Chestnut Hill Fencer Not Ready to Give Up the Foil

Mother knows best, and Chestnut Hill's Jenny Mittleman has that idea to thank for her growing fencing career.

In fifth grade, it was Mittleman's mother who first encouraged her to consider taking up the foil. "She just saw it advertised somewhere and said, 'Jenny, you're trying this!" Mittleman recalls. "It was the summer between fifth and sixth grade, and I tried it and really liked it."

Mittleman will compete in this weekend's Bay State Games fencing competition. The recent Brookline High School graduate and US Fencing All-Academic Second Team member will compete in the Girls Scholastic Foil at the Prise De Fer Fencing Club in Billerica on Saturday morning.

The 18 year old picked up the sport recreationally at first, but eventually joined a fencing club and started seriously practicing in eighth grade. She currently fences out of the Moe Wen Fencing Club in Somerville, practicing at minimum three times a week.

Mittleman currently has a D rating in the US Fencing system, which rates fencers in their chosen event on an A (highest) to E (competitive lowest) scale. She earned the D rating last year, in what she considers one of her proudest achievements in the sport.

"Getting the D rating was a really difficult competition," Mittleman said. "What made it even harder was that in the gold medal round, I had to go against a teammate and good friend of mine. We had been really close, but I needed to beat her to get that rating. Being able to put our history aside and focus on the competition was a challenge."

Last year, Mittleman won the bronze medal in the Girls Scholastic Foil, sharing the podium with Brookline High School classmate Simone Feldman who finished in the top spot.

As her competitive rating gets higher, there are fewer competitions Mittleman can participate within New England, which makes competitions like the Bay State Games that much more important. "I hope to do really well this weekend," she said. "It will be good competitive practice, because my competitions now are really limited."

The next challenge for the National Honor Society member is college in the fall, where Mittleman intends on keeping her chosen sport a part of her life. "I am definitely going to fence in college," she proclaims proudly. "I love it."