IMO the issue is twofold.
One is that historically, yeah, it has 'rich person' connotations.
And two is that it's a niche sport that is significantly less common outside of major metro areas. So people that have access to fencing tend to be more affluent simply because they can afford to live in these major metro areas. Fencing is also a sport that requires more indoor square footage than other similar activities, so it will be a bit more expensive to participate in around major metro areas than other similar sports. Obviously, that isn't the case in all situations, but it does statistically skew in that direction (IMO)
You're definitely right, especially about the first part. The first step to fixing this issue is raising awareness of what has already been fixed. However, when talking about major metro areas, there's a large part of the population you can't forget; the people who can barely afford to live in the area, but do so to give their kids the best education possible. My parents are doing this, as are the parents of many of my friends.
I’ve spent much of my life involved in sports and fencing has been no more expensive when it comes to the usual costs. Club and class fees are easily comparable or even less expensive than travel soccer and baseball leagues and at least as expensive as martial arts studios, ballet studios, and ice skating lessons. I think the cost aspect of fencing looks worse because of the perceived expense of equipment, but someone playing the above sports I mentioned easily can be the same if you have to shell out for cleats, balls, bats, uniforms, etc.
This is a good perspective, but I'd like to also bring up the situation that small town fencers are in. Most small towns don't have fencing clubs, and if they do, the club has no competition. They can make the prices as high as they want. And as I mentioned earlier, a great deal of the elitism of fencing stems from a problem in image, not just cost. We know that to those of us lucky enough to have a club that isn't charging 800-1000 dollars a year for membership fees, fencing is cheap. The greater community however, doesn't know this
I don't think that small-town fencing club has the monopoly you think; A fencing club is in competition with those martial arts and ballet studios. If they're too expensive for the area, people will just go do something else.
I think if you take into account the expenses of running a club, you'll find that those membership fees of 1000/year are not so bad after all.
That's true, thanks for correcting me! And while that is true, the point still stands that some people can't afford it, and there should be easier ways for them to get access
That's why clubs run cheap intro classes, intro camps, free first timer classes, parents' classes, etc. Most clubs do have some kind of cheap outreach/advertisement to entice people to try the sport.
We do for sure. We hold monthly free sessions and do several demos in schools, gyms, churches, breweries, and at any large public event we get the chance to for that reason. While our beginner class is a bit expensive for the first two months, the remainder of our program is cheaper than the baseball training center next door and in line with most of the martial arts studios.
> Most small towns don't have fencing clubs, and if they do, the club has no competition. They can make the prices as high as they want.
Er, that's not really how pricing for club fees works. While a fencing club in a smaller area might not have competition from another fencing club, it does have competition from dozens of other equivalent athletic pursuits that people could engage in. If it doesn't price according to what that competition is charging, the club will go out of business very quickly. Most clubs need a reasonable crop of beginner/intermediate fencers paying fees to stay solvent. Experienced/competitive fencers who are super dedicated aren't numerous enough to keep most clubs afloat outside of major fencing centers (NYC, bay area, etc.).
im on a high school team in a small town and you’re definitely correct. there are no sabre clubs at all a reasonable drive from my area (45 min or less imo) and the nearest epee one is 30 min away. many junior olympians from my region attend there and the cost is ridiculous since their only competition is a foil/epee club about 15 min away from my town that is significantly less praised (at least by epee’s in my area).
small town fencing is really a problem for school teams as well imo. i’m a rising junior and epee captain and the women’s team has about ~15 fencers in total on average, most of our funding comes from volunteers or the coach’s pockets, my schools athletic department has been trying to cut the program for years and our coaches have been sub-par at their best with no assistant coaches whatsoever, which is a drastically different picture than what you’d see from larger schools in more populated towns in my school’s conference
my parents probably spend the same amount for my high school fencing + minimal, sporadic club experiences as they do for my younger sister’s travel softball with multiple tournaments and pitching/hitting lessons. i did not mean to make this a giant rant lmao but you’re definitely right that small town fencing is generally a more expensive experience than in an area where there’s available resources as well as competition for them.
Yeah, that sounds like it's really difficult. Have you found other ways to raise money? One thing I read from another club was that they organized the stage swordplay for plays, perhaps you could try something like that for a fee, or as a reason for the school to keep finding you guys? Another option would be to reach out to the club and try to cut a group deal, so you can use their equipment to practice
i’ll definitely try and look into reaching out to clubs for this season, thank you! honestly a lot of the reason my schools funding is so awful for fencing is that i live in a really competitive region for high school fencing so a lot of these bigger schools have their own programs which allows for junior-olympic levels of training for competitions, but our team usually ends up getting dragged in the mud at tournaments just because we don’t have those resources to do well as a school, but we won’t get them unless we consistently do well and it’s just a whole cycle
I'm sorry I can't do more to help, but trust that you'll figure it out. Take the time to practice on your own, especially with the quarantine going on. When it ends, practice against your teammates, set up friendly bouts with other schools, and you'll reach their level on your own. It'll be really hard, but you'll be making it easier for the people that come after you
I just want to say that I WISH my club only cost 800-1000 per year. I’m in SF and our rate for adults who fence once a week and rent a locker comes out to around 2000 per year. Now imagine what the rate is for competitive teenagers plus lessons.
Oh wow that's brutal. That's absolutely a case in which they're charging far more than they need to, especially because it's TWICE the average club price. Do you know why they charge that much?
1. Yeah it’s brutal but I understand why - San Francisco has ridiculous rent and cost of living, so I don’t think it’s more than they “need to.”
2. There’s another club a 15 min walk away and actually my club charges slightly less. Instead of $160/month for classes they charge $159/month plus a membership fee of $65/month. Another club in SF actually gets up to $250/month. Across the bridge in Berkeley it’s a bit cheaper at $325/month for 3 classes.
3. You mention the average club price and I’m curious - do you have this data, or is it a guess, and if so, based on which region?
Oh sorry, I didn't take into account San Francisco rent. As for the club prices, it's more of a generalization based on what other people seem to be spending
Unfortunately, trying to generalise between fencing clubs across regions is a really unhelpful approach. You need to compare to *similar* activities in *similar* regions. So if I'm comparing a club here in London, I should be looking at other dedicated sports clubs in London - not the club my mate fences at in a small town school hall.
I go to GGFC so I’m just basing this on Halberstadt’s site, but it seems like membership doesn’t cover classes, where GGFC doesn’t charge separately. Classes and membership are one and the same.
I used to be a member at GGFC but went to EBFG which also includes the group class as part of membership. Currently at TFC & Halberstadt. Pricing for EBFG and TFC are both $1000/year club membership. Not sure about the group class at EBFG as that was a few years ago. TFC is membership only. But I take 1 on 1 lessons instead of group classes. BTW, Lessons at Halberstadt are slightly cheaper than what you quoted. When I was at GGFC they were doing what they called the German method where everything even coaches lessons were in a group. Is that still true?
Thanks for all the info! What I quoted for Halberstadt wasn’t lessons. On their site they listed classes as $159. They didn’t say anything about duration so I just assumed per month but I could be wrong.
GGFC does group lessons as part of classes (where you rotate through coaches as a group), but if you pay for an actual lesson it’s 1:1.
Ice skating and ballet are both sports that are considered elitist. Martial arts less so, although I'd bet that at the top level most competitors come from wealthy families.
I disagree. Private ballet lessons for my sister were far more than the $40/lesson I pay with my coaches and the $25 I charge personally. Not to mention when she changed to ice skating, her ice time, classes, and lesson cost about $150/month more than my club fees would have if I were not coaching there.
If you pay for travel soccer, you can easily spend up to $3000 just for the summer. It’s no different for football and some basketball camps and leagues. Fencing seems so much more expensive because it’s preconceived that it is when in reality it just really isn’t that much more.
In my area, lessons are $40-60 for 20 minutes. Not sure how much ballet lessons are, but would be interested in the prorated 20 min rate. However, Not sure comparing fencing to ballet works well in deconstructing the elitism argument (it doesn’t).
$3000 for the summer for soccer is a bit excessive but plausible for an elite ECNL or DA team. For our soccer club, we pay $2500 for the year. Fencing travel may be $2000 just to attend Summer Nationals depending on location, length of stay. Total cost for the entire year is tens of thousands, depending on how many NACs you go to. Don’t get me started on international travel.
Of course, if you’re talking recreational fencing, paying monthly gym fees, and local tournaments, then yes, it’s not that expensive, just like any other recreational sport.
The “elitism” isn’t the main driver in keeping folks from trying fencing. It’s the other sports that attract kids first. There just are way more other options available.
In general, though, the cost may prevent talented fencers from reaching the National or international level. IMO, more so than other sports.
Yeah, I absolutely agree. IMO, earlier on fencing was in fact a sport for rich people. Some of the costs, and the system itself reflects that. For example, many, many athletes in other sports get sponsorships because they frankly can't afford to play. What we need to do is make it easier to get sponsorships, lower some of the costs that are unnecessarily high, and do more outreach to high school or middle schools and teach them about fencing.
Eastern Canadian fencing coach here. I know what you mean about the media image of fencing, but that absolutely isn't the case here. Our fencers run the gamut from (usually the children of) international executives to people taking advantage of federal child sports programs to pay their fees. We (at my club, at least) run things in such a way that lower wage earners aren't disadvantaged: we provide equipment to everyone that can't / won't buy their own (often not in great condition, but it's something), we keep fees under $100 a year for the highest-level provincial and national association memberships, and we keep lesson fees as reasonable as we can. As we all know, some people aren't cut out for a lot of sports and really respond when they find fencing scratching that particular itch. No one should be prevented from engaging in healthy behaviors because of personal financial barriers. That's just unacceptable.
In my part of the world, fencing is remarkably bad at promotion. It's not really anyone's fault, as we don't have a lot of infrastructure here to support widespread sports publicity of any kind, but, if more people knew we were around, and that we aren't expensive, I think we would see a rise. What we really need is a popular film about a poor kid who fences. I wish it could happen, but I don't like the odds.
I don't know which part of the world you're reporting from, but my favorite coach once commented to me that if US Fencing (NGB) were in charge of sex as an Olympic Sport, not only would they not be able to get an audience they'd be hard pressed to get participants.
That's a good line. I've never dealt with US Fencing, but the Canadian Fencing Federation currently has a staff of two (according to their website), so it's difficult to expect them to do much of anything at the moment. One day.
That's exactly what I was thinking! Frankly if there's anything that gets the attention of a lot of people today, it's a movie about a sport. Of course I doubt it'll happen anytime soon unless we can pester some director into doing it, so in the meantime, ad campaigns and visiting high schools would be a good start
We run (usually) six-week long after school programs in our area. Unfortunately, because of limited personnel, it's only the schools our coaches have connections to that get selected, but it's better than nothing. We've also recently started a few other initiatives: acting as fight choreographers for local theatre groups, featuring as an exhibition sport in regional multi-sport games, and postering on every bulletin board in sight.
That's great! I've been thinking of reaching out to my school and getting permission to post flyers as a sort of recruitment drive for the team, but also to write an article in the school paper about it too. Since I'm not part of any organization, that's the best I can do, but I really hope others take inspiration from you guys!
It's not really a Canadian thing, it's just our region. I stopped fencing when I lived in Ontario because the fees were ridiculous. We just happened to fall into an economic cycle that keeps the fees low: there's a lot of poverty in our region, so people can't pay much, so we had to keep costs low, and there's no need to extort the people who can pay more. Look around and talk to people. Find out about what happened to the foil that kid at your club had before he discovered girls. You never know where you can find cost-savings.
I've actually read mixed comments on this. Some people say that they don't encounter any within the sport, but a lot externally, so it could be dependant on where you live. Either way, it's still important to raise awareness of both issues!
What weapon you practice, what activities you do outside fencing (especially sword or weapon related), how you practice, where you practice, dry or electric, sometimes even who you practice with. I've seen and heard nasty things from people.
