There's a rule at Blake that requires freshmen and sophomores to take part in organized athletics at some point in their career at the school.
In seventh grade and knowing that requirement was approaching, Solomon Polansky took a look at the opportunities and decided to try fencing.
"I liked the fact that it had more of a niche feel to it and wasn't so mainstream," he said. "Fencing was something new to explore."
Polansky spent his first couple of years on the losing end of some lopsided scores — "There's a really steep learning curve in fencing," he joked— but never considered quitting.
Good decision. Now a senior, he won his second consecutive Minnesota High School Men's Foil championship, defeating Milo Wittenberg of St. Paul Academy 15-11 in the finals.
Staff writer Jim Paulsen, who claims fencing ignorance, spent some time being educated by Polansky about the sport.
Q: Give me a quick lesson on fencing.
A: There are three types of weapons: foil, sabre and epee. I'll just talk about foil because that's my specialty. What you are trying to do is hit your opponent in the target area, which is just the torso, when you have what's called "right of way." Right of way is basically whoever is attacking or initiating the attack. You can only score a point when you have right of way.
