Guides
Evergreen fencing knowledge — explainers, how-tos, and references that stay useful year after year. Much of it began life in our news archive and has been promoted here.
Getting Started
Glossary of Fencing Terms
What fencing terms mean: an FIE-based glossary defining bout actions, blade positions, penalty cards, and equipment from advance to yellow card.
How fencing is fenced
How a fencing bout works: the strip layout, the director's calls, and how the electric scoring box and colored lights determine valid touches.
The Fencing Lesson (Fast Track to Success)
Why private lessons matter in fencing: how a lesson is structured, what instructors focus on, and the technical, tactical, and tournament lesson types.
What to Expect from Your First Fencing Tournament
What to expect at your first fencing tournament: required gear, armory inspection, pool bouts, and direct elimination format explained for beginners.
Strategy & Tactics
3 Things I Learned from Winning Ugly
Mental-game lessons from tennis book Winning Ugly applied to fencing: scouting opponents, building a game plan, handling bad calls, and reading key points.
How to Watch Fencing on YouTube: a Basic Guide
How to analyze fencing video on YouTube: watch for tempo, preparation, distance, and strategy shifts to scout opponents and sharpen your own tactical reading.
The Effort Effect
What a growth mindset means for athletes: Carol Dweck's research on effort versus talent, and why praising ability can undercut performance.
The Fencing Coach's Guide to Team Relay Fencing (Part 1)
How team relay fencing bout order works, and the four roles - closer, brick wall, jimmy, and alternate - a coach assigns fencers to on a relay team.
The Importance of Seeding, or Why Can’t I Win Any DE Bouts?
Why pool seeding decides who you face in direct elimination: how DE brackets pair seeds, and why fighting for every touch improves your bracket position.
The Tactical Wheel: First Intention Attacks
How to drill first-intention attacks: paired leader/pupil exercises for simple lunges and compound feint-attacks, building to mixed sparring drills.
The Tactical Wheel: First Intention Counter-Offense
How to drill counter-offense: stop-thrusts, time-thrusts, and attacks on preparation for foil, epee, and saber, with paired leader/pupil timing exercises.
The Tactical Wheel: First Intention Defense
How to drill parry-riposte defense: paired leader/pupil exercises building from simple lateral parries to compound riposte sequences in foil.
The Tactical Wheel: Second Intention Defense
What second-intention defense means: using a false parry-riposte as bait, then landing the real parry, counter-riposte, or remise once your opponent reacts.
The Tactical Wheel: Second Intention Offense
What second-intention offense means: deliberately falling short on an attack to draw a riposte, then scoring with a counter-riposte, remise, or redoublement.
Tying It All Together--The Hungarian Methodology
What the Hungarian coaching system teaches: hand tempo, foot tempo, accelerated attacks, and taking over the attack, with drills for combining them.
You Know You're Going to Lose
Why negative self-talk hurts performance: how believing you're going to lose becomes self-fulfilling, and how to coach positive self-talk instead.
Zone Theory - Physical Zones on the Fencing Piste
What the fencing strip's three zones mean: how comfort and mistakes shift from center to the back of the strip, and tactics for exploiting each zone.
Zone Theory II - Attack Zones
What the three attack zones mean: how first attacks, renewed attacks (redoublement), and "the chase" each carry different risks and common tactical mistakes.
Training & Drills
7 Steps to Effective Goal Setting
A seven-step framework for setting effective fencing goals: defining a clear target, assessing your current level, building a daily plan, and tracking progress.
A Championship Effort
What it takes to master fencing: a coach's view on loving the sport, embracing hard work, becoming coachable, honest self-evaluation, and good sportsmanship.
Are You Ready to Fence?
How to build a ready mindset before competing: fencing with confidence, trusting your training instead of hoping, and sticking to proven tactics over new moves.
Ask the "Head" Coach
How to handle nerves before fencing an unfamiliar opponent using the C.P.T. approach: control what you can, plan your preparation, and trust your training.
Beat Attacks and Timing
How to time a beat attack with your footwork so it lands as your back foot hits the floor, cutting your opponent's parry reaction time, with a partner drill.
Bouting with Anxiety
What fear of failure does to a fencer's mental game: how it fuels cognitive anxiety before bouts, plus coping tools like journaling and deep breathing.
Compound Footwork: The Next Step
How to execute compound footwork like advance-lunge and jump-lunge as smooth technical units while keeping each step tactically open as distance changes.