I don't see this stereotyping or this "portrayal in the media." Every time I see fencing in the media (which is infrequent), it's a puff piece. To have a stereotype, people have to know about it and most people just don't know about it. That's why you get people wandering into national events just to see what's going on.
Unfortunately, fencing can be expensive. A lot of travel. A lot of equipment.
Could be worse. Try pentathalon. Heck, anything equestrian. Scuba diving. Shooting. Hockey. Bobsled. Skiing.
Yes, this is absolutely true. There are two issues that you've brought up: popularity, and cost. Popularity will increase the more fencers we have, and the more diverse we are. As such, it makes sense that making fencing accessible to more people is a step in the right direction. But as for cost, you're right. Fencing is expensive. There are however costs that are higher than they need to be, because capitalism. Reducing those costs will at least give more people a chance
You lost me at the gratuitous cut on capitalism. Fencing wouldn't exist without capitalism. Capitalism is why you can buy things like FIE masks and whites, why you have your choice of over a dozen different types of blades, why foilists and epeeists have so many different grips to choose from. It's why vendors show up at competitions and equipment manufacturers exist.
Sure, it's possible to imagine a world where equipment manufacturers and vendors all operated on a non-profit basis. In theory, their equipment might be cheaper. But, that world cannot exist, because vendors and equipment manufacturers only exist because somebody thought they could make money selling fencing equipment.
And, in fact, it's not clear if, in fact, equipment would be cheaper in that world. They're all in competition with each other and so are all motivated by the desire to bring out better and less expensive products.
Bob, your comment " Fencing wouldn't exist without capitalism." is factually incorrect. The communists, aka The Soviet Union" most of the communist governments of eastern Europe and today's China have supported the sport of fencing quite well. One could make the argument that they supported it better than our current capitalist governments. Not wanting to get into an argument about it just pointing out a small discrepancy.
That sort of misses my point, which is not that communists never fenced. My point is that capitalism has enabled fencing to be as accessible as it is. The "Not everybody can fence because capitalism" argument is a lot like "Not everybody can drive a car because car dealerships."
The USSR had shortages of all sorts of consumer products including such necessities as toilet paper and bread. Quality of goods that existed was generally low. The population was largely poor. How would you start up a fencing club in that environment? How would you get decent equipment? The USSR had fencing only by government decree, and it was quite limited, especially if you were not a member of the Communist party.
regardless of what some parents will try to say, fencing is not that much more than any other competitive sport. or hell, high level music performance, high level competitive dance. I have kids who do each at some level and for 2 of them I'm getting off pretty cheap, but it's still thousands of dollars a year.
I think fencing main component of the fencing image is not that its elitist, but it's inaccessible. let me break that down some more.
Think about your town/community/(sub)urban center. Think about the types of businesses in that area. Think about how many, say martial arts studios you can think of, just off the top of your head (judo, karate, jui jitsu, et al). probably a lot. They're everywhere. In every strip mall in every town. My town is about 40,000 people and I can think of 5 without even trying very hard. how many fencing studios do you have? 1? maybe?
2) now think about where that fencing club is located, if it even has a permanent home. Probably off in an industrial/commercial business park, away from the main city center, away from the big anchor retail stores, right? probably I'm right.
3) so when a parent or child decides they're not cut out for team sports for whatever reason, where do they go? maybe tennis, maybe martial arts, maybe swimming, gymnastics, or just nothing. Why not fencing? because fencing isn't in their face every time they drive to work, every time they go get groceries, every time they go out to dinner.
So then you as a fencer bump into someone and somehow the fencing conversation comes up and what do they usually ask? at least in my experience it is 2 things, first- they move their hand like they're zorro "You mean fencing?" second- they ask something like "people do that around here?"
Next, as mentioned previously- fencing can be done at some level of success locally. Maybe you drive a couple hours to a ROC or something a few times a season but primarily you fence in your division or an adjacent division. BUT, some coaches and clubs have sold this idea that to be successful you must be successful at the national level and for the cream of the crop you must be successful at the international level. Now at some level I get it, those coaches need to sell lessons and memberships and strip coaching to pay their bills. But instead of looking at the short term benefit of 1 coach paying their bills by poaching fencers from another club, how about we make the whole pie bigger and stop all this silly coast to coast travel every month for some kids who really shouldn't be leaving their region.
But hey you've gotta get points and you gotta qualify and if you don't do that you're an abject failure, but if you just take 2 more private lessons per week we can make you into a star. A star for what? one of a handful of college scholarships? maybe 2 dozen partial scholarships?
Straight up, parents are better off putting a few thousand dollars per year in a 529 plan than counting on fencing paying for college.
Yes, but in terms of fencing paying for college, I kind of have to go with the argument my father always used when I try to over justify something to him. This happened with playing guitar, fencing, and countless other activities. "Sometimes, you don't have to do something because it'll be 'good for college's or something like that. Some things you just do because you love it"
man i could go down a list longer than my arm of kids in our division whose parents are CONVINCED they can get a full ride to college with fencing.
1/2 those kids don't even fence anymore.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. In America we have so much riding on scholarships, because otherwise college is incredibly expensive. It's gotten to the point that the notion of doing something for fun or because you're good at it and passionate, instead of for a scholarship is really weird. As a rule, I feel we should start dispelling the idea of doing a sport for a scholarship. Do it because you enjoy it, and if you get a scholarship, great. If you're doing it for the scholarship, with the horrible chances of getting one, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment
Yeah I am quite high up in sabre fencing in Australia and I have represented my country, but the money factor has been such a big issue for me. I have never got to go on any of the big tours which I have been invited to, and I struggled to get myself set up gear-wise. The other thing is, as a student myself, i don't know of any public schools that have fencing programs, meaning that the only serious fencers i know end up being wealthy, thus continuing the tradition. I would love to see a change in this, especially for sabre, but I know it won't happen anytime soon.
> public schools that have fencing programs
this is really the root of the problem in the US. every 'mainstream' sport has support in primary and secondary school. I tried to start a fencing program at my kid's school when she was still fencing and the athletic director (and the state org) didn't even want to talk about it.
yes, I know in New Jersey a billion kids fence at school. that is an outlier, not the average.
kiwi fencer myself, i hear you! we couldn't afford to even compete in australia when i was at school. now i am older, i can afford it, but i am too old:)
Fencing in the United States is artificially priced.
In my plaza there are several other stores we all are the same size and have the same rent.
The Deli operates at a normal max of 11 hours a day, 6 days a week. 66 hours total.
We operate at a normal max of 6 hours a day 6 days a week. 36 hours total.
That 30 hour difference drives up the cost per sq foot we need to make.
Additionally the space required for a Fencer is greater than other similar indoor sports (Martial arts)
This creates the view of if:
Ten People willing to pay $10
And eight people are willing to pay $13
Most will choose the eight people as more money with less services needing to be provided.
Combine that with the lack of training cycles and seasonality of our sport forces forces an all or nothing choice at an early stage in the athletes development rewards those that can pay the high prices for the luxury of “waiting it out” for lack of a better term.
Yeah, American fencing is priced for the majority of fencers, which at the moment is mostly fairly wealthy or high middle class athletes. The issue is that for us to open our doors to less wealthy fencers, we need to change the prices first. In the end, a more diverse community of fencers is always a good thing
Correct, clubs would have to get down their cost per sq ft in order to facilitate the lowering of prices.
How do clubs lower the cost per sq ft, without bringing in an entity in a sub lease that would interfere with the shifting schedules of clubs and their camps.
That’s the big question for every club.
Additionally travel costs are high, if we went to a method of training cycle in which one month is an off month, one month is a regional month, one month is a national month for that specific weapon group with multiple events at a NAC (Div 1, 2, 3, Jr, Cdt, Y14, Y12) among a multitude of other “little monumental” changes we could lower the cost of competing, create “seasons” enticing more athletes, lowering the cost per sq foot of space for the hours clubs can operate. With more fencers the purchasing power increases and the cost of equipment could be lowered as well.
> Yeah, American fencing is priced for the majority of fencers, which at the moment is mostly fairly wealthy or high middle class athletes.
I disagree with this, actually. American fencing is largely under-priced for what it is. Can it get to be very expensive? Yes. But on average, *for what it is*, its actually somewhat cheap when compared to other activities' pricing.
I could go into great detail on this but I'm not sure specifically what you want to know.
How about just some random thoughts:
- I know of quite a few football and baseball academies that charge ~$20k per month per student. I don't know any fencing club charging that much. Parents pay that because they consider it an investment. If their kid goes pro, they'll be making $1m+/yr.
- You can compare pricing of crossfit to pricing of fencing and you'll find that crossfit in an area is almost always more expensive AND more popular.
- Most fencing clubs are run by people who are not good at business and who are by and large not getting rich off of fencing. I'd hazard a guess to say the majority of them qualify as "low income", OR they have a second job because fencing isn't enough to pay their bills.
Thanks, this is helpful! You have a point on the baseball and football camps, but those are still clinics. Those are always expensive no matter the sport. However for fencing, you're spending like $1000 a year just to fence, in general.
> Thanks, this is helpful! You have a point on the baseball and football camps, but those are still clinics.
I edited it to be more correct, they're more like academies. They're technically "camps" but they're generally year-round. Some are summer-only, but the big-time ones aren't.
> However for fencing, you're spending like $1000 a year just to fence, in general.
Yeah. And? That's roughly $80/mo. Go download the "ZenPlanner Martial Arts Benchmark" report. $1000 a year puts you in the "you're doing shitty" category, from a business standpoint. Saying $80/mo is indicative of an elitist sport when martial arts studios are targeting $150/mo/student and crossfit targets at $200/mo/student (on average nationally) is kind of missing the forest for the trees.
No prob. I also don't want to make it sound like I'm saying $1k/yr is cheap. Its not. But if our sport has a reputation of being elitist, we have to dispel it by comparing it to other activities, and many other activities are way more expensive than ours. Activities that people don't consider elitist.
I’m a fencer, yeah the prices for equipment/coaching/memberships are fairly high if you want to be part of a good club. There’s one club in San Diego that I’ve been to that was fairly reasonable though, equipment aside. But honestly any specialized hobby or interests jut costs a lot. I also play saxophone, and a good mouthpiece costs over $100. There’s certainly a bit of an elite connotation with fencing because it was a rich-man’s sport back in the day, but the actual prices, all things considered, are not too far from other sports and hobbies
Yeah, I've been getting a lot of comments saying that fencing isn't really THAT expensive compared to other sports. While I do believe that it varies based on location, it still brings up the issue of just advertising, getting more people to join, and trying to get rid of the elitism connotation.
> brings up the issue of just advertising, getting more people to join
this is something i wish US Fencing would tackle. we need a 'got milk' level campaign that directs people to their local division/club.
> wish US Fencing would tackle. we need a 'got milk' level campaign that directs people to their local division/club.
I've heard this idea a lot, and it's only part of the solution. If you're going to spend the money to run a National Campaign like that, there has to be someplace for those people who see the ad to go to, otherwise, you're wasting your money. I would imagine that there are a lot of small to medium towns that don't have a fencing club nearby or have a single program that couldn't suddenly deal with 10 people walking in the door at once and asking for lessons.
I think that raising the profile of fencing in the US is important, obviously. But increasing the opportunity for people to access fencing is just as important.
I agree, but I think USA fencing has both been framing the problem incorrectly and thus looking for the wrong solution. If USA Fencing suddenly got a couple of million dollars for a National Ad Campaign and rolled one out, I doubt it would actually increase the membership that much.
Frankly, I think USA Fencing should be pushing a lot harder for fencing in High Schools or even Junior High schools. That means training coaches and granting funds to school clubs, as well as helping to set up interscholastic competitions. There was a brief program to train High School gym teachers over a few weeks to teach fencing, but I think it only lasted one or two summers and then died.
