YJO in 3 Days!

Hey guys!

The Yellow Jacket Fencing Club is preparing itself for its Fifth Annual Yellow Jacket Open, hosted in Georgia Tech's Campus Recreation Center, or the CRC as Georgia Tech students like to call it. Every part of the YJO will be run by YJFC members - whether bout committee, armorer, referee, first-aid, or t-shirt vendor. Members who aren't volunteering will be on the fencing strip!

If you haven't preregistered for an event, what are you waiting for? Go to AskFred! Remember - epee and sabre are on Saturday, while foil is on Sunday.

For those coming, please make sure you read the YJFC's CRC guide. It contains general rules for the YJO and CRC, a navigation guide of the CRC, and a list of nearby restaurants sorted by distance. Make sure to read this carefully!

Even for those who aren't planning to fence or don't even know what fencing is, the YJFC encourages people to come watch our annual tournament. Make sure to not crowd on the 5th floor track or get too close to the weapons...

For me, I will wake up at 7 in the morning to get ready, put on a business suit, and referee all day. The next day, I will return to the CRC with gym clothes and a fencing bag by my side as I fence my first YJO as a member of the YJFC. (Last year, I contracted pneumonia the week before YJO. Please take care of yourself in these few days!)

See everyone at the YJO!

Countdown: 2 Weeks!

Hope everyone survived Snowpocalypse 2.0 and kept themselves warm.

Firstly, congratulations to Alumnus Parth Deshmukh for earning his A rating in foil at the Green Gator tournament!

Speaking of foil, yesterday was the mock tournament for foil! Congratulations to Zeeshan Rasheed and Susanna Dong placing 3rd, Elizabeth Vencill for placing 2nd, and Matt Bernstein placing 1st in the mock tournament (left to right).

Tonight, the YJFC will have their first ever Spring semester Gender Segregated Team Bonding Night! Every GSTBN I've been to were fun (and a breath of fresh air from the guys), so I'm excited to participate in it again.

Also, the Family & Alumni Newsletter should be sent out early next week, for those who were wondering. It will include the past tournaments and socials, so there will be a lot in store!

Countdown: 3 weeks!

This week is pretty quiet, but it doesn't mean the YJFC hasn't been doing anything. The Yellow Jacket Open is only 22 days away!

The YJFC has prepared mock tournaments for foil and sabre in the next two weeks to prepare ourselves in fencing and running the tournament. But that doesn't mean we're not going to relax - next Saturday, Feb. 15 is our Gender Segregated Team Bonding Night, a YJFC fencer's favorite social!

Until then, best of luck for those going to Green Gator, and hope to see everyone at the Yellow Jacket Open!

First mock tournament of the year!

UGA Open happened last weekend.

But suddenly Snowpocalypse 2014 happened.  (For those who don't know, Georgia had a previous "Snowpocalypse" in 2011, where a good 3 inches of snow fell and the roads froze, causing an entire shutdown of the metro Atlanta area for 9? days.)  The difference being that 2in of snow fell in the middle of the day, and all roads were in gridlock.  Trust me, I experienced it myself on Tuesday night.

Anyways, I digress.  Just hours ago was our first mock tournament of the year!  These mock tournaments were designed to help prepare tournament committee manage bout committee for the upcoming Yellow Jacket Open, as well as train fencers in a tournament-style fencing.  Pools, direct elimination, etc.

We held an epee event of 10 people - 6 epeeists, 2 foilists, and 2 sabreists.  In general, the group had a fun time fencing each other.  And those who were knocked out of the DEs (direct elimination) continued free fencing as the tournament continued.

From left to right: Krunal Patel (1st), Jack Mueller (2nd), Keith Johnson (3rd), Elizabeth Vencill (3rd).  Congratulations to the Top 4 of our Epee Mock Tournament!

The 14th will be foil, and the 21st will be sabre.  See you there!