This article was published on October 10, 2016

These crazy fencing videos beautifully visualize the complex sport


I don’t know a lot about fencing, but after having watched this video I feel like I’m quickly falling in love with the sport.

The hilariously-Japanese name ‘MORE ENJOY FENCING’ is hiding something very cool: A visualization of a sport that’s notoriously confusing.

In the video above, we see two people fencing while their sabre is being tracked by colorful lines. One of them is Yuki Ota, award-winning fencer and founder of the Fencing Visualized project that produced these videos.

The tracking lines are meant to improve the viewer’s understanding of what is generally seen as a very complex sport. Unfortunately, the voice-over is in Japanese, but even the visuals give a great impression of the fencer’s tactics and agility.

In a second video, we get a glimpse at how the first was made — a lot of tracking cameras. There are also other visualizations introduced — we see how hard the athlete’s feet hit the ground and something resembling a health meter for both players.

The project went even further and used the visualizations in a real-life match by displaying them on a screen behind the fencers. While it’s not very practical for your typical fencing match, it might prove to be a useful training tool.

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