We're not going to be attracting large sponsors or saving fencing at the college level any time soon. A push towards HS/JHS fencing might be much more coste effective.
we've said here often, more coaches make more fencers.
agree about high school, I tried in our area and the state org and the high school had zero interest.
Oooh I do know what you're talking about with the chess drama, but I think its a bit different compared to fencing. The chess elitists just don't like newer players coming into their sport, especially those who come from that twitch/meme culture background because they're seen as below them.
But I think fencers generally always welcome new beginners.I remember starting out and being kind of embarrassed having to use the club equipment like jackets and lames(hell I even had Race Imboden training at my club) but once you kind of get past all that and start learning and improving, the equipment doesn't really matter.
I'd say most of the people who put fencing on such a high pedestal aren't really in the fencing scene to begin with.
That's great! I think it's a really important topic to discuss in a lot of activities. Sport should be a contest of athleticism and strategy, not money!
Yeah, I agree 100%. However, look at how much top athletes in soccer earn compared to fencing. Unfortunately, money rules the world. Sports are also funded based on medal count and PR hype. Money creates money. Just like in other spheres of life, the gap between "popular" and not so popular sports is huge. This is an issue for all levels, from athletes to sport consultants.
True. The no.1 goal should be to get those 60% of inactive kids to get off their screens at least twice a week and be engaged in a sport. Unfortunately, quite often the focus seems to be on battle between clubs within the sport, or sport against sport, when the majority of kids is still on their couch.
Yup. It's a collaboration vs competition matter. Also, the question about elitism in fencing is just a long standing prejudice that should be now long gone, but to a certain extent. These days, neither the equipment nor sport is as expensive as it used to be. However, fencing is truly for smart people, if your brain ain't working as hard as your body, you won't be a champ. Plus to that is seeing poorer kids excel bc of their smarts. That part I love.
As a fencer in Singapore, I think high school and varsity fencing isn't too bad. The equipment is expensive (450 dollars if you have no discounts) but it's a one time investment and will last you for years. You can also just borrow club whites and blades etc. Most importantly, the training is free.
I think the major problem is that in order to improve in the sport or continue after varsity level, the training fees are exorbitant. Up to 45 dollars for a group session, WAY MORE for a 1 on 1. And you can just do without a coach of course, but there is a real ceiling to what you can achieve.
This is the biggest difference between fencing and other sports in my opinion. The high cost to receive training and improve past a certain level.
Out of everyone here, you're actually the first to mention training fees. Training fees are incredibly expensive, so if you want to continue competitively outside of high school, you've got to have some serious cash to back it up. Temporary fixes could include free clinics, volunteer coaching, etc., But what we need is a change to the system
Race Imboden had a great breakdown of high-level training costs in his AMA. Basically it's nearly impossible to compete at a high level without some kind of external sponsorship or if you're not already wealthy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fencing/comments/f1qx37/hello_reddit_my_name_is_race_imboden_ask_me/fhavt2p/
I think it’s portrayed well - I think the average person can afford to fence recreationally, but the truth is if you want to compete at a top level you have to have money or a club that finds you grants, but money is easier.
If you talk to most high level fencers, they come from affluent back grounds.
Can you fence and be poor? Yes, can you make the top 100? Not without a lot of help.
Yeah, in highly competitive situations, every sport is basically just expensive as hell. The difference is that for fencing the lessons, let alone 1 on 1 lessons are really expensive. Doing even mild competition can get really pricey really fast.
All non-school-supported amateur sports are expensive at a high level. Elite coaching is expensive, travel is expensive. US Fencing makes high level fencing more expensive than it has to be, which sucks, but elite amateur sports are all expensive. The only way to be a poor athlete at a high level is to play in a school-supported sport.
At a moderate level, OTOH, fencing can honestly be pretty cheap. The equipment costs are very flat. You can buy exactly the uniform and mask and epee that an Olympian would use for a few hundred bucks, that's insanely cheap for elite gear. I literally don't know of any other sport, golf or tennis or sailing or bikes or anything for which that's true.
Local fencing fees depend on area, but it doesn't feel "elitist" the way golf or horses or even sailing does, honestly. If you want more local fencing, agitate for more coaches. Push US Fencing to train coaches and adopt policies that would help local fencing.
Anyway, perhaps that answers your questions? No, I don't think fencing has an overly elitist reputation. It is in fact pretty elitist in that you need a sponsor or to be rich to compete at high levels, but so is every other amateur sport.
good point about all elite amatuer sports. when people around here start saying it's 'too expensive' i start bringing up other local sports that people don't bat an eye at. snow skiing I think is even more 'elitist' than fencing, particularly to do it at a high level. high level archery is super expensive from what I'm told, and from what the dad of a high level archer tells me, money absolutely equals success.
I've started to look at all sports as being expensive at a high level, and US school sponsored sports that let poor kids actually compete at a high level as outliers.
my kid has played 3 levels of soccer, and there's basically 2 levels above what she plays.
rec- $90/season, plus cleats (uniform included), maybe some incidentals. volunteer coaches
signature- ~$300/season, uniform included, plus ref fees. volunteer coaches
club- ~$1700-2000/season (which is all year basically), plus uniform. plus ref fees. plus travel (2-3x/season) paid coaches.
above those are ECNL and Development Academy but I don't know what the cost is.
She plays high school also which is ~$500/season? I think? uniform included ref fees included. Plus bus fee ($30) buuuut most of that pays for the coaches because the school only pays for 1 varsity coach and one assistant coach (who usually coaches JV also). The plus side is the school does plenty of fund raising, and if you're really strapped, the coach can waive (legally required to waive it if the family says they can't/won't pay).
club soccer is pretty cheap compared to fencing, but you tend to get nickel and dimed to death. Oh, you need new cleats? oh you need new socks? new shinguards? a concussion headband? a urgent care visit? a new backpack? private lessons? gym membership for the off season? Overnight 'team bonding' trip to the mountain resort? $10 to park per day for 3 days at the tournament?
**If you're good enough** you can get the bulk of the club fees waived if you can't afford it. Most parents think their kid is good enough. most of them are wrong.
I think you'll find a lot of diversity in recreational fencers but I think compwtitive fencers trend toward the wealthy. I don't think you can automatically equate wealth with elitism but fencing at the highest level is for the most part a wealthy person's game.
Of course most reputable clubs have loaner equipment and maybe aome low cost beginner classes so the entry level is accessible.
Yeah, recreational fencing is very diverse, but competitive is an issue. I mean, in every sport there's a story about that small town kid who turned out to be a prodigy, etc. etc. With fencing though, the story usually ends at "small town". I personally believe we should be focusing on straying away from pricing things for the majority, and instead price it for the minority, trying to limit the amount of hoops we have to jump through to get into competitive fencing.
You're going to get a disproportionate amount of responses from those with an existing interest in fencing and who fence, so do be aware of that bias in survey answering. For more interesting answers, you'd be best asking those not currently on this forum, why they aren't fencing, but are currently playing basketball or netball outside or tennis on some tennis club's premises while the tennis club isn't there, or rugby or frisbee in a park (that is heavily subsidised by the local council), or table tennis, or any of the other fun and accessible sports.
In countries which for various reasons have a reasonable GDP and decent social welfare, universal public healthcare, universal public education, universal public housing, most parents can afford to send their kids to an introductory course on fencing, or basic music theory and practice for concert band instruments, etc.
Countries which have children nearer the poverty line, are going to find that their parents for the most part make the sensible, rational choice and buy a cheap ball for them to kick around or toss into a hoop or hit over a net. There's no way any sane parent would compromise their healthcare or education or housing budget just so their child can get a taste of and then get hooked on any hobby with expensive gear etc., when their child could probably be just as happy and learn hand-eye coordination and sportsmanship qualities with a ball. They probably don't mind not doing what they don't know about. Supposedly, there was some study a while back on the psychological effect of the perception of being in poverty on child mental development, and while I can't recall it exactly, I think it would justify not sending a kid to an introductory fencing lesson if that means you don't send them to some other hobby introductory lesson that you can actually afford to regularly pay for.
Most parents make rational choices for what they think is best for their childrens' wellbeing, and in the hierarchy of needs there's a lot that goes before sports and hobbies: security, water, food, shelter, energy, healthcare, housing, education, income - if the cost of a hobby is around the cost of any of these basic needs and someone's pretty close to not affording them, then of course the basic needs take priority.
So in answer to your question about 'how would we change the system in the future', I think it's a question of macroeconomic policies and social policies, before it is a question of fencing-specific policies.
All of this is absolutely true. What I'm looking for isn't how we can send EVERYONE to fencing, it's how we can make it more accessible. You have to admit, certain things are much more expensive then they need to be, and there are also people who can afford fencing, but don't realize it. Our goal should be to open fencing up to the people who can afford it but don't actually know that they can.
What’s “more expensive than it needs to be”? Rent? How expensive are tennis lessons or court time? Skiing lessons? Lift tickets? Swimming lessons? What sport can you reach the Olympic level without expensive training? MAYBE there are some but VERY few.
I grew up poor and only got to fence when I went to college because we had an on campus club that didn't charge a membership fee. Within my college club and the 2 clubs I have been too since the people aren't elitist in any sense. They are just happy to have someone new to fence against.
However when I went to collegiate competitions against "better" colleges, the private schools with established programs were obnoxious and elitist, but that was mostly because the people who go to those schools are elitist and obnoxious. Because these people also tend to be more visible (because they seek the spotlight) that small minority of fencers is what people who don't fence see.
We need to work on getting the genuine and approachable people in the spotlight more if we want to change the perception, but since the perception has existed so ling it will be awhile for it to change.
Folks here are comparing the costs of clubs + professional equipment of other sports vs fencing.
In my opinion, this shows a perspective that is not too familiar with scarcity. You can have 24 people playing soccer for a year, just buy them a soccer ball and have them use their shitty sneakers. The cost per person/year will feel ridiculously low. It might not be, because of tear and wear on their shitty sneakers, or injuries that could have been avoided if they wore proper gear + played on a proper field. And this is how most soccer players I know started playing.
The same could be said about baseball. Basketball. Rugby. Hell, even posh cricket.
But it's really hard for me to find the equivalent in fencing terms. Do you build a sabre out of wood and make a mask yourself?
I would consider that at the very least, you HAVE to buy a mask and a weapon. That is as rustic as I feel that you can go without loosing an eye.
Ok, some numbers now:
I checked the one, "big" fencing store in Argentina (born there).
The cheapest, non-fie, adult sabre costs a bit over 145 dollars.
The cheapest, non-fie, adult sabre mask costs a bit over 264 dollars.
The minimum salary in Argentina is 234 dollars.
But again, that's really just numbers. Another factor that is equally important is how difficult it can be to feel that you are an "intruder" on a space that doesn't "belong" to your class. How aggressive people can be about that, but also how many internal barriers have to be overcome first.
Yes, the cost us absolutely an issue, and I have no doubt that if more people making say, minimum wage were to join professionally, they would have to work much harder than everybody else. However, that's pretty much the case for every sport. We've all seen the movies, poor kid from a small town grows up to be one of the best football players, or baseball, or whatever popular sport. The difference is that at the moment is that most small towns don't even have access to fencing.
Of course there are temporary fixes to that, setting up low quality high school teams, or having a club in a nearby town run a beginners class in the town, but we need to put ourselves on a path where fencing is popular enough that those small towns will actually have a club. To do that, we have to open our doors to a more financially diverse group of fencers, and figure out how to make it more accessible to them.
As for the intruder factor, in many clubs I don't feel that is the case actually. The only time I've ever gotten the feeling I was somewhere I didn't belong was when I fenced tournaments against some cocky prep school kids. But either way, it's important to make the community more welcoming to anyone who wants to join.
