ast the gasping and cheering from the audience, two fencers jolt back and forth on a narrow piste. Decked out in white gear with a body cord leading to a scoring box, Junior Cynthia Yao shows off her aggressive side as she thrusts towards her opponent, making a splendid strike, harvests another point.
At age ten, Yao discovered the fun in fencing, though at that time she struggled to hold up her sword and often lost her balance. She paused training as soon as she entered middle school due increased school work, but decided to resume fence training last June. She joined Fortune Fencing, and with two group and three private one-on-one classes per week, Yao slowly regained familiarity with the game rules.
Last month, Yao attended the Southern California 2015-2016 Junior Olympic Qualifier Tournament. Using a dynamic attack-defense technique, Yao defeated nine opponents, a triumph for a restarter. After encountering a major setback, she ended up in the sixth place.
“My legs were shaking, because I have never been to such a big event,” Yao said. “But I did pretty well in the competition; my coach also encouraged me after seeing the results.”
Eager to step up to a higher level competition, Yao participated in the 2016 South Coast Invitational Regional Youth Circuit Tournament on January 17th. However, she confronted trouble as she found out her weapon wasn’t working. With her teammates’ help and her coach’s advice, Yao adjusted her anxiety level and finished the game. Though this time she wasn’t satisfied with her results, she had won more experience along with a few friends.
“Our coach told me to find my opponent’s weak point when he saw me struggling,” Yao said. “Although we were enemies on the fencing strip, when we got off, we started chatting and followed each other on Instagram.”
During a training course, Yao and her peer fencers jog and jump rope to warm up before doing specific skill practices on hand-control, footwork and body-balance. Last thing on their practice agenda is to put on actual fencing gear and have individual or group matches with each other, gravitating sweat underneath layers of protections even on a cool day.
The type of fencing weapon Yao uses is épée, the heaviest in all three kinds of weapons. A épée fencer can only play against other épée fencers, as three categories of fencing are divided based upon different weapon structures and fencing rules. Épée allows a fencer to target the opponent’s entire body, it requires them to coordinate more body muscles than foil and saber fencing, both of which restrict the target area to just upper body parts, with saber excluding the arms and head. In addition, épée’s three-sided blade has a stiff point that can easily bruise fencers.
“I’m not very strong physically, so I faced a lot of failures and often got hurt in the beginning,” Yao said. “I also had difficulties understanding the coach when he talked with technical terms for fencing, in English.”
In sophomore year, Yao and her family moved to Temple City from Beijing, China. Like most immigrant students, changing to an English name and starting anew greatly contributed to some of her most challenging breakthroughs.
“Although we have a lot of Chinese students on campus, it’s crazy how even the different Mandarin accents made me feel strange and nervous to this new environment,” Yao said. “I learned that in a big melting pot like America, I’m responsible for myself, so I have to be brave. “