En garde. Two fencers step onto opposing sides of the strip, lifting their blades in anticipation. Prêt. The room goes silent, tension tight as steel. Allez. In an instant, the pressure snaps — swords clash as the athletes retreat and lunge. A prestigious and elegant sport reveals its speed, strategy and chaos in seconds.

Despite its history of elitism, the sport’s accessibility has transcended across status and state. Established in 2010, the Iowa City Fencing Center brings the sport to locals of all ages and backgrounds.

Judy O’Donnell, founder and owner of the ICFC, began her fencing journey in a collegiate physical education class and quickly fell in love with the sport. The following year, she joined Wellesley College’s fencing team. After graduating, O’Donnell moved to Germany to train at the Olympischer Fecht Club.

“Kids would come from all over the country and live at the training center. They go to school in the city, then they’d come back and train,” O’Donnell said. “[The Germans] were really intense about it at a much younger age than Americans tend to be.”

After a year of training abroad, O’Donnell joined the Boston Fencing Club, where she began coaching junior fencers. 

“I started with one little five-year-old boy, and a few years later, he was [a] national champion,” O’Donnell said. “I was coaching a bunch of kids, and I was just having so much fun.”

O’Donnell later earned a master’s in education from Harvard University. When she eventually left Boston for Iowa City, she began offering fencing lessons in her basement, though she quickly realized that her skill set and curriculum needed a better training space.

“There was no big fencing club here, but people started to find me,” O’Donnell said. “You can only have so many holes in your basement ceiling before you have to do something. I opened up [the ICFC], and we’ve been having a blast ever since.”

While fencing is less popular as a sport in the United States, its deep history makes it a fundamental sporting event in many cultures worldwide. The sport was first recorded in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as a simple stick-fighting game. Other early versions of fencing were derived from sword-based combat and military training in ancient civilizations, popularized in the ancient Greek Olympics. In the 12th century, sword-fighting institutions were created to expand the sport’s popularity into the late 19th century.

Although fencing may appear complicated, its objective is simple: a fencer scores points by striking an opponent’s target areas, and the winner is the first to reach a point threshold. To maximize her success, Viviana Sanchez ’29 approaches her training with stamina and technical skill, while acknowledging the sport’s simultaneous physical demands.

“It’s obviously demanding physically, but it’s really mental,” Sanchez said. “When you’re on that strip, there are so many overwhelming things you have to think of. It’s a mental game.”

In addition to the tempo, O’Donnell argues that winning a fencing match requires a combination of physical strength and attention to detail. 

“You have to out-think your opponent, as well as train enough technique and have the physical skills to do what you need to do,” O’Donnell said. “Each person you fence is different. Their style is different. The way they handle interactions is different. [You] have to react to what this person does differently from another person — you have to make adjustments.”

Mieka Hedt ’28, a first-year student at the center, is no exception to altering her tactics during a match — otherwise known as a bout. In an email response, Hedt explains how fencing has helped her to read and react to her opponent’s style.

“I start with whatever action at the beginning, and if it works, I’ll try similar actions throughout the match,” Hedt said. “If it doesn’t, I’ll try to think of something new before the next bout starts.”

Because of this, some consider the sport infeasible because it requires mastering multiple strategic skills. Sanchez challenges that narrative, pointing to her own schedule as an example. 

“It’s really flexible. A lot of people think that it sounds demanding,” Sanchez said. “You can choose the classes and what you practice. That’s why I can do track and other sports.”

Aside from the difficulty, some critics view fencing as elitist, a perception rooted in its history of being a sport that “separated the nobleman from the soldier.” Hedt disagrees with this sentiment. 

“Everyone is from different backgrounds and levels of experience, and [O’Donnell] makes it super affordable and welcoming,” Hedt said. “Because it originated as an elitist sport and was seen as a ‘gentleman’s’ sport, people still think it is, but the people I fence with are super diverse and [all have] different levels of experience.”

Depending on their skill level, fencers have the choice of dueling with one of three different types of swords: the foil, the sabre and the épée. The foil is argued to be the most difficult type to master, yet its flexibility allows the fencer to attack their opponent from previously impossible angles. The sabre is typically used for more aggressive attacks, as the blade is a modern version of the slashing cavalry sword. Finally, the épée is used most similarly to an actual dueling sword, being heavier and more rigid than the foil.

At the ICFC, O’Donnell works to curb this misconception by reducing the sport’s upfront costs.

“We provide all the gear so people don’t have to invest heavily in trying a sport. You don’t want to invest a bunch in equipment and then find out you don’t really love it,” O’Donnell said. “It’s not the elitist, expensive sport that people tend to think of it as. It got that reputation a few hundred years ago, back in dueling days where, if you owned a sword, you had to be pretty wealthy.”

O’Donnell is also improving access to fencing for students with disabilities. Last November, the ICFC introduced para-fencing strips equipped with specialized gear that allows athletes to compete while seated.

“You have special wheelchairs, and they are fastened into a frame so that they’re not rolling around. The athletes lean forward and back, and they have blindingly fast blade work that’s really fun to watch,” O’Donnell said. “Two years ago, there were [around] 25 para fencers in the whole United States, and now that’s starting to grow. So I thought, ‘It’s time to bring it to Iowa.’”

At its core, fencing is a sport like any other; it fuels the mind and the body, building endurance and agility in and out of the bout. O’Donnell encourages prospective fencers to visit the ICFC, open to anyone who wishes to participate.

“Come and try it. It’s worth trying and knowing what it’s all about,” O’Donnell said. “That’s how you find out that you love it.”