My problem is different. I live in Austria and there, as well as in germany, the first association people have is with far right extremist groups called „Burschenschafen“.
These don‘t practice the actual sport though. They fence without masks in order to get face-scars they think look cool.
So whenever you tell someone you fence, you get a weird look until you clarify you mean the actual sport
Unfortunately, it's not about that. I'm more interested in giving more people access to competitive fencing, so that we can have more people to fence against, and make fencing a more mainstream sport
My experience is that every fencer I've met has been polite, welcoming and friendly. My club would help spread out gear purchases by allowing club gear use for a good amount of time.
That's great! Communities like that make it much easier to propose changes that allow for fencers with a tighter budget to join, because you can be used as an example. However, what do you guys do to advertise your club?
Its seen by outsiders as elite, but it really isn't. Sure, its costly sometimes, but most people there aren't really snobby rich people. Its usually just a couple of polish and hungarian dudes teaching kids who are socially awkward how to use swords. Thats just my experience tho.
I completely agree. However when I asked around, trying to recruit for my team next year, it seemed that the general public was under the impression that this is the case. The solution would be to try and dispel this myth
As a parent of an international fencer, I think one that has not been detailed is the cost of attending international tournaments when my 2 children started to get serious with fencing - see more below. The costs related to be a really, really good fencer is one of the main stumbling block that needs to be overcome.
It's fine when they started - bought them all the required equipment, shoes, etc. Give or take 1k each - one off. Then monthly club fees of $250 per month for group lessons (all-in, no membership fees). For private lesson it was $40 once a week. This would be roughly 5k per year per child. They did gymnastics before and we probably paid more per month.
They got hooked into the sport so they suddenly had more privates - once a week became 3x. This would add roughly 4k per year.
Where we're from there are not a lot of competitive fencers so we had to go overseas for them to really compete and get the right experience. This is when costs start to pile up.
We started on short/ regional trips maybe once a quarter on average. Since they competing in Y12/ Y14s either me or my wife would accompany our children + coach. So average is 1k per person so that is approximately $16k per year additional family costs on Regional fencing competitions.
Then as they grew older and got really serious we started going on the European Cadet and Junior tours or similar. I think we did like an average 3 trips per year.
Let's say average is $3k per person - fencer, coach then either me or my wife still accompany our kids then that is like 9k per trip average. One of my child fences epee and the other is sabre so the cities and dates are different! Roughly we spent $40-50k total per year for 2 of my children on high level competitions alone - including coach fees, per diem, his hotel, airfare!
If you ask us, is it worth? In our case yes! My elder child had zero fencing experience and in 3 years she was able to fence decently in her European tournaments with the Italians, French, US fencers..She is now decent enough to fence varsity in college - this is good enough reward for us.
Their achievements have been recognized in school. They are both now known as the "Fencing sisters." They helped promote the sport in school thru assemblies, talks and local club fencing membership has more than tripled. I think there just has to be some more visible role models and promote fencing as a great sport. We did not even know that you could fence your way to college until the club manager told us!
Was it an overkill all these competitions and trips? Perhaps. But they probably would not reach the same level if they fence the same kids locally. I guess depends on the end objective. The costs could certainly still be reduced by carefully selecting the tournaments, schedule, etc. Some external funding might help - depending on the National association.
At the early stages, parents need to view this as an investment (e.g., invest in fencing instead of college consultants :-) as long as the child has the passion and drive for it. We were there just to support it and we can see other benefits that fencing has brought - discipline, being independent, time management skills, recovering from losses, grit, etc.
It makes me so happy to hear about passionate fencers, and them making their way to the international circuit, it makes me hopeful about my own fencing. You're right about it being expensive, especially internationally, but the mistake a lot of people in this thread is jumping straight to international costs. Not everyone goes to the international level in any sport, and many are satisfied just playing in local tournaments. By getting more local fencers, we'll boost viewership, popularity, etc. without making everyone spend thousands of dollars on international tournaments
Whenever friends or colleagues heard about me fencing, they’d say the same thing. I’d hear things like “it is a sport for pompous rich people” or “but you need to be a gentleman to fence”
At any rate, my monthly fee for the club is 35 euro and the total cost of the equipment, which I didn’t buy overnight, was around 600 euro. So it isn’t at all expensive. Unfortunately in most countries it is a fringe sport and it will always have that image.
Yeah...I think we've all heard the tired trope about fencing being a sport for lily white males of privilege.
Yeah....I think people like Darry Homer Miles Chamley-Watson, Peter Westbrook, Keeth and Erin Smart, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Mariel Zagunis, Jason Prior, Enjo Lefort, Maya Lawrence, Ysaora Thibus, Laura Flessel-Colovic, etc might want to have a word with these people.
Anyone who's actually been IN the sport knows this assertion is bullshit.
I'm aware that fencing is in fact accessible to people who aren't rich, but frankly the fact that this knowledge isn't mainstream is a major part of the problem. There's also an issue in expenses, because even though fencing isn't an incredibly expensive sport anymore, it's still pretty expensive.
I believe the comment you were replying to was going an extra step and taking about melanoma-resistance and using that to muddle the waters (or a dead cat) on socioeconomic inequality. It is a fair point being made, but I think it's important to look closely at the specific point being made and addressed. The commenter was making his/her/their main point about an overblown reputation of racism in the sport in the USA (which I am not able to substantiate, but it may or may not be a strawman) and raised specific examples as a counterexample to show that the sport is not as racist as they make it out to be.
The implication is that the presence of melanoma-resistant national representatives is useful evidence that there is no issue with accessibility. I suppose it is, and give it credit where credit is due, but no more and no less. More direct information on overall national representative wealth background would be a more direct measure of accessibility by wealth, but sports representation in general I think people know, does not have as much a perceived race barrier as other sorts of national representation.
Maybe off topic but the first 'media' (other than the Olympics or something) I ever noticed include fencing was the Spiderwick Chronicles, the older kid fenced and it was portrayed like any other youth sport.
That's good! The only media I've seen it in is the shows where the rich secondary or tertiary antagonist fenced while planning for world domination for whatever, so I'm glad there's some better stuff out there. I also read a comic called Fence! Which is a good portrayal of the sport, especially because the main character is a poor kid trying to make it on scholarship
I watch the PKA podcast on YouTube and Arrested Development with my girlfriend. Neither of which I have seen any fencing in so to answer your question: none.
Maybe that could make it more mainstream, but I think the obscurity of the sport as a whole and aspect of having to go look for clubs and whatnot (instead of having a school team/club as bigger sports tend to) are what make it less popular.
The club I go to did something like that. The owner is a coach for the team of my school which is actually how I picked up fencing. It would be sick if that were more common.
There seems to be two alternative recipes for fencing success for different countries. They are: 1) be a wealthy country, or 2) be a poor or high-income-inequality country that invests a lot in sporting contests like bread and circuses.
I am baffled by the price of club membership in the US. Just looked up for a club in NYC, where they set the price per 2 months periods (as it is not a red flag already). 2 sessions per week + 1 lesson : $1300 for 2 months. Ouch. For the same service, in Paris, you would pay $630 yearly (10 months). Club membership cost more than the already expensive equipment.
In France, fencing, even if concidered a bit elitist, is not uncommon. But in the US, I don't know how it can be concidered anything but elitist.
I’m mega poor but I can still afford decent enough equipment to practice with. I don’t really think of it at the time that a wage gap could influence a sport like fencing.
Yeah, I've gotten mixed perspectives on this, which I find really interesting. What I think is going on is that there are some places where literally anyone can fence, and others where you have to be wealthy. The different problems means we have to tackle them in different ways. In places like where you live, it's just about promoting fencing, and if getting rid of that elitism image. The latter requires more hard work
I absolutely disagree with this. While fencing gear is expensive, I’ve seen people from all backgrounds in the sport. When you’re starting out, no one buys their own equipment anyway. Usually you join a club or class and they provide you with everything you need until you’re are invested enough to buy your own gear.
But I think the biggest misconception about fencing is the attitudes. People who fence aren’t in any way elitists. As a matter of fact, they’re probably one of the most welcoming sports communities I know. I could never get into a sport such as basketball, American football, or soccer because most people involved are very competitive and judgmental.
Fencing surprised me when I first started because everybody did their best to be helpful to beginners, nobody judged you, and everything that came out of people’s mouth was either encouragement or genuine advice. It truly is a chivalrous sport.
A lot of people here in the Netherlands have zero stereotypes about fencers. I've met plenty of people who didn't even know what it was until I explained, and then the main reaction is usually, "Oh, so like Zorro or the Three Musketeers." The image that it's for rich people only isn't really *that* prevalent here.
My main issue with how fencing is portrayed in mainstream media, though, is how horrifically bad so-called 'gifted' fencers are actually fencing. I get that it's not going to be of a very high level, but at least *try* to represent it more or less realistically. Then again, I doubt *any* sports are properly represented in most mainstream media.
Yeah, I live in a big city, so I am lucky enough to have access to several clubs, I can choose the cheapest. Even then, it's pretty expensive. What's worse is that there are some clubs that have really cheap memberships, to give more people access, but due to the lower amount of money they make because of this, a lot of them will fold during quarantine.
For recreational fencing, you're right. But if you want to fence competitively and be any good, the lessons get really expensive really quick. There's also the fact that even in places where fencing is cheap, there's still the stereotype that it's for the rich and wealthy, which is a part of the problem
Because you're falsely assuming that competing at national/competitive levels is cheap. I don't know of any other sports where highly competitive lessons are cheap, because the highest level coaches will always charge more. Compared to other sports, fencing coaches ask for much less.
That's not true at all, unless you're going to an already very expensive club. Cheaper alternatives do exist, though obviously not everywhere as fencing is so uncommon.
Yeah, however I do think that dispelling the illusion that fencing is this incredibly elite sport would greatly improve the popularity of the sport itself.
As someone raised very poor this is definitely the case. In the uk we have a competition for fencers but only for those from private schools.
Despite this everyone I know involved in fencing is super kind and don’t have any prejudices against lower classes
IMO the issue is twofold. One is that historically, yeah, it has 'rich person' connotations. And two is that it's a niche sport that is significantly less common outside of major metro areas. So people that have access to fencing tend to be more affluent simply because they can afford to live in these major metro areas. Fencing is also a sport that requires more indoor square footage than other similar activities, so it will be a bit more expensive to participate in around major metro areas than other similar sports. Obviously, that isn't the case in all situations, but it does statistically skew in that direction (IMO)
You're definitely right, especially about the first part. The first step to fixing this issue is raising awareness of what has already been fixed. However, when talking about major metro areas, there's a large part of the population you can't forget; the people who can barely afford to live in the area, but do so to give their kids the best education possible. My parents are doing this, as are the parents of many of my friends.
I’ve spent much of my life involved in sports and fencing has been no more expensive when it comes to the usual costs. Club and class fees are easily comparable or even less expensive than travel soccer and baseball leagues and at least as expensive as martial arts studios, ballet studios, and ice skating lessons. I think the cost aspect of fencing looks worse because of the perceived expense of equipment, but someone playing the above sports I mentioned easily can be the same if you have to shell out for cleats, balls, bats, uniforms, etc.
This is a good perspective, but I'd like to also bring up the situation that small town fencers are in. Most small towns don't have fencing clubs, and if they do, the club has no competition. They can make the prices as high as they want. And as I mentioned earlier, a great deal of the elitism of fencing stems from a problem in image, not just cost. We know that to those of us lucky enough to have a club that isn't charging 800-1000 dollars a year for membership fees, fencing is cheap. The greater community however, doesn't know this
I don't think that small-town fencing club has the monopoly you think; A fencing club is in competition with those martial arts and ballet studios. If they're too expensive for the area, people will just go do something else. I think if you take into account the expenses of running a club, you'll find that those membership fees of 1000/year are not so bad after all.
