Olympic sport of fencing in Des Moines, Iowa
Learn to FenceKCCI Channel 8’s Todd Magel did a great report on the club Thursday night. Watch Red Door Fencing on the news!
On Saturday, RDF was featured on WHO Channel 13 and KDSM Fox 17. Watch the story!
We also got a mention on Channel 5 on Sunday night. Here’s the clip!
We are pleased to announce our first Open House dates!
Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014 from 10 am-4-pm
Sunday, Jan. 12, 2014 from 3-5 pm
Stop by and see what fencing at RDF is all about! We will have free snacks, interactive demonstrations, and you might even get a chance to poke somebody!
Sign-up for beginners is now open! Check the Practice Schedule for times and class descriptions. Feel free to contact us with any questions. We highly recommend stopping by during our Open House events to help decide which group you would like to try.
If you have fenced before and would like to join one of our regular practice groups, call, email, or stop by to sign up.
Dallas, TX – Three RDF members competed at the North American Cup tournament this weekend: Sarah Timmons Powell fenced Division 1 Women’s Epee on Friday, Jim Musgrave fenced Division 1 Men’s Epee on Saturday, and RJ Lesch fenced Vet-50 Men’s Saber on Sunday.
Sarah went 1-5 in pools so she did not make the 80% promotion to the direct elimination round, but she did score at least 2 points on all of her opponents. “I guess that’s not too bad for my first Div 1,” she said. She ended 118 of 138.
Jim was 2-4 out of pools (-6 indicator) and made the cut, but lost his first DE bout 15-4. He ended up 180 of 254.
RJ was 3-2 in pools and lost his first DE 10-7, ending 20th of 36 in Vet-50 Men’s Saber. Overall, RJ felt pretty positive about the experience.
Just so everyone knows, the door is actually painted red now. Sarah, Mike, Jim, and RJ also competed at the Sioux City Challenge last weekend. Check back soon for an announcement about our first official open house event!
We continued working on the club this week, adding a few little things here and there. One of our light fixtures that died is back in working order. We hung up a mirror and some hooks in the bathroom, we finally painted the door red, and we began painting a red stripe around the room, just to be decorative.
We had epee practice at the club on Wednesday night and Saturday morning. On Saturday night, Sarah finally finished the curtains and we came and hung them up. That’s probably about it for major transformations for a while, but there are a lot of little things that still need to be done.
We have chairs! And a desk! And a table! During the past week, we’ve been adding lots of little things to the club. Epeeists Sarah and Jim and coach Kevin also traveled to Northwestern University in Evanston, IL to fence the Remenyik Open.
On Wednesday night, we had the first practice at our club. It was just the small group of us that had been meeting in the basement of Windsor Presbyterian Church for the past year and a half as we are not yet open to the public. We love the new place!
On Tuesday night, we raised the light fixtures and rolled out the floors. We even had a couple of fencers from the Iowa State University Fencing Club come down and help us. It’s finally starting to look like a fencing club! Afterwards we all went to Zombie Burger to celebrate.
This weekend was spent painting! And painting… and painting. We’re getting kind of sick of painting. Fortunately we’re almost done!
Kevin and Mike rented a paint sprayer and painted the ceiling and themselves on Friday night – 5.5 hours of continuous spraying, plus another couple hours for setup and clean up. On Saturday, Sarah, Kevin, Jules’s boys, Jim and longtime fencing friend Yuly did some touch-up work and painted the rest of the floor. On Sunday, RJ did more touch-up painting and poisoned so those black widow nests don’t come back. That night, Kevin went back and did a second coat of floor paint in the part of the room that will not be covered with rubber floors.
red door fencing 