Gifts for the Fencer Who Is Playing Chess at Thirty Miles Per Hour and Making It Look Like a Sport

Fencing is one of those sports that looks simple from a distance and reveals itself to be extraordinarily complex at the moment you pick up a weapon and try to actually do it. The tactics happen faster than most sports allow for thinking, which means fencers have trained their decision-making to a level that only makes sense in the context of someone trying to hit them with a sword. They have a weapon preference — foil, épée, or sabre — and they will tell you why theirs is the correct choice. They have a coach whose footwork drill they have done roughly ten thousand times. They know the scoring rules well enough to argue the referee's call. The gift for a fencer is something that serves the sport, improves the practice, or fits the kind of person who chooses one of the most technically demanding sports in the world and finds it genuinely fun.