In this section learn: You Should Try Out
- To Have Fun: Competing on the fencing team is an extraordinary experience. Team members come from diverse backgrounds and majors, offering the chance for great friendships, new experiences, and lots of fun.
- To Learn: Lessons learned from fencing can be directly applied to real life. Learning how to fence adds an entirely new dimension to your work at MIT, but it hardly counts as work.
- To Win: The MIT fencing team competes to win, and win we do. We are one of the only two teams at MIT that compete in NCAA Division I. We routinely win New England Championships and have sent at least three fencers to NCAA Nationals every year for the last four years. We fence schools from all over New England and the East Coast and boast to have MIT’s only NCAA Champion as an alum. (See last season's results).
Dianne '02, Christine '03, and Joan '02 relaxing after the NYU meet, 2002
- Our coaching staff are the best in the region. Head coach Jarek Koniusz placed second in the fencing World Championships before coming to the US to instruct. He coached NCAA champion Caroline Purcell '01 and has made NCAA Championship qualifiers out of beginners.
- Requirements are basic. Successful candidates must desire to train competitively and be committed to being a member of the team.
- Athleticism is important, but most important is your desire to learn and train hard to improve yourself. Prior good fencing experience, while not required, is welcome.
- Tryouts run from 5:00pm sharp to 7:00pm every weekday from September 13 to September 26. The tryout sessions exactly match the varsity practice schedule, so you'll know by the end of tryouts how fencing fits into your schedule and, in many cases, how it even helps you to structure your time.
- Tryouts involve cross-training exercises, instruction in basic footwork, and no-pressure team sports. By the end of tryouts you will be ready to select a weapon and begin bouting.
- Cross-training involves running, sprinting, push-ups, and variants on these basic exercises.
- Basic footwork instruction involves learning how to advance, retreat, lunge, and combining these basic actions. Footwork will be broken into groups according to skill level.
- Team sports usually involve basketball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, and unihoc. They're a fun way to keep in shape and get to know one another.
- To Get New Members:
We rely on tryouts each year to bring in excited new members to complement our roster. Our coaching staff enjoys both instructing new fencers quickly and efficiently, and building on the talents of experienced fencers. Oftentimes our best fencers and even team captains have started fencing at MIT with no prior experience. - To Adjust to One Another:
Tryouts also give us a chance to see how quickly you learn and how much you might contribute to the team. Tryouts give you a chance to fit fencing into your schedule for three weeks, long enough to see if the time and team are worth your while. - To Get in Shape:
Finally, tryouts allow everyone -- experienced or otherwise -- to prepare for the fencing season and to get back in shape after the summer. Those who are experienced enjoy the chance to gear up slowly, and those who are inexperienced will learn all the basics that they need to start fencing with the team.
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