Saint Louis University has a fencing club?

Of course it does. It’s one of the top student-run classical fencing societies in the country. The Salle De Armes has trained students, alumni, faculty and other members of the community in the art and science of classical fencing in order to give those people not only a great hobby and sport, but like any other martial art, a proper ideology and code of honor for every aspect of their lives.

The Salle De Armes recently hosted its third Annual Classical Foil Tournament on April 13. These types of tournaments are especially important for classical fencing salles.

Sport fencing, the type of fencing used in Olympic competition, is much more popular than classical fencing. As a result, there are few salles of classical fencers who do not believe in using electrical equipment to determine a hit against a person and follow strict adherence to the books written about fencing centuries ago.

Although classical fencing salles are rare, this annual tournament provided an extremely unique opportunity for classical fencers from around the country to have contact with other and improve their skills. Those attending include a salle from University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana headed by John Mainzer and a salle from Marquette, a Jesuit university in Milwaukee.

Both of these salles willingly and enthusiastically made road trips to St. Louis for this tournament, which for most classical fencers in the area is the only opportunity they have to fence anyone outside of their salle.

A total of 25 fencers showed up by 11:00 Saturday morning, the largest enrollment in the tournament yet. Present at the tournament was certified fencing master Nick Evangelista, who has written two books and one book with his wife about classical fencing that are essential in the current instruction of classical fencing.

He, in addition to just attending the tournament to watch his son Justin fence, personally acted as chief judge, called a director, for the final rounds of the tournament.

The tournament began with the 25 fencers divided into four pools, three pools of six fencers and one pool of seven.

Each fencer fences everyone in their pool in three-touch bouts, so the first fencer to be touched three times ends the bout. The fencers with the fewest touches against them at the end of the pool bouts move on to the first round.

These bouts were witnessed only by other fencers and a scorekeeper. Hits against were judged by the honor system.

Those fencers at the bottom two slots of each pool have a chance to enter the first round during the re-entry round.

The reentry round bouts were five touch bouts, and were formally judged. Formally judged bouts consist of four judges, two behind each fencer, responsible for determining if their fencer was touched by the other fencer.

The director of the bout is the final authority, he or she uses the opinion of the judges to determine an in target and palpable hit.

The second round consisted of all judged bouts. Again the fencers with the fewest touches against them moved directly into the next round and the fencers with the most touches battled for re-entry into the third round, each round eliminating three or four fencers.

The fencing was so close this year that there had to be a third set of re-entry bouts to determine who would move into the fourth and last round before the finals.

After the fourth round, four fencers remained, and the two of the four remaining fencers with the most total points against them battled for third place. Caleb True, younger fencer in SLU’s salle, took third with a score of six total

touches against.

The final bout was held for first and second place, between SLU senior and current Salle De Armes president Dave Wynne and a seasoned classical fencer from Florida, Kim Moser, who took first place at the first SLU tournament and second at the next SLU tournament. Wynne exploded off from the start, obtaining four touches against Moser with only getting touched once.

But Moser’s incredible defense held fast, Wynne was unable to obtain the fifth and final touch for the win.

Moser came back, slowly gaining four more touches on Wynne and winning the bout and securing his first place seat.

After the bout, Moser received his prize, two beautiful ?p?es, another weapon used by more advanced classical fencers.

He also gave a speech, saying that he “came to fence everyone” expressing his overall concern to just get exposure to other salles of fencers.

Caleb also had similar remarks, commenting on the “good fencing” and how he was “surprised to do so well.”

Overall, the tournament was a huge success and greatly increased the Salle De Armes good reputation among other salles and other sports clubs on campus.

Practices are held Monday and Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the Saint Louis Room of the Busch Memorial Center.