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When one hears the word “fencing,” duels and movies about the Medieval and Renaissance periods comes to mind. But for UCLA sophomore Deena Dulgerian, fencing is not just a historical pastime; it is her favorite hobby, which she has been actively involved in for over six years. A Maryland native, Dulgerian started fencing in the 6th grade, but took a minor break in the year 2006 when she moved to the state of California.
Fencing was not a sport Dulgerian picked up from childhood or was introduced to because of her parents; it was a bit more spontaneous than that…“After watching the fencing scene from the James Bond movie “Die Another Day,” I got interested and started taking classes at my local community center,” said Dulgerian.
“What I love about fencing is that it’s a classy sport - not too rough, but you can still feel the immense power each fencer puts into a hit. There are so many set actions that you have to perform that it looks good when you get it right,” said Dulgerian. But do not be fooled by the graceful beauty of fencing. Like any sport, fencing requires intensive conditioning.
“We don’t really lift weights because that won’t help us in any way. But we do a lot of footwork. This helps build-up our calf muscles, which are the main muscles that we use in fencing,” said Dulgerian.
Dulgerian began fencing again when she joined the UCLA competitive women’s foil team. “We have been doing pretty well considering the fact that we don’t really have 3 stable fencers. With team competitions we usually place third out of the complete list of participating teams,” she said. As far as individual tournaments go, Dulgerian advanced to the second round of a University of California - Santa Barbara (UCSB) tournament, but lost 15-14.
“It was my first individual tournament, so I was ecstatic about it. Hopefully, I’ll start doing more individual tournaments and finally get my USFA ranking,” said Dulgerian.
Though interacting with an opponent with a foil sounds unsafe, Dulgerian insists there is nothing to worry about. Fencers take extreme precautionary measures in order to protect themselves from injuries by padding themselves with multiple layers.
“Women have to wear breast plates, over that a small shoulder cover that protects the hand we fence with, and over that is the main jacket, which is really thick and heavy. On top of all of that, we wear a lame, which doesn’t really offer protection more than t helps with recognizing touches from your opponent. We also wear knickers (kind of like baseball pants) to protect our legs and wear high padded socks - again similar to those in baseball. To protect the hand that we fence with, we wear a thick glove. Last but not least, we wear a mask that has a big screen that covers the front of your face and at the bottom, a flap that protects your neck,” Dulgerian explained.
But even with all the padding, fencers do suffer from sports injuries. Dulgerian explains that if she does not practice for a while, she gets muscle pain and joint problems in her legs. She has also gotten the wind knocked out of her when she was hit in the throat and has also had multiple bruises.
Seeing as fencing is an unusual sport, it does not come as a surprise that people are more than intrigued by Dulgerian’s choice of a pastime. “When I tell people that I fence, they get really shocked and always remark, ‘You’re the only person I know that fences’,” explained Dulgerian. “I don’t blame them - fencing is not big in America at all and it’s its own separate little world here in the US.”
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