Feel free to come along to any of our trainings to have a look! You will find us in Priory Sports Hall every Tuesday and Thursday between 4-6pm.

The weapons

There are three types of weapons used in fencing:

• foil,
• epée and
• sabre.

At Coventry University Fencing Club you can practice all the three. Our teams that compete at the BUSA Championships have to fence all three weapons at the competitions.

Foil and epée are thrusting weapons and you can score hits with them if you touch your opponent with the point. Sabre is a cutting and thrusting weapon: most hits are scored with the edge of the blade. All three weapons can be used with an electric scoring box, or without it: fencing ‘steam’.

The picture on the upper left hand corner (copied from allstar-uk) shows all the three types: 2 sabres on the top, two foils in the middle and two epées on the bottom. The reason why there are two from each is that the photo shows the electric and steam versions as well. Also, as you see, there are two different-looking foils and epées: the bottom ones are equipped with a ‘French’ grip, the ones above have a ‘pistol’ grip.

Just to give you an idea, this picture below shows what happens if you ever give up fighting back! (Foil fencing, photo from khsports.co.uk) At Coventry University Fencing Club we do a lot of footwork training to prepare you and help you stay on your feet!