Story by Lexi Whitehead
Photography by Jugal Jain
In a studio at the Clawson Recreation Center, 15 students line up against the wall and get ready to do warmup exercises, including butt kicks, high knees, and lunges. Then, they gather into a circle to stretch.
It may seem like the beginning of any club sports practice, but it’s actually for a rather unique team: Miami University fencing. Their seemingly normal warmups soon turn into a practice unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
People in white jackets and face masks spread across the floor in pairs, lunging towards and away from each other. Their metallic fencing blades are long, thin and flat at the tip. Some members of the team, who also serve as its coaches, observe the drills and offer help to their teammates. The sound of chatter and weapons clanging together fills the space.
Junior Landon Braemer, who is the president and a coach for the fencing club, is proud that the club’s members are all friendly and comfortable with each other.
When Braemer finished leading the warmups, he jokingly said to his team, “You’re done! Just kidding, back on the line,” which was met with a collective sarcastic sigh.
During stretches, everyone talks across the circle to each other and laughs so loud that it’s difficult to hear when to switch stretches. The fencing club simply doesn’t know what a dull moment looks like.
“I love the dynamic that we have when everyone’s doing the workouts, the warmups and the stretches before we get into actual fencing. Everyone seems to have a nice time, some friendly banter going on,” Braemer said, “And as president, and as a coach, it’s nice to see that my club has that kind of good cohesion with each other.”
Competitive and non-competitive members alike face off during practices, with fencers of all skill levels — from eight years to just a few weeks of experience — constantly pushing each other to improve.
Having a wide spectrum of skill levels benefits the club, especially new members. More experienced fencers can teach them how to fence, and fellow beginners give them a challenging but fair match.
“Everyone there is very friendly, and so it wasn’t difficult to integrate into the club,” said freshman Ethan Finke, who started fencing at the beginning of fall semester. “There’s some people that have been fencing for eight years and some people have been fencing for like one, so it’s not that intimidating to actually get into it, because there’s always someone around your skill [level].”
A mix of experienced and inexperienced fencers also makes for some more fun practices. Finke will never forget his favorite moment in the club so far — the first time he beat Braemer, who has been fencing for eight years.
“I was just excited because it was like the first time that I had beat someone who was obviously more experienced...It was funny because he doesn’t lose a lot,” he said.
During practice, after everybody warms up, they divide into three groups to practice with their particular weapon. In the sport, fencers have a choice of three weapons, each with its own set of rules.
Sabre fencing involves slashing movements and is targeted at anywhere above the waist. Foil fencing involves small, stabbing motions and fencers can target any part of the body. Épée fencing is similar to foil in its motions but uses a heavier blade and fencers are supposed to target vital organs, such as the chest, neck, and groin.
With any friendship comes friendly competition, and the fencing club is no exception. In addition to practicing by facing off with each other, a loving rivalry exists between the different weapons.
When the club splits into their groups, members eagerly count to see who has the most people there that day. And when new members join, each group races to get them to choose their weapon.
The club’s newest member, Celine Thormann, started fencing at the beginning of the semester and has not chosen a weapon yet.
“I’m just bouncing back and forth, and they have a fun competition between foil and saber trying to get me to, like, choose one,” Thormann said.
The sense of community even extends beyond Miami’s fencing club. Often, at tournaments, other teams will be excited to see Miami fencing because they only recently started attending tournaments consistently.
With fencing, like any other skill, you learn the basics, and then you put in the effort to get better at it. Since there is a learning curve, many students don’t stick with fencing long enough to try out the three different weapons in the three free practices the club offers.
“It’s easy to get discouraged pretty quick. A couple of people have joined and then after two or three practices have just given up, which is unfortunate... because once you get past...getting hit with a metal stick, it’s a lot of fun,” Finke said.
Thormann experienced how difficult it could be to start learning how to fence but she ultimately decided to keep trying.
“You pick it up faster than you think. It feels really awkward at first...Like holding the sword, wearing the equipment, it feels weird. It’s not like anything you’re likely to have done before but it feels more natural a lot faster [than you’d think],” she said, “And even over a couple of practices, I can tell that I have gotten better at it.”
Thormann first came to a fencing practice because her friend Megan Fitzgerald is the épée coach and she suggested it. She decided to continue fencing for many reasons, including how supportive the other members were.
The moment that Thromann first felt like she was truly welcome in the club was “when [she] came back to the second practice and people remembered [her] name.”
She also appreciated the fact that oftentimes her opponents would go easy on her and give her tips to help her get better. Sometimes, the coaches would even pull her aside to do drills with her to make sure they were at her skill level.
Fencing is a constant learning process. Even during a tournament, after someone gets a point, the referee will describe how they received that point so that their opponent understands. The fencing club mimics this in their practices, so members can get the hang of things as well as feel what it’s like during competition.
According to Braemer, about ten club members compete, and they try to go to a tournament every one to two months. They most recently atteneded The Arnold Fencing Classic on Mar. 6-8 in Columbus, which is a large, national tournament.
Tournaments are senior Brandon Yang’s favorite part of fencing because he gets to spend the whole day with his team and meet other fencers. His biggest achievement so far was the time he placed 19 out of 70 épée fencers at the 2018 Arnold.
The fencing club is especially important to Yang due to some doubts he had during his freshman year.
“I was thinking of transferring to the college that all my other friends went to. I think fencing club actually got me to stay at Miami and see it through,” he said.
Since he did stay, he got to see the fencing club grow from a small club with a large gap in skill level to a larger club with a smaller gap. Over the years, Yang witnessed major developments in the fencing club, such as attending more tournaments, being more involved with the Ohio fencing community, and recruiting more members.
The club has also started hosting its own tournament in Ludlow, Kentucky, which will take place later this semester.
In fencing, it’s important to go up against new people because after fencing the same people for a while, it gets easier to predict what they will do. So, the club, including non-competing members, usually travels to an open fencing night at another gym once a semester.
“We try to do as much exposure to other fencers because that’s how you get better. If you just fence the same people over and over again, it’s not gonna improve your skill level as much as it could if you fence new people,” Braemer said.
Even though each fencer came to their first practice for a different reason, most of them stayed for the same one: the casual, friendly, fun dynamic among the members of the club and the willingness of the team to help new members out.
The welcoming environment that radiates in the Clawson basement every Tuesday and Thursday night has resulted in a hodgepodge group of people who like to laugh while they slash and jab at each other.
“We’ve all gotten used to each other’s weirdnesses,” said Braemer, “And then as new people come in, they start getting used to the weirdnesses and they bring their own weirdnesses and uniquenesses.”