Instill character, maintain physical fitness, and experience the excellence of victory in competition through the sport of Olympic Fencing
The Tri-Weapon Club is not the usual fencing club or the usual kids' club. Unlike many fencing clubs, and sports clubs in general, we pride ourselves on building a community which develops leaders and people of character. Our families get to know each other and become part of the Tri-Weapon family. Our youth athletes learn to teach, they learn to lead, and they learn to carry themselves with pride
, a sense of respect, and an awareness of how to behave in ways which demonstrate their character. Second, Tri-Weapon considers your individual needs to reach competitive success. Youth athletes of all levels of ambition are welcome and appreciated at Tri-Weapon. Some clubs bring in fencers just to fill classes and keep the doors open without having a sense of who the athletes are and what their goals are. Some pull in large groups of people, and then only focus on a small group made of the few athletes they believe are promising. At Tri-Weapon coaches will work with parents and athletes to identify competitive goals and make a plan to reach those goals. Whether you want to compete in local competitions, win local competitions, perform regionally, nationally, or get recruited to a college team, our coaches are aware of what type of training schedule and activities you need and will help you build your individual path to success. Third, TWC provides a complete education in the sport of fencing and instills the ability to function independently. Tri-Weapon requires athletes not just to be successful athletes, not just to be good teammates who exhibit sportsmanship but to be competent individuals who can contribute to the sport of fencing. Students are required to become certified in some area of fencing knowledge - coaching, refereeing, tournament management, and equipment repair are the available options. This requirement deepens the athlete's ability to be involved in fencing, it allows them to work in the fencing community and make some money, and it provides them a foundation for skills that will aid them in college and the professional world. Athletes are also expected to have the skills to go to competitions and perform without having excessive oversight
Youth athletes train together Saturday afternoons from 2:30 - 5:00pm with 30 minutes afterwards available for additional bouting and drilling time. During the week they have several opportunities to train in classes for their specific fencing discipline (foil, sabre, or epee), as well as opportunities for bouting, drilling, and one on one lessons with our experienced coaches. Our athletes have the opportunity to train alongside University of Maryland Baltimore County's fencing team, as well as several athletes who have medaled or won at national events, and some athletes who have competed internationally. Special clinics as well as tournaments hosted at the club are routinely scheduled for Sundays. Club members and students enjoy an environment that is structured and family oriented. Community among the members is constantly stressed. The coaching staff is 100% dedicated to developing a supportive cadre of fencers and supporters of fencing that are knowledgeable, dedicated and committed to the growth of the sport. TriWeapon Fencing Club, and Salle Palasz were founded by the late Richard Oles, fencing master. They are the longest running extant fencing clubs in Maryland. The clubs are currently being run by the combined efforts of members of Coach Oles's family, and his students. Please contact us if you are interested in getting your son or daughter started in fencing, or moving them towards a more competitive level. Salle Palasz welcomes men and women fencers any weeknight we are open. Lessons and bouting are available in all 3 weapons. Beginner classes are held on Saturdays from 12:30pm - 2:00pm. Athletes in our Tri-Weapon program seeking greater competitive advancement can schedule individual lessons with their coach for a reasonable added cost.
05/31/2026
Thank you to the fencers, parents, and coaches who volunteered today to help with setting up our new space. As soon as we moved in, we got strip markings set up quickly with the electric boxes so we could run practices.
Now we have the first of our floating floor platforms built. It is a frame with a floor so we can set up our grounded strips without redoing the entire floor or having the metal lay directly on the hard floor.
These will be more efficient and allow for us to have several full length grounded strips with run off up and running much more quickly than we would have otherwise.
Our new space will have full length grounded strips, a well developed workout area, and a separate training room with multiple dummies, arms, targets and agility exercise tools permanently placed.
Thank you everyone who has been part of helping us get to this new space and who is helping us turn it into an awesome sports space. For those who have been away, we look forward to welcoming you back soon once we're ready to fully re-open beyond our current partially open state!
We had multiple comments today about how this new space is the best space so far! We're excited to actualize its potential in order to help all of our athletes actualize their potential!
05/21/2026
We hope everyone has a safe fun holiday weekend! We will be closed Friday and Saturday. We will re-open Monday evening and follow our regular schedule next week.
05/17/2026
Congratulations to Rook on earning his B26 today!
05/14/2026
Looking to start fencing? Sign up for our beginner program today!
Happy Mothers Day to all our Fencing Moms past, present and future! We appreciate you and our fencers wouldn't be the amazing athletes they are without you!
04/25/2026
We made major headway tonight moving things into our GIGANTIC new space. An exciting step for the club. The space looks great and should let us set up some excellent options for training and development.
04/13/2026
Congratulations to TriWeapon Alumnus Max "Timber" Bonsteel!
Timber joined TriWeapon in elementary school and continued with us until graduating High School and achieving Knighthood. He held several leadership positions in TriWeapon, including Co-Head Boy, Foil Captain, and Head Armorer. After leaving TriWeapon he continued fencing at Denison University, and continued training in our adult program Salle Palasz during school breaks.
Timber is now a senior and is captain of the foil team at Denison. Yesterday, Timber finished in the top 20% in his event of over 140 people at the InterCollegiate Fencing National Championship. Today, his foil squad finished in 2nd Place in the team championship.
Congratulations Timber, we are all proud of you and are glad to see your hard work and training paying off.
04/06/2026
Due to a water issue at the mall we are closed tonight with plans to re-open tomorrow.
CLOSURE 1/28/2026: I was hoping we'd be able to open tonight. The lot is passable, but there are still large areas of ice in our section of the lot and our sidewalk is not clear yet (our area is not really intended as a parking area). The nearby parking is clear but you'd still have to walk across the ice and the unclear sidewalk.
A handful of students have already communicated they would not be able to attend tonight and I just received a notice that local schools are switching to virtual for tomorrow and Friday. As such, it seems prudent to close for tonight rather than have people risk the ice for a practice that might not have other attendees.
Hopefully we will be open Friday. Please let me know if you anticipate either being able to attend or not attend if you would normally by there Friday so we can factor that into the decision.
05/31/2026
05/14/2026
05/11/2026
04/25/2026
04/13/2026
02/28/2026