4 Ways to Keep Fencing Fun and Safe in the Age of Covid

As our nation considers another round of lockdowns, we at TMFC thought we should share our list of 4 ways to keep fencing safe and fun in the age of Covid-19

Number one: Purchase athletic, reusable, washable, masks.  Brands from Adidas and Nike all the way down to the tiniest Etsy craftsman are designing better, more comfortable, more stylish masks every day.  

Number two: purchase multiple sets of masks!  Keep extra masks in fencing bags, in the car, in your gym bag or locker, wherever you have easy access to.  There is nothing worse than traveling to practice only for a mask to break, be forgotten, or left out of reach!  

Number three, and this is for coaches as well as for parents: make reminding students to cover noses and faces a matter of fact delivery – no drama aloud!  Everybody loses track of their noses from time to time, especially children.  But if being told to “cover your nose” becomes normalized, fixing a mask stops disrupting practice, keeps everyone safe, and keeps everything running smoothly.  

Number four: Make Covid specific rituals at the club.  Each ritual will have to be discovered organically and be appropriate to the look and feel of each club and community.  Personally, I have picked up my father’s penchant for over dramatization, the occasionally made up word or phrase (He loved reading Dr. Seuss to me when I was little), and self-deprecating humor.  So, perhaps unsurprisingly, I have found myself shouting made the made-up phrase: “Squirt-Squirt!” to signal time to wash hands.  “Mask break!” has replaced water break – after of course training children to walk outside and social distance before removing their masks.  And the ritual that I had the least control over: the Sabre Shake.  

The Sabre Shake was developed by our students at the club.  After I explained to a particularly bright eyed eight year old named Sophia that we don’t shake hands at the end of the bout, little Sophia took off her glove, stuck it on the end of a sabre, and offered it to me as a replacement for her hand.  Very quickly everyone in class followed suit and started offering their gloves from the end of a sabre (and within social distance parameters), and a new ritual was born.  It required a quick reminder about the importance of not waving even a gloved sabre around at an unmasked teammate – but you can understand how much fun the children had with their new habit.  

These recommendations are of course not the end all be all – they are simply a starting point for making the best of the terrible, no good, rotten virus.  But if we can turn safety practices into fun, lighthearted rituals, then we might be able to make it through the coming winter.

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Congratulations to Our Class of 2025 Fencers!

• Ella Bordell was accepted to Wellesley College

• Alex Mckee was accepted to Brandeis University

• Catherine Flanagan was accepted to Duke University

• Richard Lin was accepted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Way to go fencers! Everyone at the club is so proud of you!

Pictured: Alex McKee and Richard Lin

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club Begins Covid-19 Testing For Its Students and Staff

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club has partnered with Mirimus Laboratories to test TMFC students, coaches and staff for Covid-19 infection using a saliva-based PCR pool testing system. These tests will be conducted on-site at TMFC locations beginning in December, 2020.

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club will be one of the first, if not the first fencing club in the country, to provide regular Covid testing for its members and staff. The club will be testing its coaches and staff weekly in addition to 100 members across varied class groups weekly with pool testing.

When Will Testing Occur?
Generally, we will select one day each week and test 4 different class groups for Covid-19 while they are at the club.We will try to notify members on Sunday before the start of a week which day of an upcoming week will be tested and we will rotate days so that over the course of every 3-week period we will test about 85% of the in-person students.

If the need arises, we can focus testing on a particular cohort if we are informed that a particular student has had an exposure elsewhere.

We will not test anyone that has not submitted a consent form.

About Mirimus Inc:
Mirimus, Inc., a leader in conducting high-volume, high-quality PCR testing, is now in partnership with Tim Morehouse Fencing Club to enable weekly COVID-19 surveillance testing of all staff and students using its pioneering SalivaClear COVID-19 pooled saliva testing platform. The SalivaClear platform is composed of three key elements – saliva-based sampling, pooled testing and gold-standard PCR molecular diagnostics – that, when combined, enable frequent, high-quality, high-throughput, low-cost detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

About Saliva Testing:
Saliva-based sampling is simple, safe and noninvasive, and is just as effective as testing nasal pharyngeal swabs, according to studies conducted by Yale University. Unlike intranasal swabs or blood samples, saliva samples can be easily and painlessly self-collected without the need for needles, nose swabs or medical personnel.  Pooled testing entails combining a small volume of saliva (200 microliters) from up to 24 individual samples to create a single specimen for analysis. A diagnostic is then performed on the entire pool. If a positive test occurs, the pool is narrowed into 12 pools of two to pinpoint the positive individual(s). 

Is this test accurate?
Saliva-based pool testing has shown to have been as accurate as nasal swab testing in studies by Rutgers University and Yale University, with no false positives and only 5% of positives being reported as negative. So there is a 5% chance a positive person could report a negative test when they are in fact positive and only a very minimal possibility of false positives. 

Source:
https://www.mdanderson.org/cancerwise/do-covid-19-coronavirus-saliva-tests-work.h00-159384312.html

Who Else Is Using This Test?

The Hackley School, USA Olympic Speedskating, Notre Dame University, and numerous other groups, professional sports teams, universities and team organizations are using this testing process with great success.

How Are Samples Collected?

Saliva testing sample self-collection is simple, safe, and noninvasive and requires no doctor or nurse on-site. Students provide a small vial of saliva that is bar coded, and we send the saliva overnight to the testing lab; the results will be provided to TMFC within 24-48 hours. 

