“En Garde!” the referee called out as Emily Sun (11) assumed her starting stance: her feet formed a 90-degree angle with her knees slightly bent and she extended her foil out in front of her. Eyes locked on her opponent from under the metal net encasing her mask, she waited for the referee’s cue. “Ready, fence!” Sun quickly lunged at her opponent with an attack off the line to win the first point at the AFM Super Regional Tournament in Santa Clara, Oct. 31. 

“Since I was nervous before the tournament, I kind of started more aggressively to let out my nerves and loosen my body,” Sun said. “I went off the line and did an attack. It’s a good move because it surprises the opponent off the bat.”

Playing in the Division 1A foil event, Sun won her first bout 5-2, winning two out of the five pool play bouts before losing in the second match in the elimination round. Sun said that since California has the largest number of fencers and fencing clubs, her opponents were tough. However, she tried to keep herself in a positive mental state. 

“Fencing is really a mentality-based sport,” she said. “All the tournaments are very up and down for all the fencers. In the pools, I was just telling myself to try to focus and maintain my mentality because [although] it wasn’t a high-stakes tournament for me, I still wanted to do well.”

Although she didn’t do as well as she hoped, Sun said she wasn’t discouraged. 

“[I tell myself] to keep going because one tournament is never the end,” she said. “There are always more tournaments that you can continue to compete in, and I feel like that mentality of ‘there’s always another one, it’s not the end of the world’ when you lose a tough bout just keeps me motivated.”

Sun said that this mental aspect is one of the reasons why she continued to play the sport since she was 9 years old.

“I tried a lot of different sports, but I wasn’t physically that strong or [they] just didn’t really suit me,” she said. “Fencing is more like a very mental game, and you have to think [strategically] and be on top of your game and think one step ahead. I like that part of fencing, which is why I started doing it.”

Hannah Liu (11) also competed in the tournament, participating in the Cadet, Junior, and Division 1A saber events. In the Cadet category, she won four out of six bouts during pool play, then won three bouts before losing the fourth in eliminations, placing 13th out of 89 competitors. Similar to Sun, Liu said her mentality plays a key role in her performance. 

“I try not to think of any distracting thoughts and try to focus on what I need to do and what I need to change in my fencing,” Liu said.

When Liu and Sun noticed that there wasn’t a fencing community at Westview, they co-founded the Fencing Club. 

“We felt like there was no recognition because fencing isn’t a school sport like tennis, badminton and volleyball,” Sun said. “My [fencing] club life is extremely detached from my school life because nobody from my school fences at my club. [I want] to combine that and create a new community of fencers [because] maybe there are some people who fence in the school that we have no idea actually fence. We can connect to them and share our strategies, watch fencing videos together, and also introduce new people who have no experience or who have no idea what fencing is to the sport.”

The club has held two meetings so far, where they introduced the history of fencing and explained the rules. Sun said the club plans to teach the proper footing and blade work in future meetings.

“Our plan in the future is going to be actually having them try the footwork,” she said. “If we can get funding for plastic blades, we can bring those in and have them try the blade work. Because we started in the middle of the year, there’s not much awareness that the club actually exists. [I want] to get people to be aware that this club is here now and the sport currently exists.”

Liu said that fencing is a good sport for people to try because it allows anyone to have a chance to win. Since fencing is very mentally-based, you can win against someone stronger or lose to someone weaker. 

“Anyone can beat anyone in the sport, so if somebody is better than you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will win against you,” she said. “So you develop a mentality of never giving up because you know that you can win against a person, but a weaker person could also beat you, so you have to always be focused and do your best.”