Facilities

The Minnesota Sword Club facilities are best described as BIG. The fencing floor is 6000 squre feet of double sprung wood flooring. It provides a soft but strong floor for athletics and helps prevent injuries to the feet and knees. A second room is used for our youth classes. It is carpeted and next to our parent's work area/game room.
The entire facility is over 10,000 square foot including: a sitting area overlooking the main fencing floor, the youth fencing room, a second viewing area overlooking the floor from the side, changing rooms, an equipment repair shop, and what we call the Game Room. There are desks and tables with plugs for portable computer so parents may work while waiting. We even have a computer for parents to use.

Because of our large size we often run several classes at the same time, which is especially convenient if more than one family member is practicing. Bouting for practice is also available except for the first half of kid's classes. Permanent strips are laid out across the entire floor with six overhead reel and score boxes. We plan to soon increase the number of overhead setups to Ten.

The building was originally created as a 10 lane bowling alley. (Sorry, but we took the pin setters out.) If you look at the floor the lanes are still visible. It is below ground level and has natural insulation from the summer's heat. We practice all year round without the discomfort of hot weather.

The main fencing room at the Minnesota Sword Club. Its about 6,000 square feet. Along the left top, one of the two spectator viewing areas can be seen. Parents often stand or sit along the floor watching as the classes are held. Four of our five overhead scoreboxes can be seen along the ceiling.

The youth fencing room. Its about 2000 sf in size. To the right, off the picture, is the game room/parents work area.


This is one of the parent's seating areas. The rack is for beginners equipment, which was being used and left in somewhat of a disarray during practice. On the right bottom corner is the counter where the coaches do administrative work and parents purchase new equipment.


During youth and teen classes parents use this area to do work or just read; as shown above. We call it the Game Center because after classes the students can hang out here and play board games or higher-order thinking games with one another. Sometimes they wait to be picked up and do homework. There is a good quality computer just to the right of this picture for parents to use.