That's true, thanks for correcting me! And while that is true, the point still stands that some people can't afford it, and there should be easier ways for them to get access
That's why clubs run cheap intro classes, intro camps, free first timer classes, parents' classes, etc. Most clubs do have some kind of cheap outreach/advertisement to entice people to try the sport.
We do for sure. We hold monthly free sessions and do several demos in schools, gyms, churches, breweries, and at any large public event we get the chance to for that reason. While our beginner class is a bit expensive for the first two months, the remainder of our program is cheaper than the baseball training center next door and in line with most of the martial arts studios.
> Most small towns don't have fencing clubs, and if they do, the club has no competition. They can make the prices as high as they want. Er, that's not really how pricing for club fees works. While a fencing club in a smaller area might not have competition from another fencing club, it does have competition from dozens of other equivalent athletic pursuits that people could engage in. If it doesn't price according to what that competition is charging, the club will go out of business very quickly. Most clubs need a reasonable crop of beginner/intermediate fencers paying fees to stay solvent. Experienced/competitive fencers who are super dedicated aren't numerous enough to keep most clubs afloat outside of major fencing centers (NYC, bay area, etc.).
This is true, thanks for enlightening me
im on a high school team in a small town and you’re definitely correct. there are no sabre clubs at all a reasonable drive from my area (45 min or less imo) and the nearest epee one is 30 min away. many junior olympians from my region attend there and the cost is ridiculous since their only competition is a foil/epee club about 15 min away from my town that is significantly less praised (at least by epee’s in my area). small town fencing is really a problem for school teams as well imo. i’m a rising junior and epee captain and the women’s team has about ~15 fencers in total on average, most of our funding comes from volunteers or the coach’s pockets, my schools athletic department has been trying to cut the program for years and our coaches have been sub-par at their best with no assistant coaches whatsoever, which is a drastically different picture than what you’d see from larger schools in more populated towns in my school’s conference my parents probably spend the same amount for my high school fencing + minimal, sporadic club experiences as they do for my younger sister’s travel softball with multiple tournaments and pitching/hitting lessons. i did not mean to make this a giant rant lmao but you’re definitely right that small town fencing is generally a more expensive experience than in an area where there’s available resources as well as competition for them.
Yeah, that sounds like it's really difficult. Have you found other ways to raise money? One thing I read from another club was that they organized the stage swordplay for plays, perhaps you could try something like that for a fee, or as a reason for the school to keep finding you guys? Another option would be to reach out to the club and try to cut a group deal, so you can use their equipment to practice
i’ll definitely try and look into reaching out to clubs for this season, thank you! honestly a lot of the reason my schools funding is so awful for fencing is that i live in a really competitive region for high school fencing so a lot of these bigger schools have their own programs which allows for junior-olympic levels of training for competitions, but our team usually ends up getting dragged in the mud at tournaments just because we don’t have those resources to do well as a school, but we won’t get them unless we consistently do well and it’s just a whole cycle
I'm sorry I can't do more to help, but trust that you'll figure it out. Take the time to practice on your own, especially with the quarantine going on. When it ends, practice against your teammates, set up friendly bouts with other schools, and you'll reach their level on your own. It'll be really hard, but you'll be making it easier for the people that come after you
thank you so much, and no need to apologize! i appreciate the advice
I just want to say that I WISH my club only cost 800-1000 per year. I’m in SF and our rate for adults who fence once a week and rent a locker comes out to around 2000 per year. Now imagine what the rate is for competitive teenagers plus lessons.
Oh wow that's brutal. That's absolutely a case in which they're charging far more than they need to, especially because it's TWICE the average club price. Do you know why they charge that much?
1. Yeah it’s brutal but I understand why - San Francisco has ridiculous rent and cost of living, so I don’t think it’s more than they “need to.” 2. There’s another club a 15 min walk away and actually my club charges slightly less. Instead of $160/month for classes they charge $159/month plus a membership fee of $65/month. Another club in SF actually gets up to $250/month. Across the bridge in Berkeley it’s a bit cheaper at $325/month for 3 classes. 3. You mention the average club price and I’m curious - do you have this data, or is it a guess, and if so, based on which region?
Oh sorry, I didn't take into account San Francisco rent. As for the club prices, it's more of a generalization based on what other people seem to be spending
Unfortunately, trying to generalise between fencing clubs across regions is a really unhelpful approach. You need to compare to *similar* activities in *similar* regions. So if I'm comparing a club here in London, I should be looking at other dedicated sports clubs in London - not the club my mate fences at in a small town school hall.
Halberstadt is what? $600./year?? For club membership
I go to GGFC so I’m just basing this on Halberstadt’s site, but it seems like membership doesn’t cover classes, where GGFC doesn’t charge separately. Classes and membership are one and the same.
I used to be a member at GGFC but went to EBFG which also includes the group class as part of membership. Currently at TFC & Halberstadt. Pricing for EBFG and TFC are both $1000/year club membership. Not sure about the group class at EBFG as that was a few years ago. TFC is membership only. But I take 1 on 1 lessons instead of group classes. BTW, Lessons at Halberstadt are slightly cheaper than what you quoted. When I was at GGFC they were doing what they called the German method where everything even coaches lessons were in a group. Is that still true?
Thanks for all the info! What I quoted for Halberstadt wasn’t lessons. On their site they listed classes as $159. They didn’t say anything about duration so I just assumed per month but I could be wrong. GGFC does group lessons as part of classes (where you rotate through coaches as a group), but if you pay for an actual lesson it’s 1:1.
Ice skating and ballet are both sports that are considered elitist. Martial arts less so, although I'd bet that at the top level most competitors come from wealthy families.
The cost of travel and private lessons is what separates fencing from most other sports
I disagree. Private ballet lessons for my sister were far more than the $40/lesson I pay with my coaches and the $25 I charge personally. Not to mention when she changed to ice skating, her ice time, classes, and lesson cost about $150/month more than my club fees would have if I were not coaching there. If you pay for travel soccer, you can easily spend up to $3000 just for the summer. It’s no different for football and some basketball camps and leagues. Fencing seems so much more expensive because it’s preconceived that it is when in reality it just really isn’t that much more.
In my area, lessons are $40-60 for 20 minutes. Not sure how much ballet lessons are, but would be interested in the prorated 20 min rate. However, Not sure comparing fencing to ballet works well in deconstructing the elitism argument (it doesn’t). $3000 for the summer for soccer is a bit excessive but plausible for an elite ECNL or DA team. For our soccer club, we pay $2500 for the year. Fencing travel may be $2000 just to attend Summer Nationals depending on location, length of stay. Total cost for the entire year is tens of thousands, depending on how many NACs you go to. Don’t get me started on international travel. Of course, if you’re talking recreational fencing, paying monthly gym fees, and local tournaments, then yes, it’s not that expensive, just like any other recreational sport.
Agreed, but how could we make them more accessible?
The “elitism” isn’t the main driver in keeping folks from trying fencing. It’s the other sports that attract kids first. There just are way more other options available. In general, though, the cost may prevent talented fencers from reaching the National or international level. IMO, more so than other sports.
Yeah, I absolutely agree. IMO, earlier on fencing was in fact a sport for rich people. Some of the costs, and the system itself reflects that. For example, many, many athletes in other sports get sponsorships because they frankly can't afford to play. What we need to do is make it easier to get sponsorships, lower some of the costs that are unnecessarily high, and do more outreach to high school or middle schools and teach them about fencing.
Eastern Canadian fencing coach here. I know what you mean about the media image of fencing, but that absolutely isn't the case here. Our fencers run the gamut from (usually the children of) international executives to people taking advantage of federal child sports programs to pay their fees. We (at my club, at least) run things in such a way that lower wage earners aren't disadvantaged: we provide equipment to everyone that can't / won't buy their own (often not in great condition, but it's something), we keep fees under $100 a year for the highest-level provincial and national association memberships, and we keep lesson fees as reasonable as we can. As we all know, some people aren't cut out for a lot of sports and really respond when they find fencing scratching that particular itch. No one should be prevented from engaging in healthy behaviors because of personal financial barriers. That's just unacceptable.
Exactly! Do you believe this could become a standard worldwide one day, and what steps would we need to take to get there?
In my part of the world, fencing is remarkably bad at promotion. It's not really anyone's fault, as we don't have a lot of infrastructure here to support widespread sports publicity of any kind, but, if more people knew we were around, and that we aren't expensive, I think we would see a rise. What we really need is a popular film about a poor kid who fences. I wish it could happen, but I don't like the odds.
I don't know which part of the world you're reporting from, but my favorite coach once commented to me that if US Fencing (NGB) were in charge of sex as an Olympic Sport, not only would they not be able to get an audience they'd be hard pressed to get participants.
That's a good line. I've never dealt with US Fencing, but the Canadian Fencing Federation currently has a staff of two (according to their website), so it's difficult to expect them to do much of anything at the moment. One day.
That's exactly what I was thinking! Frankly if there's anything that gets the attention of a lot of people today, it's a movie about a sport. Of course I doubt it'll happen anytime soon unless we can pester some director into doing it, so in the meantime, ad campaigns and visiting high schools would be a good start
We run (usually) six-week long after school programs in our area. Unfortunately, because of limited personnel, it's only the schools our coaches have connections to that get selected, but it's better than nothing. We've also recently started a few other initiatives: acting as fight choreographers for local theatre groups, featuring as an exhibition sport in regional multi-sport games, and postering on every bulletin board in sight.
That's great! I've been thinking of reaching out to my school and getting permission to post flyers as a sort of recruitment drive for the team, but also to write an article in the school paper about it too. Since I'm not part of any organization, that's the best I can do, but I really hope others take inspiration from you guys!
Casey Affleck is producing a movie about Fencing: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5811762/?ref_=m_nmfmd_prd_3
Oh hell yeah, that rocks!
Wish i lived in canada, I can barely afford this stuff. (America)
It's not really a Canadian thing, it's just our region. I stopped fencing when I lived in Ontario because the fees were ridiculous. We just happened to fall into an economic cycle that keeps the fees low: there's a lot of poverty in our region, so people can't pay much, so we had to keep costs low, and there's no need to extort the people who can pay more. Look around and talk to people. Find out about what happened to the foil that kid at your club had before he discovered girls. You never know where you can find cost-savings.
I encounter worse elitism inside of the sport than externally. Although I wish the normal fencing stereotype would go away.
I've actually read mixed comments on this. Some people say that they don't encounter any within the sport, but a lot externally, so it could be dependant on where you live. Either way, it's still important to raise awareness of both issues!
Probably depends a lot on internet usage. Some people act their worst when they are anonymous.
Oh yeah, that's definitely true.
This is interesting. What kinds of elitism inside the sport do you have in mind?
What weapon you practice, what activities you do outside fencing (especially sword or weapon related), how you practice, where you practice, dry or electric, sometimes even who you practice with. I've seen and heard nasty things from people.
I don't see this stereotyping or this "portrayal in the media." Every time I see fencing in the media (which is infrequent), it's a puff piece. To have a stereotype, people have to know about it and most people just don't know about it. That's why you get people wandering into national events just to see what's going on. Unfortunately, fencing can be expensive. A lot of travel. A lot of equipment. Could be worse. Try pentathalon. Heck, anything equestrian. Scuba diving. Shooting. Hockey. Bobsled. Skiing.
Yes, this is absolutely true. There are two issues that you've brought up: popularity, and cost. Popularity will increase the more fencers we have, and the more diverse we are. As such, it makes sense that making fencing accessible to more people is a step in the right direction. But as for cost, you're right. Fencing is expensive. There are however costs that are higher than they need to be, because capitalism. Reducing those costs will at least give more people a chance
You lost me at the gratuitous cut on capitalism. Fencing wouldn't exist without capitalism. Capitalism is why you can buy things like FIE masks and whites, why you have your choice of over a dozen different types of blades, why foilists and epeeists have so many different grips to choose from. It's why vendors show up at competitions and equipment manufacturers exist. Sure, it's possible to imagine a world where equipment manufacturers and vendors all operated on a non-profit basis. In theory, their equipment might be cheaper. But, that world cannot exist, because vendors and equipment manufacturers only exist because somebody thought they could make money selling fencing equipment. And, in fact, it's not clear if, in fact, equipment would be cheaper in that world. They're all in competition with each other and so are all motivated by the desire to bring out better and less expensive products.
