Fencers enjoy challenge of ‘chess with knives’

It’s a bone-chilling January night, but at the D.C. Fencers’ Club in Silver Spring, Dana Czapanskiyis beaded with sweat. For nearly two hours, the 60-year-old Takoma Park psychotherapist has kept a succession of sparring partners at bay with a fencing sword called an epee.

“Ready? Fence” is the cry in the makeshift gym. Amid the metallic clank of swords and the beeps from electronic scoring machines, Mr. Czapanskiy charges his opponents, trying to score a “touch.” As they come back at him, he parries their attacks.

All this after only 14 lessons in the sport of fencing.

“It’s like chess with knives,” says Mr. Czapanskiy. “There’s an incredible psychological component to the sport, which I really enjoy, and it’s increased my energy level. And I just feel healthier.”

Each week, Mr. Czapanskiy and more than 1,000 other Washington-area residents, from ages 9 to 80, fence at more than a dozen fencing schools and clubs around the region. They are among an estimated 100,000 fencers who train in the United States, recreationally and competitively. Roughly 20 percent of those belong to the United States Fencing Association and participate in tournaments.

Some people fence for fun, others for fitness, and still others enjoy the competition. Area fencers, in fact, compete in national and international events, from the Junior Olympics to the World Cup Championships.

In the United States, however, fencing is still a relatively underappreciated sport, even though American fencers compete in the Olympics. When the average person thinks of fencing, he or she likely conjures up movie images from films like Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood,” George Lucas’ “Star Wars,” or the more recent “Pirates of the Caribbean” and Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai.”

But instead of swinging from chandeliers or jumping from balconies like film stars, competitive fencers perform a very controlled and elaborately fluid dance with swords on a 6-by-40-foot rubber strip. In most bouts, the first fencer who scores 15 points, or touches, wins. And a touch is what it sounds like — a light touch of the opponent. Fencing is not a brutal sport in which one’s life or limb is at stake. In fact, when the best fencers land a touch, their opponents may not even feel it — though it is nevertheless recorded electronically.

Each of the three swords in the sport — foil, epee and saber — have their own rules as to where a fencer may touch his or her opponent. In foil — a thin, flexible and rapier-like four-sided blade — fencers score points by hitting their opponents in both the front and back of the torso with the tip of the blade.

Epee (pronounced ep-PAY) evolved from the dueling sword. Its fluted blade is long and narrow, has no cutting edge and tapers to a blunted point. Epee touches are also scored with only the point of the blade, but the target area is the whole body.

When using the saber, a V-shaped blade akin to the slashing cavalry sword, the fencer aims for a target area that runs from the bend of the waist, front and back, to the top of the head. A touch can also be scored in saber using the side of the blade.

Foil and sabre fencers wear a metallic jacket, called a lame (and pronounced lah-MAY), because the torso is a valid target area in those two styles; the lame allows points to be recorded electronically. In epee, the entire body is a valid target, so a lame is not necessary — but a fencing jacket is worn. Masks are worn in all three fencing styles, but in saber, the fencing mask has a metallic covering because the head is a target area.

Because of the speed of the sport and since touches can be almost imperceptible, the scoring in fencing competitions and even in sparring is recorded electronically by a wire circuit that runs from the sword, up a fencer’s sleeve and through his or her jacket, until the wire connects to a cable that is threaded to an electronic scoring box, which emits a beep and a light indicating a score. When the button at the tip of the sword is depressed on an opponent in foil and epee, then the electronic circuit is completed, recording the point.

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