Hello reader,
My name is Zaky Ilyas and I am a 16-year-old student and competitive fencer. I have been fencing for nearly 5 years and have competed on the regional and national levels numerous times. I am also passionate about research and hope to pursue a career in medicine. I have always been interested in finding connections between things I am passionate about and medicine. This is why I have some blog posts from 2019 researching the eye and the name of this website is recognize your eyes. Regardless, my goal is to combine my two passions (fencing and the brain) in a project that analyzes the effect of fencing on the mind and how fencing may have neural benefits. Fencing is a sport that does not only incorporate physical activity but heavily involves the mind in the strategy and decision-making required to score touches. 
Though fencers may have an intended plan in mind, the opponent can interrupt any action with their distance, timing, or action. One of the aspects I had difficulty adapting to in fencing was the ability to respond to an interruption within an intended plan I had. For instance, if I wanted to do a parry six lunge (blade take and then lunge) and my opponent disengaged (went underneath to free his blade), I would find it difficult to follow up with another action. Another common scenario would be I intend to counterattack and provoke my opponent to draw out my counterattack by faking their own attack. Moments such as the examples above are situations that require split-second adjustments and decisions within the brain.
Some may argue that actions in fencing are more coordination based and rely on muscle memory. However, scenarios during fencing matches are never predictable which makes it a more decision-based sport.  Sports in which the environment is continually changing and movements require adaptation are known as open motor skill sports. These sports are predominantly perceptual and externally paced making them more mind-involved. Examples of open motor skill sports include; football, basketball, soccer, and tennis. In contrast, closed motor skill sports such as; swimming, running, and golf are self-paced tasks that are predictable. 
Open motor skill sports have been associated with neural efficiency. Neural efficiency is the ability to use fewer neurons and less brain power when doing a cognitive task. Additionally, participants in open motor skill sports may have an increased cognitive ability. Cognitive ability refers to attention, memory, reasoning, and comprehension functions. Increasing one’s cognitive ability counterattacks cognitive decline which can lead to Alzheimer’s Disease as well as dementia.  
My goal in this effort and blog is to prove why fencing – an uncommon open motor skill sport is to research and eventually test the cognitive processing speed of fencers in comparison to other open motor skill sports athletes as well as closed motor skill sport participants. Open motor skill athletes have been compared to closed motor skill athletes, but fencers have been overlooked in research. There is not much research available online regarding the fencing period. I believe that fencers may have an even faster cognitive processing speed than other open-motor skill athletes such as football and basketball players due to the even faster moments that fencers are required to perform actions. Some of the things I may want to measure in this research project include; the speed of decision making, speed in executing an action, as well as accuracy. These are all elements of fencing that are tested in the split-second actions fencers are required to perform. Throughout this blog, I intend to analyze existing research, come up with new conclusions, and eventually form a final question and test my hypothesis that fencers have improved neural efficiency. 
Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoy reading about my journey
Zaky

Quick Disclaimer: I may not use terms correctly as I am not a professional but I will always link the full study if any of you are interested.