Epee fencing in or near Raleigh, NC

[needle]

I'm going to be in Raleigh, NC on business the week of April 3rd and thought I'd bring the gear with me, if there's a chance to meet new friends and poke epee at them

According to USFA site, there are three places within reasonable driving distance from where I'll be staying (Cary):
NCFDP, Raleigh Fencers and Triangle Fencing Club.

Is there anyone from one of these clubs here, who could help with information on whether and how I could fence (and maybe even participate in class) there?

[fresfisher929]

Hey,

Raleigh-Fencers has class on Tuesday (beginning and intermediate) 6:30-8:30, Thursday (advanced and intermediate) 6:30-8:30, and sunday 4:30- 6:30. NCFDP has free fencing on Tuesdays and Thursdays, same times. I do not know anything about the Triangle Fencing Center.

If you're interested in joining a class and free fencing, and are relatively advanced fencer i would reccomend the Raleigh-Fencers thursday night.
I would reccomend calling ahead to either club.

the Raleigh-Fencers website is http://www.nbsgym.com/
the NCFDP website is http://www.ncfdp.org/

[tbryan]

I'm going to be in Raleigh, NC on business the week of April 3rd and thought I'd bring the gear with me, if there's a chance to meet new friends and poke epee at them According to USFA site, there are three places within reasonable driving distance from where I'll be staying (Cary): NCFDP, Raleigh Fencers and Triangle Fencing Club. Is there anyone from one of these clubs here, who could help with information on whether and how I could fence (and maybe even participate in class) there?

There's generally more variety of mid-level (Es through Cs) epeeists at NCFDP. It's just bouting, and it can be a bit chaotic. It's also a bit of a drive from Cary. If you go, you'll just have to be very aggressive about getting up on strip with people since there isn't really a fixed rotation, and if you're unknown, they may just not ask you to fence. I forget what the floor fee is there.

RFC has a class (footwork, conditioning, and drills) followed by open bouting on Tuesdays and Sundays. Thursday is a more advanced class. Less structured class with more advanced drills (with a focus on foil). Depending on who's there, we do epee drills once the rest of the class drifts into anything that's too specific to foil. Also followed by open bouting. I'm generally at class (and lead much of the epee drilling) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. fresfisher929 is there on Thursday. The rest of the group is less consistent. Mostly some newer, unrated epeeists and some foilists who only dabble in epee. The foilists are pretty strong (for this area) Ds or Cs in foil, so their epee isn't bad. It just doesn't always look much like epee.

Edited to finish post (accidentally submitted early).

[Spike327]

I think floor fee at NCFDP is 5 bucks for a night. Tom is right, it's pretty chill there... basically you just fence whoever you want, as much or as little as you want. If I had to pick numbers for competition, it'd probably be 10 or so epeeists working around 3 or 4 strips (experience from Us and Es to Cs and Bs). Group lesson time (mostly kids) goes until about 8 or 8:30, after that the free fencing picks up as strips open. It usually dies down around 10:30, maybe 11.

[tbryan]

(experience from Us and Es to Cs and Bs).

Oh, are any of the Bs actually showing up to the open bouting on Tuesday or Thursday these days? I heard that you had had all become pretty hard to find...studying or something, I hope.

Actually, with Sectionals coming up, I'd be interested in playing with the Bs and Cs out there. If you're actually coming to class, I may want to swing out to NCFDP a few times in April to get my epee game back in shape. Or...depending on who I fence...get kicked up and down the strip a lot.

[Spike327]

To be honest, I'm probably going to lay down the epee this next week and fence some sabre... I decided to make another trip to Divisionals.
I'll be around in the following weeks, though.


Edit: too many 'probably's

[tbryan]

To be honest, I'm probably going to lay down the epee this next week and fence some sabre... I decided to make another trip to Divisionals.
I'll be around in the following weeks, though.


Edit: too many 'probably's

Yeah, I'm focusing on foil for a bit until Divisionals is over. Then I'll be back to epee for all of April. I'm thinking about going to the Cherry Blossom, and I'm definitely going to Sectionals, but I don't feel in shape for either one at the moment.

[keropie]

There are also two very strong veterans mens epeeist who come by NCFDP fairly often, and even one crazy foil coach who's been picking up an epee more and more recently lately. Don't know as much about RFC, though I hear good things

[needle]

Thanks - lots of good information.
I'll try to make it to NCFDP on Tuesday (4th) and to RFC on Thursday (6th) then. After calling the coaches to make arrangements, of course.

Hopefully, fence some of you there