Aaron Askanase, a wheelchair user, had been searching for the perfect adaptive sport, and he found it: parafencing.
“I was looking for an adaptive sport that ... was going to make me feel good after I left, not in more pain,” he said.
He has been training at Boston Fencing Club for the past eight months, got a chance to test his skills Saturday against Noah Hanssen, a Paralympian who competed in Paris last summer.
“It felt good that I scored a couple points,” Askanase said.
Hanssen, along with his coach and teammate who also competed in Paris, were in Boston to raise awareness and get people excited about their growing sport.
In wheelchair fencing, two athletes sit in stationary chairs, positioned at an angle across from each other. Like in able-bodied fencing, parafencers compete in foil, épée and saber and aim to strike their opponent first with their blade. Athletes compete in different categories depending on their disability.
Fencing, one of the original eight sports included in the inaugural Paralympics in 1960, is seeing a surge in popularity ahead of the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles, said Eric Soyka, the Team USA coach, including in Boston.
“We’re noticing that a lot of clubs are becoming more and more interested in parafencing, and they want to have athletes in their facility,” Soyka said.
U.S. parafencing set out growth goals in the four years before the L.A. Games, and has already hit some of those targets in the first year. They hope to increase the number of parafencers, referees and coaches as well as win a World Championship or Paralympic medal.
“U.S. Fencing is pushing very hard to expand parafencing around the country,” said Nina Sayles, the Boston Fencing Club’s director of community outreach and development. “With L.A. 2028 coming up, we are certainly looking to be able to put the best U.S. team forward that we can, so it’s a goal all around the country to expand the sport.”
Wheelchair fencing is a unique sport in the adaptive world, said Hanssen.
“There aren’t that many one-on-one, almost combat sports in adaptive sports right now,” he said at the club event Saturday. “There’s a lot of strategy and tactics to it. It’s an individual sport. And ... those things combine together to really be something unique.”
Hanssen, a graduate student at University of Maryland, has also participated in wheelchair basketball, sled hockey and wheelchair track and field.
Hanssen’s teammate Victoria Isaacson was also at the Boston Fencing Club.
“I would explain wheelchair fencing as a mental and physical game,” said Isaacson, who trains in New York. “It’s a really good sport for you because you’re competing on your own individual self, but you have a team behind you — cheering for you, training with you, backing you.”
Isaacson has fenced since she was 13, and started parafencing after an accident when she was 17. She is a doctor of occupational therapy who also competed in Paris at the Paralympics in 2024.
Most of the Boston Fencing Club’s programming is for able-bodied athletes, but its space is fully accessible. They have offered occasional adaptive lessons and workshops since 2019, and formally relaunched the parafencing program in 2024.
“We really want to be able to accommodate anybody who is looking to try fencing,” Sayles said.
