Fencing in Stockholm – in English — Djurgårdens IF Fäktförening

Fencing in Stockholm - no Swedish required

Djurgårdens IF Fäktförening is a fencing club in Stockholm. We welcome complete beginners – children, teenagers, adults and people over 65. Your first two sessions are free, and we lend you all the equipment.

We are a Swedish club, and we will not pretend otherwise. But if someone in the hall does not speak Swedish, we switch to English. That is all there is to it.

You do not need experience. You do not need equipment. And you do not need Swedish.

You may already speak the language of fencing.

Fencing speaks French, not Swedish. En garde. Prêts. Allez. Touché. Every fencer in the world uses the same words – and Swedes learn them exactly the way you will: by copying someone who already knows them.

Our coaches speak English. Our fencing master speaks English and Italian. And fencing is taught by showing rather than explaining: you watch, you copy, you try, someone moves your arm into place. It works long before the language does.

Sign up for your two free sessions →

Or write to us in English at [email protected]. Someone will answer in English.

Safe, welcoming, and nothing to bring

Most people who start with us have never held a weapon before. That is normal, and it is exactly how we like it.

We lend you everything: mask, jacket, glove, weapon and the protective plastron worn underneath. No exceptions, for anybody.

Bring training clothes – long trousers are required – indoor shoes, and a bottle of water. That is all.

Fencing is a combat sport. It is not a violent one.

It is a fair question to ask before you put a weapon in your hand, or your child’s. So here is the honest answer.

You fence in full protective gear, with a blunt and flexible blade, under a referee, in a sport that has been part of every modern Olympic Games since 1896. Training is led by coaches at all times. The injuries that do occur are ordinary sports injuries – sprains and overuse – rather than hits from a blade.

And respect is not an optional extra here. It is in the rules.

You salute your opponent and the referee before and after every bout. If you do not, you are given a warning. It is written into the sport itself.

Swedish fencing runs a safeguarding programme called Trygg fäktning – safe fencing. Its standard is plain: a safe sport is a sport free from bullying, harassment, threats, violence and abuse. We have a safeguarding plan and a code of conduct, and our coaches submit criminal record checks.

Women and men fence each other here.

Fencing is one of very few sports where that is simply routine. On the piste, timing and distance matter more than size or strength – so the training floor is shared, and nobody thinks twice about it.

We already have many girls and women in the club. We would like more. If you are wondering whether you would be the only one: you would not be.

Somewhere to be on a Wednesday evening

Fencing is an individual sport. You still cannot do it alone.

Moving to Stockholm is not the hard part. Making it feel like home is.

Fencing is an individual sport that you cannot do alone. You always stand opposite another person. You salute, you fence, you shake hands, and then you talk about what just happened. Meeting people is not a side effect of this sport. It is how it works.

Our fencers come from Bulgaria, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Paraguay, Ukraine, the United States and Uruguay. And Sweden.

We have almost certainly left someone out of that list. We usually do – because nobody here keeps one. That is rather the point.

You will not be the only foreigner in the hall. You will not even be unusual.

So come on a Wednesday. Someone will show you how to hold the weapon. Someone will lend you a mask. Someone will ask where you are from – and then talk to you about something else entirely, which is usually the moment a city starts to feel like home.

Groups, times and what it costs

We run beginner groups for children, adults and over-65s. These are the times for the autumn term 2026:

Children 7–10, beginners – Mondays 16.30–18.00, Hjorthagshallen, Gasverksvägen 12

Children 11–13, beginners – Wednesdays 16.30–18.00, Hjorthagshallen, Gasverksvägen 12

Teenagers 13–15 – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 16.30–18.00, Gamla fäktsalen, Artemisgatan 19. This group trains fencers who already compete. It is not a beginner group.

Adults, beginners – Wednesdays 18.00–19.30, Gamla fäktsalen, Artemisgatan 19

65+ – Mondays 15.00–16.00, Gamla fäktsalen, Artemisgatan 19

Para-fencing – Mondays 18.00–19.30, Hjorthagshallen, Gasverksvägen 12

Aged 13–15 and new to fencing? The group above is not the place to start. Write to [email protected] and we will find you a group.

Once your child – or you – has started

Beginners move on to a continuation group after a term or so. These train more often:

U11 continuation (7–10) – Tuesdays and Thursdays 16.30–18.00, Hjorthagshallen, Gasverksvägen 12

U13 continuation (11–13) – Tuesdays 16.30–18.00 and Wednesdays 16.30–18.00, Gamla fäktsalen, Artemisgatan 19

Adults, continuation – Tuesdays 18.00–19.30, Gamla fäktsalen, Artemisgatan 19

Already fenced before? You do not have to start in a beginner group. Write to [email protected] and we will place you. We also have an elite group training four evenings a week and an open competition every Wednesday evening – the full timetable is here.

What it costs, per term

Children and youth: 2 850 kr · Adults: 3 250 kr · Students: 2 500 kr · 65+ and para-fencing: 1 500 kr

Plus a membership fee of 500 kr per year. A term runs January–June, or August/September–December.

But start with the two free sessions. You are not invoiced unless you decide to continue.

Fritidskortet pays 550 kr per child, per year

Fritidskortet is a Swedish state scheme for children’s leisure activities, and we are part of it. Every child gets 550 kr per calendar year, from the year they turn 6 to the year they turn 16. The money can be used with us, for both the membership fee and the training fee.

If the household received housing benefit (bostadsbidrag or bostadstillägg) the year before, the amount is 2 500 kr per child.
The money must be used by 30 November each year. It cannot be carried over.
Our beginner groups start at age 7.

