DON'T FENCE SABRE.
It just looks
painful, regardless of what hand your opponent fences with. ::shudder::
But in all seriousness, facing a left-handed opponent is
hell (for me at least),
especially in
foil, my weapon of choice.
Why
foil specifically? In
epee and
sabre, at least you can aim for their extended left hand and arm. In
foil you cannot; you have to go for their torso. The kicker, though, is that they defend their torso entirely differently than a right-handed opponent--when you face a lefty in
epee or
sabre, you pretty much go after their hands and arms just as you would a right-handed opponent (it's just a protruding extremity, after all), but the chest is another beast completely because all of their parries and
attacks are
inverted. I HATE fencing lefties.
You can also "prove" that left-handed fencers have a statistical advantage by the informal matrix below:
Right-handed fencer vs. right-handed
fencer: Normal.
Right-handed fencer vs. left-handed fencer: Normal for the lefty,
awkward for the righty.
Left-handed fencer vs. right-handed fencer: Normal for the lefty, awkward for the righty.
Left-handed fencer vs. left-handed fencer: Awkward for both.
So, you have a matrix in which a right-handed fencer is awkward anytime they're facing a left-handed fencer, while a left-handed fencer is only awkward while facing another lefty--and even then, they're BOTH awkward, so no one has a clear
advantage.
I HATE fencing lefties.