including CU and UNC.
In addition to hosting two tournaments at home each semester, the Fencing Club sends competitors to competitions in Denver and various Colorado schools. “Whoever shows interest in going, they can go,” Markus said.
Much of the terminology in fencing evokes a certain air of old-time fanciness, which can be deceptive. Compared to its 15th century Spanish ancestor, contemporary fencing is highly technical.
Markus said there are two different types of bouts at a tournament. Pool bouts last three minutes or until one of the fencers score five touches. Direct elimination bouts go to 15 touches or until three three-minute periods, with one-minute breaks between each, expire.
“I was obsessed with the movie The Mask of Zorro when it came out,” Emily Beagle, vice president of UW’s Fencing Club, said.
Beagle said she has been fencing since she was in elementary school.
There are three different types of fencing, corresponding to the three different types of weapons used in each.
“There’s epee, saber and foil,” Beagle said. “Foil and epee are both end-touch weapons, so you get scores by compressing a button on the tip of the blade.”
Saber, on the other hand, involves a lot more hacking than stabbing, more closely resembling the sword-fighting depicted in major Hollywood films.
“It’s just as much a mind-game as it is a physical one,” Markus said. “You’re always trying to analyze what your opponent is doing so you can figure out how to beat it.”
“To be developing both of those skills simultaneously is one of the things that makes it so fun, and one of the things that competitors really gain from,” Beagle said.
Campus Recreation partners with the Campus Activity Center (CAC) in order to coordinate and meet the needs of club sports organizations at UW.
Adam Burke is the club sports coordinator for Campus Recreation and oversees 21 different student organizations, including the Fencing Club.
“All club sports are Registered Student Organizations, but not all RSOs are club sports,” Burke said. “There are a lot more procedures that club sports have to go through in order to be a part of our program.”
Student sports organizations have to be an RSO for a full year before they are eligible to apply for club sport status.
“Once they apply we look at things like membership, monies they have brought in and requirements for practice spaces to make sure we can accommodate them,” Burke said.
Funding is allocated to club sports based on a 5-tier classification system. Tier 1 clubs receive the most funding, which is up to $10,000 annually, while tier 5 clubs receive none.
“Fencing is a tier 3 sport,” Burke said. “In 2014-15 they were tier 4 and as of 2015-16 they’ve moved up.”
Markus said in addition to Campus Recreation funding, the Fencing Club makes money from hosting tournaments, collecting membership fees, which are $40 per semester per student and selling club apparel.
Burke said that the Fencing Club recently moved up a tier as a result of unexpected growth in membership and, by extension, equipment requirements.
“When we look at 2013-14, fencing had 25 members; when we look at 2014-15, they had 26 members,” Burke said. “In the current year they have 39 members.”
“We had a lot of people who expressed interest in joining this year,” Markus said. “At the meeting we had at beginning of the year we handed out at least 30 waivers.”
The club has a six-week course for beginners, which allows interested newbies to learn the ropes.
“Our club is pretty much as competitive as you make it: after you’re done with the six-week course you can compete or just participate in practice,” Markus said. “That was really a plus for me.”
“One of the great things about our Fencing Club is that it gives exposure to the sport, brings a lot of students in and allows them to learn something new,” Burke said. “It is not a traditional sport so a lot of times you have non-traditional students interested in it, which is a great way to engage a broader part of the community.”
