If one ventures to the 11th floor of 245 Lexington Avenue in the evening, she will be greeted by masked figures advancing, lunging, and retreating with calculated steps. She will hear the clash of metal upon metal, the shouts of Allez (pronounced: al-ey!) and the discordant sound of a buzzer indicating a hit. Welcome to Yeshiva University’s women’s fencing team. The team is led by head coach, Judy Cummins, who first came to Stern in 1999 and has been the women’s head coach since 2001.
Rebecca Kerzner, captain of Stern’s fencing team, has been working with Judy since her first year on the team; “This is my third year with Judy and I have really enjoyed working with her… She is like a second mom”.
Originally a form of military training, fencing first became a sport around the 15th century. Fencing academies opened throughout Europe and gentlemen came to hone their swordsmanship. However, fencing is more than a sport. It is an artform. “[Fencing] is a mind game,” Kerzner added. “Every motion is deliberate and [about] refining my technique and understanding as each day passes how to better defeat the opponent”
Coach Cummins is certified to teach all three fencing weapons: Foil, Epee, and Sabre, but her love lies with the Sabre. Each blade is unique in form, style, and technique with which it is used; but Sabre is perhaps the most difficult of them all. Originally a cavalry weapon, Sabre is all about aggressive offense and quick reaction time.
Cummins, originally a studio artist and employee at an advertising agency, began fencing after a friend invited her to join a weekly fencing class at Baruch College.
“Fencing has always been a dream of mine ever since I saw the old British TV show The Avengers,” Cummins told me. “The opening titles are two people fencing… at the end, one fencer takes off her mask and shakes her hair out and I [thought], ‘I want to do that!’”
At the end of the six-week course Cummins decided to join a more intensive class taught as part of New York University’s Continuing Education program. The class met twice a week and taught foil—a blade that women have been utilizing for years.
Cummins often stayed after class to watch the NYU team fence, and it was there that she first noticed male athletes fencing Sabre, a weapon which very few female teams used. Watching the team fence, she was immediately hooked.
“The coach told me that women do not fence Sabre and when I asked, ‘Why not?’ he replied, ‘I do not know.’”
After a few other students expressed interest, the coach switched the class from Foil to Sabre, and Cummins began to compete soon after with other pioneering women to fence Sabre. Despite this moment of change, the road to acceptance has not been easy. On one occasion, Cummins was speaking to the chairman of the United States Fencing Association about women fencing Sabre when he firmly interjected that women simply do not fence Sabre.
“Well, I fence Sabre,” Cummins replied. “If women do not fence Sabre, then what have we been doing?” The chairman replied, “Oh, you are just playing around with swords.”
Cummins has since proven him wrong, receiving over fifty fencing medals at the local, regional and national levels throughout the past twenty-four years. While she still does some freelance graphic design and illustrations, fencing has become an essential part of her life. She is a five-time USFA Metropolitan Section Sabre champion, and a National Veterans Sabre gold medalist. Cummins also placed Fifth in the 2006 Veterans World Championship in the “Sabre discipline” in Bath, England. In addition to these accolades, the first American athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in the Sabre discipline was Mariel Zagunis–a woman. Recently, Ibtihaj Muhammad made history by becoming the first Muslim American to compete for team USA in the Olympics while wearing a hijab. She fences Sabre.
