What is fencing?
Fencing is a modern Olympic Sport, with three different disciplines – Foil, Epee and Sabre. Each of the weapons has its own rules and techniques.
Fencing Disciplines
Find out more about the rules and weapons of the 3 disciplines of Fencing.
Foil
Foil is a point weapon, where fencers try to score a valid touch on the target area, their opponent’s torso. In Foil, there is a system of rules regarding attacking and defending which determine who is awarded a point.
Epee
Epee is also a point weapon, but the target area is the entire body – hits can be scored on the body, arms, legs, head or even the hands or feet. Epee doesn’t use the same system of rules as foil, and whoever hits their opponent first gets the point.
Sabre
Sabre is mainly a cutting weapon and points can be scored with any part of the blade. The target area in Sabre is the whole body above the waist (including the arms and head) and Sabre uses a system of rules like foil to determine who is attacking and defending.
