“How does Sunday at 3:30 pm sound?”
“I have to be somewhere later, can we do something earlier?”
“Okay, how about we start fencing at 3 pm and ppl can join later”
“I’m moving back home next week so I’m not sure if I can make it.”
“Guys, it’s gonna be RAINING Sunday, the field will be a mess”
“Can anyone do next week?”
These are the realities of coordinating an unofficial fencing practice amid these “unprecedented times.” Last year, we would’ve already started training three times a week and preparing for the Royal Military College (RMC) Team Invitational at the beginning of next month, with our tenacious team manager hounding us to complete our Varsity Blues Registration System (VBRS) forms. It can only get better from here, right?
Like most people, I can vividly recall the moment that the impact of COVID-19 caught up to me. I was at a practice designated specifically for people going to provincials—they were taking place that March weekend in Toronto. I was going to be competing for the last possible time in two age categories, and my mom was coming up from Oakville to cheer me on. As soon as I arrived, I was told that provincials were cancelled because of COVID-19 precautions. I left my fencing bag in the armoury. There was no need to lug it back to my place if there were no provincials to go to anymore. The next morning, I watched in horror as universities began to close down. Jamming all my textbooks and necessary school supplies into a grocery bag, I fled the plagued city to what I deemed the safety of my parents’ home in Oakville. Little did I know, it would be a month before I would see the things I left behind and another four before I was able to rescue my fencing bag from the Athletic Centre.
Despite the fact that you’ve probably never heard about us, the UofT fencing team is pretty legit. We have one of the best fencing programs in the country; the men’s team has won the Ontario University Athletics (OUAs) fencing championship five years in a row and the women’s three, with the individual teams and competitors placing in every weapon group, not just at the university-level, but at a multitude of competition levels as well. After our dramatic OUA victory in February, we were going to finish the competition season with a bang at provincials in March, and some of us were even planning to go to nationals in May—all of which were cancelled. Now, bets are being made as to when our next competition will be.
The final month of the academic year didn’t leave much room for panic or contemplation, as we all tried to finish off the term and figure out how exactly exams would occur online. However, as the academic year ended and we were faced with the uncertainty of summer, the reality of our new situation began to set in. Our coaches and staff were thrown for a loop as they tried to navigate keeping our training up over the summer and also figuring out how we could possibly train while stuck within the confines of our rooms. There was also the very real possibility of having virtual practices at the beginning of the competition season (if there would even be one). A multitude of team Zoom meetings followed.
I yearned to be able to stab something again. To feel the rush of rivalry, even if it was against an inanimate dummy. The only issue was that virtually all of my gear was locked up in the armoury. So while my teammates and fellow comrades in misfortune were stuffing fencing jackets with pillows, stabbing toilet paper rolls left over from the early days of panic, or participating in multiple Instagram challenges, I was desperately trying to maintain the muscle mass and skill that I’d accrued over the past years—with little to no equipment. This took various forms: workout apps, online footwork, and the UofT strength and conditioning channel (check them out, they’re great).
You see, I really came into my own this year, thanks in no small part to the tireless dedication of my coach who made me into somewhat of a project. After ten years of fencing, with various degrees of effectiveness and at various levels of competition, I was finally getting good. I could even see the vague outline of who I would become in my last two years of university-level fencing; if not someone who was athletically prodigious and placing at big national events, then at least someone competent. Someone who you could confidently put into the core team and who would perform admirably without you having to worry. Someone with the potential to be this person with enough work and dedication. Now, I’m not so sure if I can become this person.
With the beginning of the school year and the release of the training schedule, the uncertainty of what this year is going to look like is now over. Although some teams have been able to start training with the commencement of this academic year, we will only be hitting the salle on November 17, right after reading week. Of course, this means that the entirety of the October to November provincial circuit is cancelled, which included events that have become mainstays of the fencing community, including the RMC team invitational and Brock Open. And even if the provincial circuit hadn’t been cancelled, the team is hopelessly fractured—scattered across borders and continents. Some teammates came back to Toronto and are now leaving again, while others decided to skip that middle step and stay in their places of residence altogether. I feel especially sympathetic for the first-year students who had the rug yanked from underneath them, having barely taken a step into their university fencing career.
Like a lot of people, I feel robbed. Not of some illusory success or opportunity—though there’s that too—but of the team that I worry I’ll never see again. We’re robbed of painting our off-hands blue and silver before a competition, of the conversations that we’d have on our obligatory trips to Kingston, and of the victories and the defeats. Most importantly, we’re robbed of the inevitable camaraderie that makes us feel like we are breaking into another reality and that we’re becoming something bigger than ourselves: all of this fades away with the reality of our lives during COVID-19.
Despite the trials and tribulations I faced during my first year, being a member of the Varsity Fencing team created a community that so many students struggle to find within the aloof confines of UofT. More than that, it provided me with an identity—an official badge that I could display and be instantly recognized by. Although it took me a while to grow into the role of a Varsity athlete, I cherished the guise of someone who had her shit together, who was tough in the salle and in the lecture hall, who could go to two to three-hour practices three times a week, have three competition weekends in a month, and still pull through with a decent GPA. All of this seemed far from being me, but it was the person I aspired to be. And sometimes—on the good days—I was this person. Now, with my blue Varsity Fencing backpack safely stored by the foot of my bed with nowhere to flaunt it and no other identical bags to mistake it with, I don’t exactly know who I am. Am I still the capable fencing badass whose roommate used to brag about her, or am I just one of a multitude of faces staring at her professors through Zoom and trying desperately to keep track of all her online assignments?
Will we ever get back what we lost? Only time will tell. All I know for now is that I won’t have to worry about coordinating my hair washing schedule with the Varsity headshot photo session. Until we meet again on the strips, comrades.
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