It's like a hidden sport, you don't hear about it often and when you do it's always a very interesting story. Although fencing is in the Olympics not many people follow it and many consider it to be a boring sport. While poking someone with an épée could be considered easy to some, Fencing is among one of the most interesting and difficult sports to master.

Many fencers start their journey in high school where they'll meet their coach and fellow teammates. Before receiving their gear, fencers learn the standing stance, how to lunge, and retreat. Once a fencer is fitted for their gear and chooses the grip for their épée that's when the real fun begins. Everyone in the team learns the perries to defend against attacks and after practice are allowed to do free fencing to practice against their other teammates for fun. Free fencing isn't just for fun though, it can be helpful because other teammates are able to tell you tips or something you could be doing to help increase your chance of getting a point against your opponent.

Then come the tournaments which come in three different forms. There's the pools where you go against each person in your group, the DE's (or Direct Elimination) where you go against one person and only continue if you win, and the team tournaments where you are in a group of four people and go against other teams.

In the individual pools, there are four to six other people that you have to go against in individual bouts. The first person to score five points wins the bout and has more of an advantage of getting into the DE's. Even if the opponent doesn't win they still get credit for all the points they earned. After fencing everyone in your pool you then have to wait to see who got into the DE's. This is always the most stressful part, as only 32 girls are normally accepted and 64 guys depending on the size of attendance at a tournament. In DE's the first person to make it to fifteen points or whoever has the higher amount before time runs out wins and gets to advance to the next round. It's essentially "brackets" for a sports team but instead of different teams, it's individual people. In team tournaments, each fencer on the team competed against another team to get to 45 points. The team that gets to 45 first then advances and competes against another team until there is only one left. That team is then deemed the winner of that tournament.

During tournaments, fencers wear specific gear designed to protect from injury. Females wear a breastplate, under arm guard, jacket, knickers (what fencers call pants), a glove, mask and socks to indicate what school that fencer is from. Males, on the other hand, wear all of that but the breastplate. Before any tournament fencers have to have their masks and gloves checked for any holes to prevent any injury that can occur during a match. Before a bout/match, fencers test their épée's by making sure they have two screws and that the wire is not messed up so that there is no possibility of cheating. If a fencer's épé is broken then they will receive a yellow card. Two yellow cards result in a red card and you will be forced to sit out of the tournament. While these cards are rare they are still a possibility if the fencer did not test both of their weapons first and tried to use both when fencing. Other ways to get a yellow card include: cursing, yelling at an opponent, bad sportsmanship, not shaking your opponent's hand after a bout or throwing your helmet. The worst card you can get is a black card, which are extremely rare. Receiving a black card is an immediate disqualification and reults in being asked to leave the tournament and not being allowed to compete for the rest of the season. The ways to get a black card are: continuing to fence after someone turns around and exposes their back neck, assaulting someone or any felony. Cards are rarely issued and definitely not something someone wants to receive.

While fencing can be a dangerous sport, it is so much fun when the proper safety is there. Even though the sport is all about hitting the other person with a blade, everyone is super friendly and most people will make sure their opponent is okay if they believe they hit them too hard. If you have never watched fencing, then go to your local high school and see what days they are hosting a tournament.