Woody Cavenaugh

The Downtown Duel will be held this weekend at the Holiday Inn Airport located at 6426 Burnt Poplar road. Get your Event Schedule Here. As a rule, fencing will start before 10am and will go on until all events are finished, that could be anywhere between 5pm and 10pm depending on the number of fencers involved. If you have time and are interested please come by! If you aren't in the area, but are interested, allow me to introduce you to FRED Every weekend there are tournaments going on everywhere and if you want to know where, all you have to do is Ask Fred.

In America it is always free to watch fencing. In other countries where fencing is more popular the tournaments will take place in something oh like the Greensboro Coliseum and there would be an admission fee. Here in the US, a hotel ballroom is plenty of space for a small to medium tournament, and spectators are treated like honored guest.

The Downtown Duel is one of the three events the Downtown Fencing Club (a program of the Downtown YWCA) host each year. The Downtown Duel is a veteran only event, meaning that fencers can be male or female, but must be over 40 years old. Veteran events are split up by 10 year ranges, Vet 40 is everyone 40-49, Vet 50 is everyone 50-59, Vet 60 is everyone 60-69, etc. Events are also split by gender, so for instance the Vet 40 men don't have to fence against the Vet 40 women and vice versa. All three weapon groups will be fenced this weekend, foil, epee, and saber. Many fencers will compete in two weapons and occasionally a brave soul with plenty of energy will fence in all three.

For those who have never been to a fencing tournament before what you see can be somewhat chaotic. For this event we will have six playing areas (called strips) fencing can be going on all of these at once. With six bouts going on all at once, fencers will tend to stick close to the strip they have been assigned to so they don't miss any bouts. You can be sure that any question you might have will be gladly answered by anyone wearing white, who isn't at that moment locked in electric combat. Also helpful, I will be the guy behind the registration table with the computer and the stressed look on his face.

One of the things the Downtown Fencing Club prides itself on is intereresting trophies. Having an artist on the coaching staff means never having to buy medals or trophies. For this event since it is veterans we thought it would be fun to give out awards for first place as old (or older) than the fencers themselves. It just so happened that we had eighteen fencing masks from the days or yore, no longer legal for modern competition. We couldn't use them and they were taking up valuable space so some enterprising folks and some donated wood came up with trophies that offered "alternate uses" for aging equipment. We made lamps, lamp shades, letter holders, accent lights, night lights, birds nest and bird feeders all from old equipment. For second place, our staff stained glass artist created some beautiful etched glass medalions. Having run out of ideas, we skimped somewhat on third place but since each event has a tie for third place it is easier to be frugal than fence for it and have to come up with something else clever.

I hope to see you there!