Caught off-guard by her love for fencing

When most people I think of fencing, they probably think knights, armor, and a medieval setting. But follow Amy Lester to a fencing bout (competition), and you'll see fencing runways, electronic equipment, and high-tech fencing gear made from Kevlar — the same stuff that's used in bulletproof vests.

“Many people think that fencing means swinging your blade around a lot,” says Amy, a high-school senior from Walpole, Massachusetts. “But there's more strategy involved than that.”

The US Fencing Association would agree. “Through fencing you can acquire the reflexes of a boxer, the legs of a high-jumper, and the concentration of a tournament chess player,” the Association claims.

Amy had no idea she'd be developing such a unique combination of skills when she first started fencing a little over two years ago. “It all started when a friend and I read a book about fencing,” Amy explains. “We thought it sounded neat, so we started looking for places where we could try it out.”

But what began as a whim quickly turned into a passion.

Today, Amy fences three to four times a week at a studio where practices run about an hour and a half. At a typical practice, you'll find her in sweats and a T-shirt, jogging and stretching out with the other fencers. The warm-up is followed by footwork practice.

“We do footwork without the weapons,” Amy says. “Footwork includes things like advances, retreats, lunges, and different combinations.”

Following the footwork exercises, the fencers move on to practice with their electrical equipment.

Electrical equipment? The idea is a strange one for a centuries-old sport. It's hardly what comes to mind when most people think about fencing. Nevertheless, it's the wires attached to the fencers' special fencing outfit that help them know if they've gotten a “hit.”

“There are three different weapons, and each one has a different area which is the target,” Amy explains. “I do 'foil' (a sword with a yard-long, rectangular blade), and the target area is the torso — not the head or the arms, just the chest area. You wear a plastic chest protector and an underarm protector. You also wear a jacket. Over the jacket goes the lamé, which, for foil, is like a metallic cloth vest.”

That's where the electrical equipment comes in. When an opponent's tip hits the lamé, the tip depresses and completes an electrical circuit. This sets off a light and buzzer on the scoring machine that's on the side of the opponent who makes the hit.

“If you hit someone's arm in foil, for example,” Amy says, “then the white light would go off. That means you're off-target and you won't get a point. But if the light is colored — red or green — that means you hit within the target area.”

Although the lingo, rules, and combination of skills that fencing involves may sound complicated to an outsider, for Amy it's all become second nature. Like a dancer who sees the whole of the piece instead of just a series of steps, Amy talks less of individual moves and more of overall strategy — the need to respond intelligently to her opponent's movements, the sophisticated interconnectedness of thought and action.

Her views on what it takes to be a good fencer coincide with her vision of the sport. “You'd think that a good fencer would need to be really physically fit and strong,” says Amy, thoughtfully. “But I believe things like confidence, determination, and being prepared to win are actually more important.”

Amy's own determination has certainly paid off. Last February, Amy participated in the Fencing Junior Olympics in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The invitation was completely unexpected.

“I was surprised because they had a Junior Olympic qualifier [qualifying competition], and I placed sixth in the top seven,” Amy relates. “I had only been fencing for about a year, and I never thought I would qualify. The other people had at least several years of experience — if not more.”

Although Amy only got to fence in six bouts that weekend, she enjoyed the opportunity to see Colorado Springs and to watch other fencers in the tournament. With 130 or so other women foilers in her category alone, Amy was spectator to a wide variety of skill levels and strategies. But what stood out to Amy was that those who finished in the top all had something in common. These fencers were good, yes, but they also exhibited extraordinary amounts of focus, energy, and endurance.

“Energy is one thing I've thought about a lot,” Amy says. “Before I went to the Junior Olympics, my Sunday School teacher looked up some helpful passages from the Bible and Science and Health and put them together for me. One that I really liked was this: 'Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action' (Science and Health, p. 283 ).

“Since Mind is another way of thinking about God,” Amy continues, “that quote showed me that I didn't have to worry about slowing down. I like that idea that my energy and movement come from Him. Since God is infinite, and I reflect Him, I can't be limited in any way. That's helped me a lot.

“I also like thinking about God as Mind because fencing is mental in a lot of ways,” Amy adds. “So remembering that God is Mind helps me to know what to do during a bout — what my strategy should be or how to react quickly when my opponent does something unexpected.”

The connection between spirituality and sports seems natural to Amy, who has seen the results of prayer before competition during her fencing career. “I don't think God takes sides,” Amy says. “But I do think that understanding God and your relationship to Him helps your performance. I find that when I pray or read Science and Health before I go to a practice or competition, I feel more prepared, and I usually do better, too.”

Amy has proved herself an up-and-coming fencer in spite of the short time she's been doing the sport. But for her, fencing is mostly about fun.

“I've found my sport,” she says, enthusiastically. “I just love to fence!”