Control Your Mind, Control Your Bout
How to keep your head in a bout by focusing only on what you can control, using a perspective grid to reframe setbacks as temporary and specific, not permanent.
Core Strength - Popular Misconceptions
Why crunches and back extensions aren't the key to a strong core: the difference between phasic and tonic muscles, and how to train the deep stabilizers.
Decision Point Exercises
Footwork and blade-engagement drills that train fencers to read the decision point at the end of an advance and choose whether to attack, retreat, or hold.
Decision Point Exercises Part II
Partner drills for training decision-making mid-preparation: reading your opponent's blade and footwork before committing to an attack, retreat, or parry.
Distance Control - Glove Game
How to run the glove game: an advance-lunge drill using a glove as target to train distance control, tempo changes, and false attacks, plus a full-gear variant.
Everything That Can Go Wrong in a Bout, Will
How to recover when a bout goes wrong: the recognize, regroup, refocus method for handling bad calls, broken gear, and other mid-bout distractions.
Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail
How to build a consistent competition routine: sample pre-tournament and pre-bout checklists covering gear checks, sleep, warm-up, and mental prep.
Fencing Footwork Training Part 1 (Video)
How to build fencing footwork: a USFA Coaches College video covering previewing, the en garde stance, advances, retreats, half-steps, and the lunge.
Focus on Fencing
How to stay mentally focused during a bout: using cue words, dropping result expectations, and directing your attention to winning each touch.
How to use Video to Improve your Fencing
How to use match video to improve your fencing: practical tips for reviewing your own footage to spot what works and correct technique flaws.
May I Have Your Attention Please!? - Concentration and Fencing
What concentration means in fencing: how internal and external distractions work, and simple drills fencers can use to sharpen focus before and during bouts.
Mental Preparation Tips for Competition
What mental preparation for competition involves: feeling ready, trusting your skills, focusing on fencing well, and coping with adversity.
Periodization of your conditioning plan
How to periodize a fencing conditioning plan: building a base, developing specific strength, training for power, and peaking for chosen tournaments.
Preparations of Attacks - Beats
How to use hard and soft blade beats in fencing: setting up attacks, disrupting an opponent's timing, and drills for practicing each type.
Should is a Dirty Word - Ask the "Head" Coach
How to stop coasting against weaker opponents: why assuming you should win backfires, and tips for respecting opponents and fencing every touch.
Simple Attack Drills
Foil attack drills for practicing tempo: preinitiative, initiative, simultaneous, saved, and lost timing, with partner exercises for each.
The FIE Coaching Academy: Fencing Systems
What a fencing system really is: how FIE Coaching Academy training reveals it as an ordered, tactical progression of actions, not just technique.
The FIE Coaching Academy: Quick Coaching Tips
Five quick FIE Coaching Academy tips for foil coaches: lesson distance, timing parries and retreats, and basing actions on real refereeing calls.
The Fencer in the Arena
How to reframe failure in fencing: why losses feel personal, and mindset tips for treating setbacks as feedback rather than proof you're bad.
Top Ten Biggest Mental Errors
What derails fencers mentally: a list of the ten most common mental errors, from poor concentration and unrealistic expectations to overtraining.
Training: Plan it or Cram it?
Why planned training beats cramming before a tournament: how season-long conditioning and the Control-Plan-Trust approach outperform last-minute practice.
Using Plyometrics for Youth Training
What plyometric training does for young fencers: ACSM guidance on using jump exercises to build explosive power, speed, and injury resistance in kids.
Weight Training for the Competitive Fencer
How to structure a fencer's weight training: building base strength with multi-joint lifts, then shifting to power and interval work as season nears.
What is Sport Psychology?
What sport psychology covers: how mental skills training like visualization, goal-setting, and focus techniques help fencers reach their competitive potential.
“I am the Greatest!” - Fence with Confidence
How to build fencing confidence: selective thinking, controlling self-talk, and using affirmations, illustrated with lessons from Muhammad Ali.
Equipment & Armory
"Home Made" DIY Grounded Strips
How to build a DIY grounded fencing strip at home: the materials list and assembly steps from an archived Fencing.net forum thread on making a piste.
Best Foil Tip / Point Tape
Why foil tip tape prevents grounding out on a touch, what width to choose, and how gaffer-tape brands like Tesa and Pro Gaff compare for armoring your foil.
