Around 30 young children jump and laugh as they learn some basic footwork on one end of the studio. On the other end, the silence is disturbed only by the shuffling of four feet as two people glide across the floor, slashing their swords.

The man, standing tall and drifting about, speaks to the girl with a soft, patient voice, guiding her to anticipate each and every move. The girl is focused in on the same task she is faced with five days a week: successfully hitting the chest protector on the man she faces.

This is senior Taylor Chin. She’s doing what she does best: fencing.

Chin has been fencing since the age of eight, training in the California Fencing Academy and now the Silicon Valley Fencing Academy. Her tournaments have taken her all around the country and the world, including to the Junior Olympics in Baltimore, MD in 2013 where she won 6th place.

“My mom wanted me to get into a sport when I was really young,” Chin said. “I went into ballet and I didn’t really like that, then I went into swimming but I didn’t like that, and then I went into gymnastics but I hated that, and then tennis, I hated that too.”

Fencing was a sport that seemed out of the box to Chin. This uniqueness motivated her to try this new sport. Fencing isn’t a common sport in the United States today — according to the United States Fencing Association, there are about 100,000 active fencers in the United States. This number pales in comparison to numbers such as the 13 million soccer players in the country according to the United States Soccer Federation.
Chin’s mother, Joyce Hirata, says that even after Chin claimed that she was committed to fencing she was skeptical because of her prior indecisiveness.

“I would always ask her if she was happy with fencing, and after a while Taylor told me, ‘You know, mom, I’m happy with this sport, why do you keep asking me?’” Hirata said.

Part of the appeal for Chin is that she feels emotionally connected to the sport, not only on the competitive platform, but also off. She connects with the places and the people. She connects with the bonding and the experience. She connects with the world of fencing.

“There wasn’t any on my floor, but we over complicated everything and ran to check all the other floors and eventually we grabbed six bottles of juice and returned to the room,” Chin says. In the end, none of the six bottles were opened.

“We went back to the room and we kinda just looked at each other like, ‘Do you want some…?’ and we ended up just not drinking it,” Chin said. These experiences only increase her passion for fencing along with the sport itself.
“I really enjoy the challenge,” Chin said. “I guess because it takes physical work. Even if I had a bad day at school, fencing would make me feel really happy.”

As fun as work may be, work takes time. And time is limited. At any given time during the year, Chin misses up to four days of school in a row. This affects her academics and the amount of free time she has as a whole. Chin explains that her teachers are very supportive and help her with the assignments she’s missing.

“Most of the time I try to get the homework ahead of time from my teachers,” Chin said, “like sometimes I’ll go talk to them two to three days before I leave and find out what I’ll be missing in class.”

While the most of the people on an international flight can be found sleeping, Chin sits awake, with the dim light coming down on her and the homework laid ahead. She quietly puts graphite on paper pushing herself hard to finish her homework on the flight, the silence of the plane surrounding her.

With such efficient time management Chin still finds herself struggling to do assignments and notes when she returns. Her incentive comes from her mother. “My mom is really strict about me maintaining my grades, and if any grades drop significantly as a result of my absence, she says she’ll reduce the amount of time I’m allowed to go to fencing practice,” Chin said. This provides her with incentive to try her hardest in all her academic pursuits.

One of Chin’s close friends, senior Erica Paterson shares her perspective on how fencing affects her.

“I don’t really see that much of her anymore. I used to see her a lot during brunch and lunch, but I guess now she’s busier,” Paterson says. “I think she’s really had to change her priorities for [fencing], like she puts so much time into it she doesn’t have much time to do anything else.”

Chin can be found doing her homework anywhere and at any time. She can be doing math on a red-eye plane, reading a book for literature in a hotel room at two in the morning or working on science in cities like Tauberbischofsheim, Germany. But the one time Chin definitely won’t be doing homework is the night before a match.

“Usually my mom and I watch videos from past tournaments to see what I should focus on. But I try to not think too much. Over thinking is not a good thing,” Chin says. “I’m definitely anxious, but I try to suppress it because when you’re anxious you’re jumpy, and that interferes with your concentration.”

Serenity is something that Chin strives for when she fences. She clears her mind entirely. Absolutely and entirely empty. This clear mind can be difficult to achieve in the high energy of tournaments, especially international ones.
Often, Chin can be found competing internationally for the US fencing team in countries like Hungary and Germany. But no matter when or where the tournament is, Chin keeps her mind clear, an art form she has mastered through her years of fencing and possibly the key to her change in persona after practice.

“After she comes home from practice, she’s very tired, but she’s very happy,” Hirata said. “She’s very different after fencing.”

Her practice is run by her coach, Aleksei Murugin, someone Chin admires and respects. Murugin has been working with her for about two years now and has furthered her work in international competitions.

“The thing I like about him is because he studies fencing… and sometimes he teaches me things that I feel like he comes up with on his own, that’s how much he thinks [about fencing],” Chin said.

“Coach Aleksei remolded the way Taylor fences,” Hirata said. He really took everything and started from scratch, teaching her a new style of fencing and it’s really working for her.”

As the coach calls an end to the practice, the class of young children look to their parents with a smile of innocent pride. Fifteen meters down the long room, Taylor stands upright, rests her sword on the ground, and removes her mask. She’s happy, exhausted and ready for more.