This afternoon I hopped across the parking lot to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger.” I had one foot pointed forward, one foot pointed sideways, and my right hand out in front of me like I was holding an imaginary sword. This was not part of a strange cult ritual or mental breakdown. It was a fencing club exercise to help us work on our form. By the end of it my legs were burning, my hair was sweaty, and it felt amazing.

Fencing club is an on campus organization where people attack each other with swords, in a friendly way of course. We get some exercise and channel our inner medievalist. There are three types of swords in fencing, foil, saber, and epee. Everyone starts with foil, and if they like they can go on to saber (we don’t have anyone who knows epee right now). We do some drills then free fence.

Today there was a wedding in Killworth Chapel where we usually practice, so we went out into the parking lot. It was a sunny day, probably one of our last, and it felt good to get out enjoy it. We had considered fencing through the wedding reception, to give the newlyweds a show, but decided against it. Here’s how that conversation went:

“We should go fence through the wedding.”

“Yeah that would be cool. No wait. That would actually be horrible.”

“Yeah it kind of would.”

So we went outside instead. If you want to join us sometime, we practice Thursdays seven to nine in the dance studio. Hack hack, chop chop.