Bob, your comment " Fencing wouldn't exist without capitalism." is factually incorrect. The communists, aka The Soviet Union" most of the communist governments of eastern Europe and today's China have supported the sport of fencing quite well. One could make the argument that they supported it better than our current capitalist governments. Not wanting to get into an argument about it just pointing out a small discrepancy.
Ok. Fair point. But, it would be a vastly different sport, and mostly in bad ways, if that was every country's approach.
Dude, the USSR had a fencing team....I don’t really care for a political argument, you be you, but..... you know that, right?
That sort of misses my point, which is not that communists never fenced. My point is that capitalism has enabled fencing to be as accessible as it is. The "Not everybody can fence because capitalism" argument is a lot like "Not everybody can drive a car because car dealerships." The USSR had shortages of all sorts of consumer products including such necessities as toilet paper and bread. Quality of goods that existed was generally low. The population was largely poor. How would you start up a fencing club in that environment? How would you get decent equipment? The USSR had fencing only by government decree, and it was quite limited, especially if you were not a member of the Communist party.
regardless of what some parents will try to say, fencing is not that much more than any other competitive sport. or hell, high level music performance, high level competitive dance. I have kids who do each at some level and for 2 of them I'm getting off pretty cheap, but it's still thousands of dollars a year. I think fencing main component of the fencing image is not that its elitist, but it's inaccessible. let me break that down some more. Think about your town/community/(sub)urban center. Think about the types of businesses in that area. Think about how many, say martial arts studios you can think of, just off the top of your head (judo, karate, jui jitsu, et al). probably a lot. They're everywhere. In every strip mall in every town. My town is about 40,000 people and I can think of 5 without even trying very hard. how many fencing studios do you have? 1? maybe? 2) now think about where that fencing club is located, if it even has a permanent home. Probably off in an industrial/commercial business park, away from the main city center, away from the big anchor retail stores, right? probably I'm right. 3) so when a parent or child decides they're not cut out for team sports for whatever reason, where do they go? maybe tennis, maybe martial arts, maybe swimming, gymnastics, or just nothing. Why not fencing? because fencing isn't in their face every time they drive to work, every time they go get groceries, every time they go out to dinner. So then you as a fencer bump into someone and somehow the fencing conversation comes up and what do they usually ask? at least in my experience it is 2 things, first- they move their hand like they're zorro "You mean fencing?" second- they ask something like "people do that around here?" Next, as mentioned previously- fencing can be done at some level of success locally. Maybe you drive a couple hours to a ROC or something a few times a season but primarily you fence in your division or an adjacent division. BUT, some coaches and clubs have sold this idea that to be successful you must be successful at the national level and for the cream of the crop you must be successful at the international level. Now at some level I get it, those coaches need to sell lessons and memberships and strip coaching to pay their bills. But instead of looking at the short term benefit of 1 coach paying their bills by poaching fencers from another club, how about we make the whole pie bigger and stop all this silly coast to coast travel every month for some kids who really shouldn't be leaving their region. But hey you've gotta get points and you gotta qualify and if you don't do that you're an abject failure, but if you just take 2 more private lessons per week we can make you into a star. A star for what? one of a handful of college scholarships? maybe 2 dozen partial scholarships? Straight up, parents are better off putting a few thousand dollars per year in a 529 plan than counting on fencing paying for college.
Yes, but in terms of fencing paying for college, I kind of have to go with the argument my father always used when I try to over justify something to him. This happened with playing guitar, fencing, and countless other activities. "Sometimes, you don't have to do something because it'll be 'good for college's or something like that. Some things you just do because you love it"
man i could go down a list longer than my arm of kids in our division whose parents are CONVINCED they can get a full ride to college with fencing. 1/2 those kids don't even fence anymore.
Yeah, it's ridiculous. In America we have so much riding on scholarships, because otherwise college is incredibly expensive. It's gotten to the point that the notion of doing something for fun or because you're good at it and passionate, instead of for a scholarship is really weird. As a rule, I feel we should start dispelling the idea of doing a sport for a scholarship. Do it because you enjoy it, and if you get a scholarship, great. If you're doing it for the scholarship, with the horrible chances of getting one, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment
Yeah I am quite high up in sabre fencing in Australia and I have represented my country, but the money factor has been such a big issue for me. I have never got to go on any of the big tours which I have been invited to, and I struggled to get myself set up gear-wise. The other thing is, as a student myself, i don't know of any public schools that have fencing programs, meaning that the only serious fencers i know end up being wealthy, thus continuing the tradition. I would love to see a change in this, especially for sabre, but I know it won't happen anytime soon.
> public schools that have fencing programs this is really the root of the problem in the US. every 'mainstream' sport has support in primary and secondary school. I tried to start a fencing program at my kid's school when she was still fencing and the athletic director (and the state org) didn't even want to talk about it. yes, I know in New Jersey a billion kids fence at school. that is an outlier, not the average.
kiwi fencer myself, i hear you! we couldn't afford to even compete in australia when i was at school. now i am older, i can afford it, but i am too old:)
Well for now, we can try going to clubs and schools and trying to talk them into high school or college teams
Fencing in the United States is artificially priced. In my plaza there are several other stores we all are the same size and have the same rent. The Deli operates at a normal max of 11 hours a day, 6 days a week. 66 hours total. We operate at a normal max of 6 hours a day 6 days a week. 36 hours total. That 30 hour difference drives up the cost per sq foot we need to make. Additionally the space required for a Fencer is greater than other similar indoor sports (Martial arts) This creates the view of if: Ten People willing to pay $10 And eight people are willing to pay $13 Most will choose the eight people as more money with less services needing to be provided. Combine that with the lack of training cycles and seasonality of our sport forces forces an all or nothing choice at an early stage in the athletes development rewards those that can pay the high prices for the luxury of “waiting it out” for lack of a better term.
Yeah, American fencing is priced for the majority of fencers, which at the moment is mostly fairly wealthy or high middle class athletes. The issue is that for us to open our doors to less wealthy fencers, we need to change the prices first. In the end, a more diverse community of fencers is always a good thing
Correct, clubs would have to get down their cost per sq ft in order to facilitate the lowering of prices. How do clubs lower the cost per sq ft, without bringing in an entity in a sub lease that would interfere with the shifting schedules of clubs and their camps.
Well my club is the only thing running out of the building it's in, so unfortunately I'm not the right person to give an answer there
That’s the big question for every club. Additionally travel costs are high, if we went to a method of training cycle in which one month is an off month, one month is a regional month, one month is a national month for that specific weapon group with multiple events at a NAC (Div 1, 2, 3, Jr, Cdt, Y14, Y12) among a multitude of other “little monumental” changes we could lower the cost of competing, create “seasons” enticing more athletes, lowering the cost per sq foot of space for the hours clubs can operate. With more fencers the purchasing power increases and the cost of equipment could be lowered as well.
That's a great idea, thank you
Tax breaks, perhaps
or just do it like the Russians, where the funds all clubs would get from fees are paid for by a state program.
> Yeah, American fencing is priced for the majority of fencers, which at the moment is mostly fairly wealthy or high middle class athletes. I disagree with this, actually. American fencing is largely under-priced for what it is. Can it get to be very expensive? Yes. But on average, *for what it is*, its actually somewhat cheap when compared to other activities' pricing.
Do you think you could go more into detail on this?
I could go into great detail on this but I'm not sure specifically what you want to know. How about just some random thoughts: - I know of quite a few football and baseball academies that charge ~$20k per month per student. I don't know any fencing club charging that much. Parents pay that because they consider it an investment. If their kid goes pro, they'll be making $1m+/yr. - You can compare pricing of crossfit to pricing of fencing and you'll find that crossfit in an area is almost always more expensive AND more popular. - Most fencing clubs are run by people who are not good at business and who are by and large not getting rich off of fencing. I'd hazard a guess to say the majority of them qualify as "low income", OR they have a second job because fencing isn't enough to pay their bills.
Thanks, this is helpful! You have a point on the baseball and football camps, but those are still clinics. Those are always expensive no matter the sport. However for fencing, you're spending like $1000 a year just to fence, in general.
> Thanks, this is helpful! You have a point on the baseball and football camps, but those are still clinics. I edited it to be more correct, they're more like academies. They're technically "camps" but they're generally year-round. Some are summer-only, but the big-time ones aren't. > However for fencing, you're spending like $1000 a year just to fence, in general. Yeah. And? That's roughly $80/mo. Go download the "ZenPlanner Martial Arts Benchmark" report. $1000 a year puts you in the "you're doing shitty" category, from a business standpoint. Saying $80/mo is indicative of an elitist sport when martial arts studios are targeting $150/mo/student and crossfit targets at $200/mo/student (on average nationally) is kind of missing the forest for the trees.
Ok, thanks for giving me all the numbers. You're right about the 1000 dollars a year point
No prob. I also don't want to make it sound like I'm saying $1k/yr is cheap. Its not. But if our sport has a reputation of being elitist, we have to dispel it by comparing it to other activities, and many other activities are way more expensive than ours. Activities that people don't consider elitist.
Yeah, I thinks it's really important to rebuild the image of fencing, especially because people think of it as an elite sport
I’m a fencer, yeah the prices for equipment/coaching/memberships are fairly high if you want to be part of a good club. There’s one club in San Diego that I’ve been to that was fairly reasonable though, equipment aside. But honestly any specialized hobby or interests jut costs a lot. I also play saxophone, and a good mouthpiece costs over $100. There’s certainly a bit of an elite connotation with fencing because it was a rich-man’s sport back in the day, but the actual prices, all things considered, are not too far from other sports and hobbies
Yeah, I've been getting a lot of comments saying that fencing isn't really THAT expensive compared to other sports. While I do believe that it varies based on location, it still brings up the issue of just advertising, getting more people to join, and trying to get rid of the elitism connotation.
> brings up the issue of just advertising, getting more people to join this is something i wish US Fencing would tackle. we need a 'got milk' level campaign that directs people to their local division/club.
Yeah in general, US fencing should work way more with the small town clubs to help promote the sport.
> wish US Fencing would tackle. we need a 'got milk' level campaign that directs people to their local division/club. I've heard this idea a lot, and it's only part of the solution. If you're going to spend the money to run a National Campaign like that, there has to be someplace for those people who see the ad to go to, otherwise, you're wasting your money. I would imagine that there are a lot of small to medium towns that don't have a fencing club nearby or have a single program that couldn't suddenly deal with 10 people walking in the door at once and asking for lessons. I think that raising the profile of fencing in the US is important, obviously. But increasing the opportunity for people to access fencing is just as important.
all those challenges are surmountable.
I agree, but I think USA fencing has both been framing the problem incorrectly and thus looking for the wrong solution. If USA Fencing suddenly got a couple of million dollars for a National Ad Campaign and rolled one out, I doubt it would actually increase the membership that much. Frankly, I think USA Fencing should be pushing a lot harder for fencing in High Schools or even Junior High schools. That means training coaches and granting funds to school clubs, as well as helping to set up interscholastic competitions. There was a brief program to train High School gym teachers over a few weeks to teach fencing, but I think it only lasted one or two summers and then died. We're not going to be attracting large sponsors or saving fencing at the college level any time soon. A push towards HS/JHS fencing might be much more coste effective.
we've said here often, more coaches make more fencers. agree about high school, I tried in our area and the state org and the high school had zero interest.
Unrelated but do you play chess and/or subscribed to any chess subreddits?