Care and Feeding of a New Lame
How to care for a fencing lame: drying it properly after use, cleaning out sweat corrosion, and spot-fixing dead zones so it lasts through a full season.
Epee Troubleshooting
A troubleshooting guide for electric epee problems: failed weight and shim tests, unwanted lights from strip or guard touches, and tip or body-wire fixes.
Foil Troubleshooting
How to troubleshoot electric foil problems: fixes for failed weight tests, false lights when hitting the strip, and white lights on valid touches.
How To: Make a Hard Blade Cover
How to make a hard blade cover from PVC pipe and bungee cord: materials needed, sizing for foil, epee, and saber, and step-by-step assembly instructions.
How to Adjust your Fencing Mask
How to size and adjust a fencing mask: measuring head circumference, picking a size, and bending the tongue and mesh for a comfortable, safe fit.
How to Clean Your Fencing Uniform
How to clean a fencing uniform: a vinegar soak and sports detergent wash to remove odor and detergent build-up, plus fixes for discoloration.
How to Clean a Fencing Mask
How to clean a fencing mask: step-by-step hand-washing instructions, a dishwasher alternative, and which soaps are safe to use on lame material.
Installing a Home Fencing Piste
How to set up a home fencing strip: space requirements, grounded and non-grounded strip options, and budget-friendly alternatives like tape or mats.
Rewiring a Foil Blade
How to fix a pulled-out foil wire: checking insulation, sealing breaks with nail polish, gluing the wire back into the blade groove, and testing it.
Two kinda obscure foil point problems
How to diagnose two hard-to-find foil faults: cracked tip insulation that grounds under a hard hit, and a cracked tip shaft causing off-target hits.
Use of the French Grip in Epee
What the French grip offers in epee: power, intermediate, and pommel hand positions that trade blade strength for reach, favoring tempo and distance.
Wiring Blades: A DIY Guide
How to wire a fencing blade yourself: tools, stripping old wire, gluing new wire into the groove, and assembling and testing a foil or epee point by hand.
Health & Fitness
Dealing with Sprains and Strains
How to identify and treat sprains and strains common in fencing: grading the severity, applying the PRICE protocol, and progressing through rehab stages safely.
Fencing Elbow and Knee Injuries - Prevention and Treatment
What causes fencer's elbow, patellar tendinitis, and patellofemoral pain: how these overuse injuries develop, plus treatment and prevention.
Injured Athletes: Nutrition Tips to Hasten Healing
What injured athletes should eat to heal faster: calorie and protein needs, anti-inflammatory foods, supplements, and weight-gain myths debunked.
Protein for Athletes Q&A
How much protein athletes actually need: daily intake targets, food sources, vegetarian options, and whether protein bars or drinks help recovery.
Psychological Preparation for Competition
A guided mental training script for epee competition: breathing and relaxation techniques, visualization, and scripted responses to common in-bout distractions.
Selecting and Using a Rowing Machine
How to choose and use a rowing machine: resistance types, proper catch-drive-recovery technique, common mistakes, and workout progression tips.
Water: A Wonderful Performance Enhancer
What hydration does for athletic performance: how water intake, sweat loss, and electrolyte balance affect strength, endurance, and mental focus during fencing.
Rules & Refereeing
For Parents
Beginning the Fencing Season: Pre-Season Checklist
A pre-season checklist for fencing parents and coaches: aligning on kids' goals, adopting a mastery approach, opening communication, and gathering feedback.
Why Fencing Lessons are so Short
Why fencing lessons run just 20 minutes: how short, focused private lessons prevent information overload and build technique more effectively than longer ones.
Culture & History
Classical Historical or SCA Fencing - What are they?
What separates Classical fencing, SCA rapier and heavy combat, and HEMA: an overview of each community's weapons, training culture, and competitive scene.
Modern vs. Classical Fencing - What are the differences?
What separates modern sport fencing from classical fencing: touch scoring versus dueling, mobility versus phrasing, and shared technical roots.
The Olympics
Fencing at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics
Fencing at LA 2028: 12 medal events in foil, epee, and saber, July 15–23, 2028 at the LA Convention Center, part of the July 14–30 Los Angeles Olympics.
Fencing at the Paris 2024 Olympics
Fencing at Paris 2024: 12 events, July 27–Aug 4 at the Grand Palais. Full medal results for every event, sourced from official Olympic records.