Zulfi, fencing master

This summer one of the fencing masters at my club, Master Zulfi, died at an old age of 85. He continued to fence until he was 80, and even after he could no longer participate he continued coaching until 2 ½ months before he died. I was fortunate to receive multiple lessons from Zulfi and it’s amazing how much he knows about fencing. He’d fenced for 70 years. Here they have put up the biography of Zulfi on Youtube, parts 1 and 2. It’s interesting to watch because all of the fencing scenes were filmed at the club Cardinal Cisneros where I currently fence.

Zulfi spoke French, Arabic, Spanish and English fluently, being originally from Egypt. Zulfi fenced on the olympic team for Egypt, He came to Spain in 1966, married a Spanish woman in 1968.

Zulfi talks about how he enrolled in Medical school to make his mom happy, but he spent most of his time fencing eventually being invited to fence for the Egyptian national team.

“I remember that I went to fight, I didn’t think about winning, I just thought about struggling. I didn’t think about losing, the thought of losing never passed my mind. I just thought about the fight/struggle. I was so stressed because imagine at 8 am fence fence fence fence fence I was exhausted. My fencing master told me that to him it didn’t matter, if I came in the top 8 then for him that was great. I went to this little bar, DPM (I don’t want to se de puta madre) so I went to this dpm bar that had excelent pastels, coffee with milk etc, and it animated me, I passed to the semi finals, the finals, I felt something romantic, the smell, the sport. The final assult began .. 1 – 1 , 2 – 2, 3 – 3, he was English. Now he was 4-3 , he was wining. I won distance, advance, retreat, advance, when I hit him, my blade broke at a 90 degree angle and I won. I remember him taking off his mask and telling me, in a beautiful french, you deserved it. I love it I just love the fencing."

“I like teaching, it makes me happy. I make jokes, I enjoy it. I’m happy, fencing is in my veins, really.”




In the first video, Paco Fuentes, one of the best, if not the best foil coach in Spain talks about Zulfi, and about how Cardinal Cisneros is the oldest fencing club in Madrid.

Zulfi was such a sweet man, he called me Strawberries and Cream whenever I came over to say hi. We went to visit him in the hospital and he gave us a fencing lesson from the bed, which made him really happy. I’m glad to have had the privilege of meeting and knowing Zulfi.