Fencing is not for athletes. Fencing is a dangerous sport. Fencing is only for the rich and privileged.

These are just a few of the myths former Oak Knoll and UPenn fencer Holly Buechel is looking to dispel with her documentary film Fencing for the Edge.

The film, which follows several NJ high school teams (Teaneck, Columbia, Bernards and Pingry) and their fencers through a high school season is in production this year, its shooting artfully coinciding with the 50th anniversary of fencing as a NJSIAA sanctioned high school sport.

Buechel, who helped propel her Oak Knoll team to a state title before becoming the state’s girls epee champion in 2002 and embarking on a successful NCAA career at UPenn which included first team All-American selection as a sophomore, found herself looking for a new project to tackle after earning her M.F.A. in Media Communications Arts from CUNY, and found a perfect fit in high school fencing, a passion she wanted to share with a broader audience.

“I think there are a lot of kids around the country that don’t have a chance to try fencing,” explained Buechel. “Because in their states and schools they don’t have the kind of programs and high school leagues that exist here in NJ. I want to open up the world of high school fencing to them and hopefully see the sport grow to where a lot of other states develop New Jersey sized high school leagues.”

However, beyond getting other states to adopt the sport, Buechel acknowledges that the need to dispel many of the myths and “stigmas” attached to the sport.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about fencing," Buechel emphasized. "That the sport is only for 'rich kids', that fencers aren't 'real' athletes or that the sport is dangerous. At the Olympics, table tennis has more injuries! I want to give people a look inside the sport with Fencing for the Edge, to dispel some of these myths for someone that might be staying away from the sport because of these misconceptions, as well as introduce the sport to others that have never even considered it."

To this end, Buechel has teamed up with Tim Morehouse's "Fencing in the Schools" program. Morehouse an Olympic sabre fencer, who we mentioned in an article last season, has turned his passion for the sport into an ambitious and determined project aimed at spreading fencing to programs to schools around the country, by seeing it introduced in gym classes and expanding participation in the sport across all boundaries. While Morehouse reaches out to schools on a speaking tour, Buechel aims to use her professional medium, film, to get the message out to a broad audience.

Still, despite her experience as an editor and a filmmaker, which has already earned her festival accolades and recognition for her work on educational internet videos with the NEA's STEM initiative, as filming has begun this past month she has encountered a few unique challenges that come with independent projects such as Fencing for the Edge.

"Well, honestly its a lot of work," explains Buechel. "I have to spend time getting to know the fencers to where they can feel comfortable with us filming them all the time. The scheduling, the coordination, the filming and the editing. It has left little time for some important facets of making an independent documentary, like for example - fundraising."

While Buechel has turned to her experience as a high school fencer and coach (she coached the Columbia girls team for two seasons including the teams 2008 championship season), she has relied primarily on small donations from crowd-sourced funding via an indiegogo campaign.

For the campaign, which is has received 6,000 dollars in donations towards its goal of 20,000 dollar for ends in on Jan.3 (that is in 10 days!), the project has teamed up with Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization, which allows any donations made to be fully tax deductible, and helps eliminate administrative overhead.

Buechel, who has continued to fence after her NCAA career, is hoping that the fencing community as a whole will rally around creative efforts like Fencing for the Edge and Tim Morehouse's "Fencing in the Schools" that act as ambassadors to the sport and community that herself and so many fencers like her have enjoyed and benefited from throughout their lives.

“There are tremendous benefits from fencing, particularly at the scholastic level,” explains Buechel. “The health benefits, the social benefits are there. I started fencing when I was a freshman in high school, and now I can’t really imagine a time when I will stop. I want to introduce other high school students, around the country, to the chance to experience all these benefits that I got to experience fencing here in New Jersey.”

You can check out the progress of Holly's project at their facebook page or learn more about the film at the project website. Also if you are in the Holiday mood you can support the project with a tax-free donation at it's indiegogo page. Watch the trailer!