On the Art of the Sword

My Top Ten Reasons to Take Up Fencing:

10) It hurts less than rugby.

9) It costs less than NASCAR.

8) You can’t drown.

7) Statistically, you're more likely to get injured playing badminton.

6) Lots of historical interest for the nerds.

5) Your spouse will like what it does for your ass.

4) Those tight white knickers are HOT.

3) Two words: fencer thighs.

2) Girls can play too!

And the number one reason to take up fencing…

1) It still feels all thrilling and heroic even if you lose!

But all joking aside, it’s the most intense experience imaginable.

Your heart pounds. Pure adrenalin courses through your veins.

Your teeth grit as you strive to make your body react as fast as your mind can deduce the ideal reaction to your opponent’s threat. Time slows down until you see everything in stop-motion frames of clarity, and nothing on earth matters but the next point.

And a rush like that is not only legal, it’s good for you.

Fencing has to be the single coolest sport in the world. It’s sword fighting, for heaven’s sake; as a fencer, you know your sport came down from the epic conflicts of centuries past. (After all, nobody’s ever defended their homeland from invading barbarian hordes with a football.) It’s got muscularity and power for the jocks, and beauty and finesse for the cranky aesthetes. Countless years before Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, David Beckham, and Michael Jordan, there were Roman centurions and gladiators, King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, Brian Boru and his Fianna, William Wallace, Henry V, French musketeers, and Japanese samurai. On the epic page there are the Knights of the Round Table, and Cyrano de Bergerac, not to mention Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and D’Artagnan, Zorro, and Rob Roy McGregor. On the screen, we have Inigo Montoya, Samurai Jack, and Jedi knights.

But who are we kidding here — all notions of romantic heroism desert you completely when you’re trying to land that next (solid meaty satisfying) BAP on that other guy. After all, he’s had the temerity to step onto the strip opposite (the total indomitability that is) you.

Now, I’m a 50-year-old woman, hardly some teenaged athletic prodigy. Some of my fellow fencers had not yet been born at the time I first began to fence competitively — college foil, FYI. Fencing is the only sport that’s ever really interested me. I took it up again in the summer of 2009 when I was 37, prompted in large part by my doctor’s dire predictions about hypertension medication in the near future if I didn’t get some real exercise, and because I already knew that the usual gym scene leaves me bored stupid. What I wanted in an athletic regimen was something I enjoyed enough, and that kept me interested enough, to come back for more.

And the sabre and foil could not be the more perfect prescription.

So the myriad benefits of cardiovascular exercise have been exhaustively documented elsewhere, so I won’t bother you with that.

What I’m concerned with here, is fun.

The pure, sweaty, exhilarating, take-that-ya-punk, missed-me-by-that-much, WHEW-I’m-so-tired-now level of fun. That’s exactly what you get at the fencing salle.

I have no greater compliment for my longtime coaches and fellow athletes than this — training with them doesn’t feel like work. More like the most interesting and engaging kind of play. During a one-on-one lesson with a veteran coach, the student’s mind is completely occupied: land an attack — stop his attack — complete the pattern — smaller motions, don’t waste effort — streamline the lunge — do everything faster, FASTER! You’ll get so caught up that you won’t feel the burn in your thighs and insteps until afterwards.

Another plus is that your compatriots of the sword are characters — there seems to be a self-selecting rule in place that only vivid, interesting people take fencing classes. (Yeah, you few, you happy few, you band of brothers, I’m sure you don’t recognize yourselves in the above description at all.)

I can hear the protests now. “I’m fat! I’m out of shape! Only lithe, slender, perfectly fit and eternally youthful people can fight with swords! I’m not physically good enough for something like that!”

Pish, tosh. Bullshit, even.

Know what? I was fat and out of shape, but I’m substantially less fat and out of shape than I was when I took up a weapon again. If you keep up any form of exercise long enough, and ask your body — ask it gently, but often — to take on new challenges, it will adapt, because adaptability is hardwired into us. Take up fencing once, twice, maybe even three times a week, and you’ll get stronger and slimmer and healthier without even noticing the amount of effort you’re expending. You’ll be having too much fun to care.

How can I be so confident about this, you ask? Because that’s exactly what happened with me.

See, no one’s going to expect you to instantly go through some Eye of the Tiger training montage and emerge at the Olympic level in the time it takes that ubiquitous Survivor tune to play. Hollywood is lying to you — nobody does that in real life. It took my coach more than thirty years to get where he is now, as he quite frankly, and proudly, will tell you. And every coach I’ve ever met is always pleased as punch to welcome new students.

So yes, really. If you’ve always wanted to fence, or just think it sounds like fun, do it. Go for it. Stop limiting yourself and inventing excuses as to why you can’t work that hard. Working hard at something you enjoy is a blast, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly your muscles will begin to crave the activity. Just let yourself have a swashbuckling great time and don’t worry for a second if you're getting your ass handed to you at first.

If a middle-aged, formerly sedentary mouse potato like me can step onto the strip with a weapon in hand, so can you.