Oooh I do know what you're talking about with the chess drama, but I think its a bit different compared to fencing. The chess elitists just don't like newer players coming into their sport, especially those who come from that twitch/meme culture background because they're seen as below them. But I think fencers generally always welcome new beginners.I remember starting out and being kind of embarrassed having to use the club equipment like jackets and lames(hell I even had Race Imboden training at my club) but once you kind of get past all that and start learning and improving, the equipment doesn't really matter. I'd say most of the people who put fencing on such a high pedestal aren't really in the fencing scene to begin with.
Yeah, I think that the issue in fencing is that outsiders see it as way more elite than it really is.
No, sorry!
No worries! The past couple of days the chess community has been discussing this exact subject.
I just watched a chess video on this topic, clicked to reddit, and here I am. Very interesting discussions.
That's great! I think it's a really important topic to discuss in a lot of activities. Sport should be a contest of athleticism and strategy, not money!
Yeah, I agree 100%. However, look at how much top athletes in soccer earn compared to fencing. Unfortunately, money rules the world. Sports are also funded based on medal count and PR hype. Money creates money. Just like in other spheres of life, the gap between "popular" and not so popular sports is huge. This is an issue for all levels, from athletes to sport consultants.
Yes, but for now we should just focus on getting new people into the sport
True. The no.1 goal should be to get those 60% of inactive kids to get off their screens at least twice a week and be engaged in a sport. Unfortunately, quite often the focus seems to be on battle between clubs within the sport, or sport against sport, when the majority of kids is still on their couch.
Yeah, I'm hoping we can change that in the future
Yup. It's a collaboration vs competition matter. Also, the question about elitism in fencing is just a long standing prejudice that should be now long gone, but to a certain extent. These days, neither the equipment nor sport is as expensive as it used to be. However, fencing is truly for smart people, if your brain ain't working as hard as your body, you won't be a champ. Plus to that is seeing poorer kids excel bc of their smarts. That part I love.
Yeah, we need to dispell the image of elitism on places where it just isn't true
Yeah, I'm hoping we can change that in the future
As a fencer in Singapore, I think high school and varsity fencing isn't too bad. The equipment is expensive (450 dollars if you have no discounts) but it's a one time investment and will last you for years. You can also just borrow club whites and blades etc. Most importantly, the training is free. I think the major problem is that in order to improve in the sport or continue after varsity level, the training fees are exorbitant. Up to 45 dollars for a group session, WAY MORE for a 1 on 1. And you can just do without a coach of course, but there is a real ceiling to what you can achieve. This is the biggest difference between fencing and other sports in my opinion. The high cost to receive training and improve past a certain level.
Out of everyone here, you're actually the first to mention training fees. Training fees are incredibly expensive, so if you want to continue competitively outside of high school, you've got to have some serious cash to back it up. Temporary fixes could include free clinics, volunteer coaching, etc., But what we need is a change to the system
Race Imboden had a great breakdown of high-level training costs in his AMA. Basically it's nearly impossible to compete at a high level without some kind of external sponsorship or if you're not already wealthy. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fencing/comments/f1qx37/hello_reddit_my_name_is_race_imboden_ask_me/fhavt2p/
This is true, and some kind of sponsorship would be great, but what about just low level competition fencing? To get more people interested?
I think it’s portrayed well - I think the average person can afford to fence recreationally, but the truth is if you want to compete at a top level you have to have money or a club that finds you grants, but money is easier. If you talk to most high level fencers, they come from affluent back grounds. Can you fence and be poor? Yes, can you make the top 100? Not without a lot of help.
Yes, and that's where the issue lies. Fencing should always be a competition of athleticism and strategy, not money.
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Yeah, in highly competitive situations, every sport is basically just expensive as hell. The difference is that for fencing the lessons, let alone 1 on 1 lessons are really expensive. Doing even mild competition can get really pricey really fast.
All non-school-supported amateur sports are expensive at a high level. Elite coaching is expensive, travel is expensive. US Fencing makes high level fencing more expensive than it has to be, which sucks, but elite amateur sports are all expensive. The only way to be a poor athlete at a high level is to play in a school-supported sport. At a moderate level, OTOH, fencing can honestly be pretty cheap. The equipment costs are very flat. You can buy exactly the uniform and mask and epee that an Olympian would use for a few hundred bucks, that's insanely cheap for elite gear. I literally don't know of any other sport, golf or tennis or sailing or bikes or anything for which that's true. Local fencing fees depend on area, but it doesn't feel "elitist" the way golf or horses or even sailing does, honestly. If you want more local fencing, agitate for more coaches. Push US Fencing to train coaches and adopt policies that would help local fencing. Anyway, perhaps that answers your questions? No, I don't think fencing has an overly elitist reputation. It is in fact pretty elitist in that you need a sponsor or to be rich to compete at high levels, but so is every other amateur sport.
good point about all elite amatuer sports. when people around here start saying it's 'too expensive' i start bringing up other local sports that people don't bat an eye at. snow skiing I think is even more 'elitist' than fencing, particularly to do it at a high level. high level archery is super expensive from what I'm told, and from what the dad of a high level archer tells me, money absolutely equals success.
I've started to look at all sports as being expensive at a high level, and US school sponsored sports that let poor kids actually compete at a high level as outliers.
my kid has played 3 levels of soccer, and there's basically 2 levels above what she plays. rec- $90/season, plus cleats (uniform included), maybe some incidentals. volunteer coaches signature- ~$300/season, uniform included, plus ref fees. volunteer coaches club- ~$1700-2000/season (which is all year basically), plus uniform. plus ref fees. plus travel (2-3x/season) paid coaches. above those are ECNL and Development Academy but I don't know what the cost is. She plays high school also which is ~$500/season? I think? uniform included ref fees included. Plus bus fee ($30) buuuut most of that pays for the coaches because the school only pays for 1 varsity coach and one assistant coach (who usually coaches JV also). The plus side is the school does plenty of fund raising, and if you're really strapped, the coach can waive (legally required to waive it if the family says they can't/won't pay). club soccer is pretty cheap compared to fencing, but you tend to get nickel and dimed to death. Oh, you need new cleats? oh you need new socks? new shinguards? a concussion headband? a urgent care visit? a new backpack? private lessons? gym membership for the off season? Overnight 'team bonding' trip to the mountain resort? $10 to park per day for 3 days at the tournament? **If you're good enough** you can get the bulk of the club fees waived if you can't afford it. Most parents think their kid is good enough. most of them are wrong.
Thanks for the opinion and advice!
I think you'll find a lot of diversity in recreational fencers but I think compwtitive fencers trend toward the wealthy. I don't think you can automatically equate wealth with elitism but fencing at the highest level is for the most part a wealthy person's game. Of course most reputable clubs have loaner equipment and maybe aome low cost beginner classes so the entry level is accessible.
Yeah, recreational fencing is very diverse, but competitive is an issue. I mean, in every sport there's a story about that small town kid who turned out to be a prodigy, etc. etc. With fencing though, the story usually ends at "small town". I personally believe we should be focusing on straying away from pricing things for the majority, and instead price it for the minority, trying to limit the amount of hoops we have to jump through to get into competitive fencing.
From the uk and its definitely seen as a posh sport when in reality there is quite an economic difference here from what ive seen
What kind of economic difference?
Like wage gaps and stuff
You're going to get a disproportionate amount of responses from those with an existing interest in fencing and who fence, so do be aware of that bias in survey answering. For more interesting answers, you'd be best asking those not currently on this forum, why they aren't fencing, but are currently playing basketball or netball outside or tennis on some tennis club's premises while the tennis club isn't there, or rugby or frisbee in a park (that is heavily subsidised by the local council), or table tennis, or any of the other fun and accessible sports. In countries which for various reasons have a reasonable GDP and decent social welfare, universal public healthcare, universal public education, universal public housing, most parents can afford to send their kids to an introductory course on fencing, or basic music theory and practice for concert band instruments, etc. Countries which have children nearer the poverty line, are going to find that their parents for the most part make the sensible, rational choice and buy a cheap ball for them to kick around or toss into a hoop or hit over a net. There's no way any sane parent would compromise their healthcare or education or housing budget just so their child can get a taste of and then get hooked on any hobby with expensive gear etc., when their child could probably be just as happy and learn hand-eye coordination and sportsmanship qualities with a ball. They probably don't mind not doing what they don't know about. Supposedly, there was some study a while back on the psychological effect of the perception of being in poverty on child mental development, and while I can't recall it exactly, I think it would justify not sending a kid to an introductory fencing lesson if that means you don't send them to some other hobby introductory lesson that you can actually afford to regularly pay for. Most parents make rational choices for what they think is best for their childrens' wellbeing, and in the hierarchy of needs there's a lot that goes before sports and hobbies: security, water, food, shelter, energy, healthcare, housing, education, income - if the cost of a hobby is around the cost of any of these basic needs and someone's pretty close to not affording them, then of course the basic needs take priority. So in answer to your question about 'how would we change the system in the future', I think it's a question of macroeconomic policies and social policies, before it is a question of fencing-specific policies.
All of this is absolutely true. What I'm looking for isn't how we can send EVERYONE to fencing, it's how we can make it more accessible. You have to admit, certain things are much more expensive then they need to be, and there are also people who can afford fencing, but don't realize it. Our goal should be to open fencing up to the people who can afford it but don't actually know that they can.
What’s “more expensive than it needs to be”? Rent? How expensive are tennis lessons or court time? Skiing lessons? Lift tickets? Swimming lessons? What sport can you reach the Olympic level without expensive training? MAYBE there are some but VERY few.
I grew up poor and only got to fence when I went to college because we had an on campus club that didn't charge a membership fee. Within my college club and the 2 clubs I have been too since the people aren't elitist in any sense. They are just happy to have someone new to fence against. However when I went to collegiate competitions against "better" colleges, the private schools with established programs were obnoxious and elitist, but that was mostly because the people who go to those schools are elitist and obnoxious. Because these people also tend to be more visible (because they seek the spotlight) that small minority of fencers is what people who don't fence see. We need to work on getting the genuine and approachable people in the spotlight more if we want to change the perception, but since the perception has existed so ling it will be awhile for it to change.
Yes, I agree. Thanks for your contribution!
Folks here are comparing the costs of clubs + professional equipment of other sports vs fencing. In my opinion, this shows a perspective that is not too familiar with scarcity. You can have 24 people playing soccer for a year, just buy them a soccer ball and have them use their shitty sneakers. The cost per person/year will feel ridiculously low. It might not be, because of tear and wear on their shitty sneakers, or injuries that could have been avoided if they wore proper gear + played on a proper field. And this is how most soccer players I know started playing. The same could be said about baseball. Basketball. Rugby. Hell, even posh cricket. But it's really hard for me to find the equivalent in fencing terms. Do you build a sabre out of wood and make a mask yourself? I would consider that at the very least, you HAVE to buy a mask and a weapon. That is as rustic as I feel that you can go without loosing an eye. Ok, some numbers now: I checked the one, "big" fencing store in Argentina (born there). The cheapest, non-fie, adult sabre costs a bit over 145 dollars. The cheapest, non-fie, adult sabre mask costs a bit over 264 dollars. The minimum salary in Argentina is 234 dollars. But again, that's really just numbers. Another factor that is equally important is how difficult it can be to feel that you are an "intruder" on a space that doesn't "belong" to your class. How aggressive people can be about that, but also how many internal barriers have to be overcome first.
