The club began in 2004 as the Santa Barbara Youth Fencers. We rented space at Studio E in the Funk Zone and later moved to the YMCA. In 2006 we leased a larger, full-time space and changed our name to Presidio, identifying as an outpost for sport fencing in the Santa Barbara area.

From 2011-2019, we also helped with Presidio North in the Santa Ynez Valley.

In the post-Pandemic world, the club has downsized considerably. Most of our fencers are recreational athletes, coming to practices simply to break a sweat. A few of us travel to Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and elsewhere in the country for competition. To better represent that we are a collection of Santa Barbarians practicing without a permanent base, we changed our name in 2025 to Santa Barbara Fencers Club.

Fencing is a great sport for athletes in middle school and high school. Upon graduation, our young fencers have gone on to compete at various NCAA and Collegiate Clubs.

Tim Robinson is the founding coach of Presidio and Santa Barbara Fencers Clubs and an accredited fencing master with the United States Fencing Coaches Association (USFCA). From 2002-2019 he taught the fencing PE classes in UCSB's Department of Exercise and Sports Studies. Although his current, full-time job at UCSB has nothing to do with fencing or athletics, he continues to coach the UCSB Fencing Team and Club on the side.

Tim received the USFCA Collegiate Coach Award in 2017 for his work with the UCSB Team. That year, the Gauchos finished 3rd overall at the US Collegiate Fencing Championships. Since then, UCSB students have continued to medal in conference and championship events. In 2024, UCSB beat their record to finish in 2nd place overall at the 2024 Collegiate Championships, with the Women's Foil taking the title for a second year in a row. Outside of UCSB, Tim's students have reached medal rounds in various local and national tournaments since 2006.

Although swordplay has been around since ancient times, it was not until the 18th Century that equipment was safe enough for sport, and rules of engagement were codified. What developed was the basis for modern fencing, one of a few sports to appear in every Olympics since 1896. It is a fast, athletic game, made up of three events:

Dubbed the "Sport of Kings," the foil is a descendant of the light, court sword formerly used by nobility to train for duels. It has a flexible, rectangular blade approximately 35 inches in length and weighing less than one pound. Points are scored with the tip of the blade and must land on valid target: torso, from shoulders to groin in the front, and shoulders to the waist in the back.

Foil employs rules of right of way. The fencer who starts to attack first is given priority should his opponent counter-attack.

An electrical scoring system detects hits on valid target. Each foil has a blunt, spring-loaded button at the point of the blade that must be depressed with a pressure of 500 grams or more to register a hit. The foil fencer's uniform features an electrically wired metallic vest called a lame - a hit to the lame causes the scoring machine to display a colored light on the side of the fencer that scored the touch.

The epee (pronounced EPP-pay - literally meaning "sword" in French) is the descendant of the dueling sword. It is heavier than the foil, weighing approximately 27 ounces, with a stiffer, thicker blade and a larger guard. As in foil, touches are scored only with the point of the blade; however, in epee the entire body, head-to-toe, is valid target - much like in an actual duel. There is no concept of "off-target" in epee. Some people refer to epee as "Freestyle Fencing" because anything goes.

The saber is the modern version of the slashing cavalry sword. As such, the major difference between saber and the other two weapons is that saberists can score with the edge of their blade as well as their point. In saber, the target area is the entire body above the waist, excluding the hands. In addition, saber has rules of right of way which are very similar to foil but with subtle differences.

In Santa Barbara, we primarily focus on epee in our drill classes. New fencers over the age of 10 will start with epee. Some intermediate and advanced fencers continue to focus on foil during sparring sessions.