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Physical Chess

Fencing is an Olympic recognized sport that takes much more than being physically fit. A fencer needs to be in top shape in order to battle their opponents but they also need more, they need strategy.

Fencing is often compared to a physical version of chess. The fencer must manipulate their partner’s moves and counteract every step their adversary takes. Fencing climbs its way to the top as it becomes more and more popular.

Three years ago Sandra Marchant, Prospect Fencing Club Coach, started a beginners fencing class. The first class contained only eight people but has gradually grown to approximately thirty people over the span of three years. With interest growing an intermediate class was formed. After the classes were over the graduates were begging for more. With numbers increasing Marchant opened a fencing club for prospect residents.

With 15 years of experience Marchant has a lot to offer her students. As a child her parent’s accountant encouraged her go down to Quinnipiac and take up fencing. Not having enough time on her hands Marchant pushed it off for a later date. “As a kid I would play Zorro; and instead of making things into guns I made them into swords,” says Marchant, “So he convinced me to come down one day when I was about twenty-five, and the minute I held a weapon in my hand I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

As she coaches new fencers to the tops of the ranks she still maintains her place at the top. Marchant is currently holding the gold medal for women’s Epee in the state, and is the silver medal holder for the mixed Epee, or men and women Epee fencing in the state. Unlike foil fencing, where there is a target of where to hit on the body, Epee allows you to hit anywhere. Because of this it is considered a very brutal sport.

With a total of six or seven high school fencers in the club Marchant hopes to start a high school team in the future. This would give kids the opportunity to have a fencing club at Woodland while also enjoying competing against other high school fencing teams.

Even with the fifteen years of practice Marchant tells her students that you will never stop learning. Her former coach who is eighty-seven and is still fencing tells her he learns something new every time he steps onto the strip. The learning process never ends as fencers discover new strategies and new techniques bringing them closer to the top, one battle at a time.

2 thoughts on “Physical Chess

  1. john October 26, 2010 at 9:13 am

    yeah! thats my coach!

  2. S+teve Pec/ October 27, 2010 at 11:17 am

    i was a good fencer once

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