At the club, under our staff’s supervision, students will be provided with a kit that includes a saliva collection straw. Students will provide a small amount of saliva, seal it into a plastic bag and then deposit it into the testing receptacle. The tests from that day will then be overnighted or brought by carrier to the lab for testing. 

What Happens at the Lab?
At the lab, the individual samples are pooled into groups of 24, after which Mirimus utilizes the FDA Emergency Use Authorized ThermoFisherScientific TaqPathCOVID-19 Combo RT-PCR Kit in a modified method to test each pooled sample. The pooled test results are typically reported to WPS within 12-24 hours of sample receipt at the laboratory. If a test is positive, the pool of 24 is split into 12 pools of two,

What Happens After They Test?
Once the lab has tested the saliva group, it will let us know that there are no positive tests or indicate that there are positives within the group. We will either inform a testing group that everyone is negative or we will inform the group there is a positive within their cohort.

If there are positives within the cohort, we will immediately inform the individuals in the cohort, and we will then need to take the next step and have the lab isolate the positive tests within the group to identify the infected person(s).

Who will we test at Tim Morehouse Fencing Club?
We currently have the ability to test about 100 students and staff per week, so we will be able to test about 85% of the club over every 3-week period, with a focus on student groups who attend the club on multiple days each week.

We will do spot testing of various cohort groups each week. Also, if  the need arises, such as someone reporting their child has been exposed to Covid-19, we can then target our testing at a particular group to learn if there has been any community spread.

The lab will only be getting barcodes and not any names. We will have student names and bar codes at the club so there is a certain level of anonymity. 

All students must have a signed consent form from their parent or guardian to be tested.

For More information please email info@timmorehousefencing.com

TMFC Fencers Land a Gold Medal and a Top-8 Medal at Boston Fencing Club RJC #2

Pictured: Gabriel McCarthy and Nazir Primus

Boston, MA (November 2020) - TMFC fencers Gabriel McCarthy and Nazir Primus competed at the Boston Fencing Club RYC #2, a three-day tournament with RYC events in Foil, Epee, and Saber.

Gabriel and Nazir competed in Y-14 Men’s Saber. Gabriel won a Gold Medal and Nazir won a Top-8 Medal, both in the same competition in Men’s Saber, placing out of 20 fencers.

Congratulations guys!

Full Results: https://www.fencingtimelive.com/tournaments/eventSchedule/92A1C28D6D7E402F8486E1F57C03B3F7#today

Jasmina Denner Featured in Fairfield County's Look Fitness Magazine

Photographs of Jasmina Denner by ChiChi Ubiña.

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club’s Veteran Saber Team Member Jasmina Denner is featured in this month’s Fairfield County’s Look Magazine!

The article is a question and answer with Jasmina about her experiences with fencing including her fitness training, the camaraderie she has felt amongst the fencing community and also about her son’s Lysander and Max who are both nationally competitive fencers.

An Except From The Article:
Looking ahead, it would be wonderful to make the national team again, but above all I want to be a role model and encourage young, as well as adults to give this amazing sport a try. I guarantee they will be intrigued by the intricate nature of fencing—it is truly a workout for body and mind! Not to mention, it just happens to be the perfect sport during a global pandemic. Not only do you wear a mask and gloves, but you are encouraged to stab anyone who gets closer than six feet to you!

To Read the Full Article: (Click Here)

We are so proud of Jasmina and all that she has accomplished with her coach Archil Lortkipanidze.

Nowell Gibson wins a Gold Medal and Earns His A20

Pictured: Nowell Gibson

Ridgefield, CT (November 2020) - It was a huge weekend for TMFC fencer Nowell Gibson. Nowell won a gold medal and earned his A20 ranking this weekend at Way Of The Sword’s Epic Epee tournament. He was ranked 1st out of 32 fencers!

Congratulations Nowell!

Click here for the full results.

Tim Morehouse Fencing Club Fencers Bring Home 2 Medals at the Foil and Saber RJCC at Mission

Aria Bevacqua earned her C20 with a Top-8 Finish in the Cadet Women’s Saber Event

(Rocky Point, NY) November 2020 -The 2nd Half of the Mission Fencing RJCC was held this weekend with the women’s events in Saber and the men and women’s events in foil. The tournament took place over two days and featured six events.

Nickolas Rusadze led the way for TMFC with a bronze medal in Cadet Men’s Foil, and he also had a strong top-16 finish in Junior men’s foil. Aria Bevacqua won a Top-8 medal in Cadet Women’s Saber as she earned her C20.

Gerald Wang placed top-16 in Cadet Men’s Foil, andSophia Wong placed top-16 in Cadet Women’s Foil.

Congratulations to our fencers!

Club Results:

Cadet Men’s Foil

• 3rd Rusadze, Nickolas

• 12th Wang, Gerald

Junior Women's Saber

• 28th Bevacqua, Aria

Junior Women’s Foil

• 19th Lee, Bethany

• 29th Zhang, Alina

• 31st Wong, Sophia

• 38th McKee, Alexandra

• 42nd Wang, Reese

Junior Men’s Foil

• 12th Rusadze, Nickolas

Cadet Women’s Saber

• 8th Bevacqua, Aria

• 24th Slobodsky, Sasha

Cadet Women’s Foil

• 12th Wong, Sophia

• 19th Lee, Bethany

• 22nd Zhang, Alina

• 36th Slaski, Caroline

Full results:

https://www.fencingtimelive.com/tournaments/eventSchedule/E9AE587117204012822F9340FA6FED3E#today