When Cesar Morales shouts out, “en-garde, ready, fence” it seems like a typical fencing class with a half dozen students in black mesh masks, thick, white fencing uniforms and an épée in hand.
But these students are also wearing blindfolds.
This is blind fencing. It’s not about winning the next competition as much as teaching students who are losing their eyesight to navigate things like the subway system and a busy intersection.
The class takes place in a wood paneled room at The Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, where programs cater to people who were born with sight but lose some or all of their vision later in life. The center helps them learn how to navigate the world — and fencing is a key part of the training. Fencing has been a required part of the curriculum since The Carroll Center opened in the 1950s.
Morales, who has been teaching blind fencing there for nearly a decade, said when people lose their vision, they often lose other things too, including their sense of balance, their orientation in space and their ability to walk in a straight line.
“The first thing we do, when they come, we work on their footwork,” said Morales, after teaching an evening class. “For the footwork in fencing, they have to move in a straight line.”
That’s not just important for his students’ technique. It is also critical when they are walking down a hallway or on the sidewalk.
Once Morales’ students have mastered walking in a straight line, they pick up an épée to start fencing. Everyone puts on a blindfold, so there’s a level playing field for those with partial vision and those without any vision at all.
“Think about this weapon as a handrail — it guides you,” Cesar Morales tells his students. He says using an épée and using a cane are similar. You’re learning the layout of the world with the help of a little point at the end of a long stick.
Sofia Priebe, 16, is one of Morales’ students. She’s from Connecticut, but at the Carroll Center for a summer course because she has a rare retinal disorder that means she’s slowly losing her sight.
After three weeks of fencing, she said it’s not just about working on spatial awareness and orientation. It’s also about improving your hearing and sensing.
“It's not just poking at them with your sword and hoping you hit,” Priebe said. “I can tell when people give off a lot of heat or that there is a large solid object in front of me — the way the sound bounces.”
Morales said Priebe started out timid, but now it’s different. She has a secret strategy. The key, she said, is taking advantage of the fact that “nobody can see when we’re fencing and I retreat.”
From a safe distance, she uses her senses and her épée to figure out what’s where. Then, she admitted with a giggle, she is “just ruthless on the attack.”
Dina Rosenbaum, the chief program officer at the Carroll Center for the Blind, said the transformation from rather timid to impressively ruthless is something she sees a lot in the fencing class. Fencing, in addition to helping students regain the ability to navigate their surroundings, offers something else that's less tangible but equally valuable, Rosenbaum said.
“We often say that loss of vision is like a death within you,” said Rosenbaum. “There's a lot of depression when you lose your vision, and the loss is great. ... [Fencing] gives you back some of your confidence. If you can learn how to fence, it gives you that confidence: If I can do this, then I can do other things.”
But soon, Rosenbaum said, these blind fencers aren’t just navigating the subway. They’re also sailing and woodworking and adventuring around the world. But it all starts with some fancy footwork, an "en garde," and a lot of focus.
