Red Door Fencing, located in Des Moines’ historic East Village, is an epee club that promotes competitive and recreational fencing by providing quality instruction, a safe and supportive training environment, and fostering personal growth and community engagement. We are an affiliate member of USA Fencing, the national governing body for the sport in the U.S.
We’re back to a full schedule for the fall!
(effective Sept. 6-Dec. 31, 2016)
Tuesday:
5:30-6:30 – Beginner Youth Fencing* (Sept. 6-Oct. 11)
5:30-6:30 – Youth Epee* (continuing)
6:30-7:00 – Conditioning
7:00-9:00 – Competitive Epee
Wednesday:
5:30-6:30 – Private Lessons**
6:30-7:00 – Footwork
7:00-8:30 – Competitive Epee
7:00-8:00 – 13 & up Beginner Epee
Thursday:
5:30-6:30 – Youth Epee (continuing)
6:30-7:00 – Conditioning
7:00-9:00 – Competitive Epee
Saturday: (when everyone isn’t at a tournament)
8:15-9:00 am: Conditioning
9:00-10:00 am: Competitive Epee
No class Thursday, Nov. 24 and Saturday, Nov. 26 (Thanksgiving), Saturday, Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), Saturday, Dec. 31 (New Year’s Eve).
*Beginner Youth Fencing and Youth Epee classes will run at the same time on different sides of the room.
**Talk to your coach about private lessons. While we have used Competitive Epee practice time for lessons in the past (and will probably continue to do so as needed), we are trying out a dedicated block of time in our schedule this fall to improve availability and consistency.
We’ve changed our schedule a bit for the summer!
(effective June 4-July 31, 2016)
Tuesday:
5:30-6:30 – Beginner Youth Epee (June 7-July 19, 2016)
6:30-7:00 – Conditioning
7:00-9:00 – Competitive Epee
Wednesday:
5:30-6:30 – Youth Epee
6:30-7:00 – Footwork
7:00-8:30 – Competitive Epee
7:00-8:00 – 13 & up Beginner Epee
Thursday:
5:30-6:30 – Youth Epee
6:30-7:00 – Conditioning
7:00-9:00 – Competitive Epee
Saturday: (when everyone isn’t at a tournament)
8:15-9:00 am: Conditioning
9:00-10:00 am: Open Practice
10:00-11:00 am: Beginner Youth Foil (June 4-July 16)
11:00 am-12:00 pm: Youth Foil
No class July 2-6 due to Independence Day holiday and coaches in Dallas for Summer Nationals.
(effective Aug. 2016)
Tuesday:
5:30-6:30 – Youth Epee
6:30-7:00 – Conditioning
7:00-9:00 – Competitive Epee
Thursday:
6:30-7:00 – Conditioning
7:00-9:00 – Competitive Epee
We will bring a schedule similar to the June/July schedule back in September!
RDF sent three fencers to Summer Nationals in Dallas, TX. After a rough pool in Division II Men’s Epee at his first Nationals, Connor got his head back in the game to finish 38th of 143 in Division III Men’s Epee. Dorothea tried to ignore her recently-discovered epee instincts in Division II Women’s Foil, but had more luck using them to make the cut into the Direct Elimination round in Division II Women’s Epee. Sarah also fenced Division II Epee and lost to the eventual silver medalist in the round of 32, ending 20th of 130.
Division II Women’s Epee:
Sarah – 20th
Dorothea – 103rd
Division III Men’s Epee:
Connor – 38th
Division II Men’s Epee:
Connor – 189th
Division II Women’s Foil:
Dorothea – 132nd
We have three beginner fencing classes starting in June!
For kids ages 8-12, Session 1 will be Saturdays starting June 4 from 10-11 am and Session 2 will be Tuesdays starting June 7 from 5:30-6:30 pm. Both groups will meet 6 times over the course of 7 weeks (no class July 2-5).
For teenagers and adults, we have a 6-week class that meets on Wednesdays starting June 8.
Make friends, get active, and learn a new sport!
We have two Youth Beginner class starting in April! Session 1 will be Saturdays starting April 2nd from 10-11 am and Session 2 will be Tuesdays starting April 5th fro 5:30-6:30 pm. Both are 8-week sessions. Make friends, get active, and learn a new sport!
Three fencers from RDF fenced in Ames on Saturday; Jim placed 2nd in Open Mixed Epee, Dorothea was 7th, and Carl was 12th. Full results on askFred.
The results of the Iowa Caucus Epee Tournament are in, and we were on news channels 5 (ABC) and 13 (WHO)!
Channel 5’s coverage:
Channel 13 mentioned us in their “Caucus Fever” story:
We fenced two round-robin pools of 5-point matches, with each fencer representing a different, randomly-drawn candidate in each round, and then combined the results for the overall placings:
- 1) Trump
- 2) Fiorina
- 3) Clinton
- 4) Christie (tie)
- 4) Santorum (tie)
- 6) Carson
- 7) Rubio
- 8) Paul
- 9) Kasich
- 10) Cruz
- 11) Bush
- 12) O’Malley
- 13) Sanders
- 14) Huckabee
Each fencer donned whatever gear the campaigns that had offices in town gave us (we printed out labels for the candidates who either didn’t have a campaign office here or we were unable to get anything from). We had a few fencers from other clubs join us, and we had such a good time that we’re thinking of doing another political-themed tournament for the presidential election!
The Iowa Caucuses are on Monday, and everyone has their own way of predicting who is going to win. A disturbingly low number of these methods use epees in their calculations. It is time we changed that.
We just thought of this at practice tonight and, since we won’t have another opportunity quite like this for another 8 years, most likely, we decided to go for it!
Fencing will begin shortly after 10:00 am on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016.
Rules:
All competitors will draw a presidential candidate’s name when they sign in, representing that person in the tournament. Despite how you feel about your candidate, we expect you to try your best.
Like politics, you are encouraged to negotiate with others before the start of the event if you want to change candidates.
Unlike politics, lying and cheating will get you expelled.
Format:
This is currently up for… debate. Depending on the number of participants, we will either do an Ironman format (everyone vs everyone round-robin) or two Party-aligned pools, with the winner of each pool fencing for a final victor.
We will take a vote to see if the candidates want 15-point bouts for pools or the standard 5-point bouts, then ignore their vote and pick what we think is best.
Cost:
Free! Just come and have a fun day stabbing “presidential candidates”!
Location:
Red Door Fencing
220 E 3rd St. (lower level)
Des Moines, IA 50309
**No political party or candidate endorses or is associated with this event**
On Sunday, we had 4 athletes compete at the Icicle Invitational in Lincoln, NE. In Mixed Epee, Jim placed 10th, Julia 18th, Carl 26th, and Sarah 30th. Julia won Women’s Epee, and Sarah came in 2nd. Full results: https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=32090