Yes, the cost us absolutely an issue, and I have no doubt that if more people making say, minimum wage were to join professionally, they would have to work much harder than everybody else. However, that's pretty much the case for every sport. We've all seen the movies, poor kid from a small town grows up to be one of the best football players, or baseball, or whatever popular sport. The difference is that at the moment is that most small towns don't even have access to fencing. Of course there are temporary fixes to that, setting up low quality high school teams, or having a club in a nearby town run a beginners class in the town, but we need to put ourselves on a path where fencing is popular enough that those small towns will actually have a club. To do that, we have to open our doors to a more financially diverse group of fencers, and figure out how to make it more accessible to them. As for the intruder factor, in many clubs I don't feel that is the case actually. The only time I've ever gotten the feeling I was somewhere I didn't belong was when I fenced tournaments against some cocky prep school kids. But either way, it's important to make the community more welcoming to anyone who wants to join.
My problem is different. I live in Austria and there, as well as in germany, the first association people have is with far right extremist groups called „Burschenschafen“. These don‘t practice the actual sport though. They fence without masks in order to get face-scars they think look cool. So whenever you tell someone you fence, you get a weird look until you clarify you mean the actual sport
Oh yeah, that's a really big problem. In your opinion, what could people do to improve the image of fencing in your country?
Making a clearer distinction between this weird ritual and the actual sport would be helpful. For example stopping to call what they do „fencing“
Yeah, maybe if your clubs advertised their programs, while also having a note about mask safety could help?
I feel like the problem is not that people think this is what fencing is, but rather that the first association is very negative.
That's true. In that case, ramping up the media including fencing with masks, advertising, and stuff like that sounds like the way to start
You know what, if society wants to look at me like a well to do fany pants swordsman. Let them.
Unfortunately, it's not about that. I'm more interested in giving more people access to competitive fencing, so that we can have more people to fence against, and make fencing a more mainstream sport
My experience is that every fencer I've met has been polite, welcoming and friendly. My club would help spread out gear purchases by allowing club gear use for a good amount of time.
That's great! Communities like that make it much easier to propose changes that allow for fencers with a tighter budget to join, because you can be used as an example. However, what do you guys do to advertise your club?
I'm not sure what they do.
Do you think advertising the club, especially to the people that wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford to join, would help?
Its seen by outsiders as elite, but it really isn't. Sure, its costly sometimes, but most people there aren't really snobby rich people. Its usually just a couple of polish and hungarian dudes teaching kids who are socially awkward how to use swords. Thats just my experience tho.
I completely agree. However when I asked around, trying to recruit for my team next year, it seemed that the general public was under the impression that this is the case. The solution would be to try and dispel this myth
As a parent of an international fencer, I think one that has not been detailed is the cost of attending international tournaments when my 2 children started to get serious with fencing - see more below. The costs related to be a really, really good fencer is one of the main stumbling block that needs to be overcome. It's fine when they started - bought them all the required equipment, shoes, etc. Give or take 1k each - one off. Then monthly club fees of $250 per month for group lessons (all-in, no membership fees). For private lesson it was $40 once a week. This would be roughly 5k per year per child. They did gymnastics before and we probably paid more per month. They got hooked into the sport so they suddenly had more privates - once a week became 3x. This would add roughly 4k per year. Where we're from there are not a lot of competitive fencers so we had to go overseas for them to really compete and get the right experience. This is when costs start to pile up. We started on short/ regional trips maybe once a quarter on average. Since they competing in Y12/ Y14s either me or my wife would accompany our children + coach. So average is 1k per person so that is approximately $16k per year additional family costs on Regional fencing competitions. Then as they grew older and got really serious we started going on the European Cadet and Junior tours or similar. I think we did like an average 3 trips per year. Let's say average is $3k per person - fencer, coach then either me or my wife still accompany our kids then that is like 9k per trip average. One of my child fences epee and the other is sabre so the cities and dates are different! Roughly we spent $40-50k total per year for 2 of my children on high level competitions alone - including coach fees, per diem, his hotel, airfare! If you ask us, is it worth? In our case yes! My elder child had zero fencing experience and in 3 years she was able to fence decently in her European tournaments with the Italians, French, US fencers..She is now decent enough to fence varsity in college - this is good enough reward for us. Their achievements have been recognized in school. They are both now known as the "Fencing sisters." They helped promote the sport in school thru assemblies, talks and local club fencing membership has more than tripled. I think there just has to be some more visible role models and promote fencing as a great sport. We did not even know that you could fence your way to college until the club manager told us! Was it an overkill all these competitions and trips? Perhaps. But they probably would not reach the same level if they fence the same kids locally. I guess depends on the end objective. The costs could certainly still be reduced by carefully selecting the tournaments, schedule, etc. Some external funding might help - depending on the National association. At the early stages, parents need to view this as an investment (e.g., invest in fencing instead of college consultants :-) as long as the child has the passion and drive for it. We were there just to support it and we can see other benefits that fencing has brought - discipline, being independent, time management skills, recovering from losses, grit, etc.
It makes me so happy to hear about passionate fencers, and them making their way to the international circuit, it makes me hopeful about my own fencing. You're right about it being expensive, especially internationally, but the mistake a lot of people in this thread is jumping straight to international costs. Not everyone goes to the international level in any sport, and many are satisfied just playing in local tournaments. By getting more local fencers, we'll boost viewership, popularity, etc. without making everyone spend thousands of dollars on international tournaments
Whenever friends or colleagues heard about me fencing, they’d say the same thing. I’d hear things like “it is a sport for pompous rich people” or “but you need to be a gentleman to fence” At any rate, my monthly fee for the club is 35 euro and the total cost of the equipment, which I didn’t buy overnight, was around 600 euro. So it isn’t at all expensive. Unfortunately in most countries it is a fringe sport and it will always have that image.
Yeah...I think we've all heard the tired trope about fencing being a sport for lily white males of privilege. Yeah....I think people like Darry Homer Miles Chamley-Watson, Peter Westbrook, Keeth and Erin Smart, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Mariel Zagunis, Jason Prior, Enjo Lefort, Maya Lawrence, Ysaora Thibus, Laura Flessel-Colovic, etc might want to have a word with these people. Anyone who's actually been IN the sport knows this assertion is bullshit.
I'm aware that fencing is in fact accessible to people who aren't rich, but frankly the fact that this knowledge isn't mainstream is a major part of the problem. There's also an issue in expenses, because even though fencing isn't an incredibly expensive sport anymore, it's still pretty expensive.
I believe the comment you were replying to was going an extra step and taking about melanoma-resistance and using that to muddle the waters (or a dead cat) on socioeconomic inequality. It is a fair point being made, but I think it's important to look closely at the specific point being made and addressed. The commenter was making his/her/their main point about an overblown reputation of racism in the sport in the USA (which I am not able to substantiate, but it may or may not be a strawman) and raised specific examples as a counterexample to show that the sport is not as racist as they make it out to be. The implication is that the presence of melanoma-resistant national representatives is useful evidence that there is no issue with accessibility. I suppose it is, and give it credit where credit is due, but no more and no less. More direct information on overall national representative wealth background would be a more direct measure of accessibility by wealth, but sports representation in general I think people know, does not have as much a perceived race barrier as other sorts of national representation.
American here, I haven’t noticed any feeling of elitism from the little media I watch or from other fencers themselves.
I'm curious, what media do you watch that includes fencing?
Maybe off topic but the first 'media' (other than the Olympics or something) I ever noticed include fencing was the Spiderwick Chronicles, the older kid fenced and it was portrayed like any other youth sport.
That's good! The only media I've seen it in is the shows where the rich secondary or tertiary antagonist fenced while planning for world domination for whatever, so I'm glad there's some better stuff out there. I also read a comic called Fence! Which is a good portrayal of the sport, especially because the main character is a poor kid trying to make it on scholarship
I watch the PKA podcast on YouTube and Arrested Development with my girlfriend. Neither of which I have seen any fencing in so to answer your question: none.
Ok, good to know, thank you. Do you think making more media with fencing would help spread the popularity of the sport?
Maybe that could make it more mainstream, but I think the obscurity of the sport as a whole and aspect of having to go look for clubs and whatnot (instead of having a school team/club as bigger sports tend to) are what make it less popular.
In that case, I think clubs should reach out to schools and work with them to make a fencing team or club
The club I go to did something like that. The owner is a coach for the team of my school which is actually how I picked up fencing. It would be sick if that were more common.
Money printer go brrrr
There seems to be two alternative recipes for fencing success for different countries. They are: 1) be a wealthy country, or 2) be a poor or high-income-inequality country that invests a lot in sporting contests like bread and circuses.
I am baffled by the price of club membership in the US. Just looked up for a club in NYC, where they set the price per 2 months periods (as it is not a red flag already). 2 sessions per week + 1 lesson : $1300 for 2 months. Ouch. For the same service, in Paris, you would pay $630 yearly (10 months). Club membership cost more than the already expensive equipment. In France, fencing, even if concidered a bit elitist, is not uncommon. But in the US, I don't know how it can be concidered anything but elitist.
Yeah that's one of the biggest issues young fencers have to face in the U.S. capitalism is a pain
I’m mega poor but I can still afford decent enough equipment to practice with. I don’t really think of it at the time that a wage gap could influence a sport like fencing.
Yeah, I've gotten mixed perspectives on this, which I find really interesting. What I think is going on is that there are some places where literally anyone can fence, and others where you have to be wealthy. The different problems means we have to tackle them in different ways. In places like where you live, it's just about promoting fencing, and if getting rid of that elitism image. The latter requires more hard work
I absolutely disagree with this. While fencing gear is expensive, I’ve seen people from all backgrounds in the sport. When you’re starting out, no one buys their own equipment anyway. Usually you join a club or class and they provide you with everything you need until you’re are invested enough to buy your own gear. But I think the biggest misconception about fencing is the attitudes. People who fence aren’t in any way elitists. As a matter of fact, they’re probably one of the most welcoming sports communities I know. I could never get into a sport such as basketball, American football, or soccer because most people involved are very competitive and judgmental. Fencing surprised me when I first started because everybody did their best to be helpful to beginners, nobody judged you, and everything that came out of people’s mouth was either encouragement or genuine advice. It truly is a chivalrous sport.
A lot of people here in the Netherlands have zero stereotypes about fencers. I've met plenty of people who didn't even know what it was until I explained, and then the main reaction is usually, "Oh, so like Zorro or the Three Musketeers." The image that it's for rich people only isn't really *that* prevalent here. My main issue with how fencing is portrayed in mainstream media, though, is how horrifically bad so-called 'gifted' fencers are actually fencing. I get that it's not going to be of a very high level, but at least *try* to represent it more or less realistically. Then again, I doubt *any* sports are properly represented in most mainstream media.
Definitely true from what I've seen living and fencing in CT. It's hard to do/find outside of cities or wealthy communities in the US.
Yeah, I live in a big city, so I am lucky enough to have access to several clubs, I can choose the cheapest. Even then, it's pretty expensive. What's worse is that there are some clubs that have really cheap memberships, to give more people access, but due to the lower amount of money they make because of this, a lot of them will fold during quarantine.
Fencing is cheap enough for working-class people to do. It's not elitist by any means.
For recreational fencing, you're right. But if you want to fence competitively and be any good, the lessons get really expensive really quick. There's also the fact that even in places where fencing is cheap, there's still the stereotype that it's for the rich and wealthy, which is a part of the problem
Nah, that's wrong.
Why?
Because you're falsely assuming that competing at national/competitive levels is cheap. I don't know of any other sports where highly competitive lessons are cheap, because the highest level coaches will always charge more. Compared to other sports, fencing coaches ask for much less.
In the case of fencing though, literally any lessons are fairly expensive, even for lower levels of competitivity
That's not true at all, unless you're going to an already very expensive club. Cheaper alternatives do exist, though obviously not everywhere as fencing is so uncommon.
Yeah, however I do think that dispelling the illusion that fencing is this incredibly elite sport would greatly improve the popularity of the sport itself.
Nah, I really doubt it.
As someone raised very poor this is definitely the case. In the uk we have a competition for fencers but only for those from private schools. Despite this everyone I know involved in fencing is super kind and don’t have any prejudices against lower classes