How it works: register your child as usual and wait for the invoice. When you pay, choose Fritidskortet as the payment method and sign at Fritidskortet with a Swedish e-ID (BankID). You do not apply for anything with us.

You can also pay at fritidskortet.se – find us by searching for Djurgårdens IF Fäktförening or organisation number 8024019260.

Not sure whether this applies to you? Write to [email protected] and we will help you work it out.

Swedish employers pay for sport. Ask yours about friskvårdsbidrag

Sweden has something you may not have met before. Friskvårdsbidrag is a wellness allowance your employer can pay you, tax free, to spend on exercise. Many employers here offer one, and most newcomers have never heard of it. It is worth asking about before you pay for a term.

How much: up to 5 000 kr per employee per year - the ceiling set by the Swedish Tax Agency, Skatteverket. What you actually get is up to your employer, so ask. One term of adult fencing, 3 250 kr, fits inside the ceiling.
Does fencing count? Skatteverket no longer publishes a list of approved activities, so your employer decides. Fencing is exercise, and you borrow all your equipment from us, so there is no expensive kit to argue about. Ask your manager or HR.
The training fee, yes. The membership fee, no. Swedish rules never allow the allowance to cover a personal membership fee in an association, so the 500 kr per year is yours to pay. We invoice the two separately, which makes this easy to show.
It comes from an employer, so it applies if you are employed in Sweden. Students: use the student rate above instead.

How to claim it: 1) ask your employer what their rules are and how much you have left this year, 2) sign up and pay our invoice yourself, 3) hand in the invoice as your documentation - it shows the club name and organisation number, your name, what the fee covers and the amount, 4) claim the training fee only. We are not connected to the Swedish wellness apps (Epassi, Wellnet and similar), so this is the route.

Need different paperwork? Email [email protected] and we will sort it out. Skatteverket explains the rules here, and this page is the one your employer follows - worth forwarding to HR.

This club was built by a foreigner. It still is.

Our fencing section was founded in 1958 by Béla Rerrich – a fencing master who had come to Sweden from Hungary. Under him the club produced Olympic and World Cup medallists, and in 2025 a Djurgården fencer became Swedish national champion in épée.

Today, our fencing master is also Hungarian. He speaks fluent English and Italian.

So when we say that newcomers belong here, it is not a slogan we adopted recently. It is who built this club – and it is who will be teaching you.

All of our coaches are trained within the Swedish Fencing Federation.

We are a club with national champions – and we teach absolute beginners every single week. Those two facts are not in conflict. They are the point.

Where to find us

We train in Hjorthagen, in the north-east of Stockholm, in two halls.

Gamla fäktsalen – the old hall. Artemisgatan 19.

It is inside the exit hall of Ropsten metro station – roughly 50 metres from the ticket barriers. You walk out of the metro and you are there. In February, that matters more than you would think.

It is a fencing salle and nothing else. No basketball lines on the floor, no other clubs sharing the space. We have fenced there for decades, and it is ours alone. Most of our adult training happens here.

Hjorthagshallen – the new hall. Gasverksvägen 12, a separate hall about 500 metres away, also by Ropsten. This is where most of our children’s groups train. The entrance is at the back, up by the football fields: from the main entrance, take the stairs on the left of the building. Ring the bell and a coach will let you in.

Buses 6, 57, 75 and 76 stop nearby, as do all buses from Lidingö.

No Swedish personnummer? You can still join

This is the wall most newcomers hit, and it stops them before they start. It does not stop you here.

If you have a samordningsnummer, you can sign up yourself, exactly like everyone else.

And if you have neither – no personnummer, no samordningsnummer – you are still welcome. Our membership system can register you as a foreign resident. All we need is your nationality and date of birth. You can log in, you can train, you can compete.

So if the online form asks for something you do not have, do not give up on it. Write to [email protected] and we will register you by hand.

How to start – three steps

1. Sign up for two free sessions. It costs nothing, and you are not committing to anything.

2. Come and fence. Bring long trousers and indoor shoes. We lend you the rest.

3. Decide afterwards. If you continue, we invoice you. If not, that is fine too.

Sign up for your two free sessions →

Questions? Write to us in English at [email protected]. Someone will answer in English.

In your language

🇫🇷 Vous parlez français ?

L’escrime parle français, elle aussi : en garde, prêts, allez, touché. Vous connaissez donc déjà la langue de ce sport – et vous ne serez pas le seul Français sur la piste. Nos entraîneurs parlent anglais, et les débutants sont les bienvenus, à tout âge. Les deux premières séances sont gratuites et nous prêtons tout l’équipement. Écrivez-nous à [email protected].

🇮🇹 Parli italiano?

Il nostro maestro d’armi parla italiano. Per allenarti da noi non ti serve lo svedese: gli allenatori parlano inglese e i principianti sono benvenuti, a qualsiasi età. Le prime due lezioni sono gratuite e ti prestiamo tutta l’attrezzatura. Scrivici a [email protected].

🇩🇪 Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Sie müssen kein Schwedisch können, um bei uns zu fechten. Unsere Trainer sprechen Englisch, und Anfänger sind ausdrücklich willkommen – in jedem Alter. Die ersten beiden Trainingseinheiten sind kostenlos, und die gesamte Ausrüstung leihen wir Ihnen. Schreiben Sie uns an [email protected].

🇺🇦 Ви розмовляєте українською?

У нашому клубі вже фехтують люди з України. Щоб почати, вам не потрібна шведська мова – наші тренери говорять англійською, і ми раді початківцям у будь-якому віці. Перші два тренування безкоштовні, і ми позичаємо все спорядження. Напишіть нам: [email protected].