Henry's First Fencing Tournament!

Henry participated in his first fencing tournament recently! It was for beginners, so it started with a 90 min presentation on rules, equipment issues, and what to expect. Then it was time to fence! He was EASILY the smallest one there, which is a real disadvantage to most fencing, but especially epeé (his specific discipline of fencing, pronounced "EH-pay"). Look at how much smaller he is than everyone else in his pool:

That's a 7th grader vs high schoolers!


Between bouts in his pool.








This guy was GOOD. He ended up winning the tournament!


Henry getting a touch! Direct link: youtube.com/shorts/6DQXrefXslg

After he fenced everyone in his pool, they got ranked and placed in brackets and started the direct elimination portion. Henry was the only one from his pool of 6 to not get a win, but he took it all in stride!

Henry was #2. His row is all red as he had no wins. The circled 6 is the touches he got,
and then -14 is the different between his touches and times he was touched. Ouch.


Henry was ranked 21 out of 21 after the pools for the tournament.

At that point, we'd been there for 7+ hours already! (There were the 2 other main disciplines of fencing competing too, so it was slow... THEN SUDDENLY FAST... then slow again for an hour.) In the pools, it's the first to 5 touches (or the top fencer after 3:00), but in the direct elimination portion, it's the first to 15 touches. Here's Henry getting a solid touch in the elimination round:

Nice job Henry!

He ended up losing 6-15, but was still feeling great about what he learned. After the tournament, we saw that 3 of the 5 other kids in his pool ended up taking the TOP 3 SPOTS of the tournament, so he was in a tough pool to start! (That matters because it determines ranking to start the direct elimination bracket, so an easier pool could have meant more points for him and not such a bad ranking, which could have put him against an "easier" fencer in the direct elimination portion.) He was happy for the experence!

I asked what he wanted to do for supper on the way home, and he requested tacos, so we stopped by Habanero Tacos in St. Paul:

Charlie greatly approved of his tacos.


My green enchiladas were TASTY!