My companion leaned over and murmured, “The only sports faster are those involving bullets.”
“Sure,” I thought to myself. “I bet he says that to all the newbies.”
You ever hear the expression “Blink and you’ll miss it?” Yeah, I blinked and missed it.
“It” was a fencing match, and bullet-guy was Scott Chapman, a fencing instructor who’s been running a local fencing club, Salle des Fers—literally, “Room of Iron”—for more than a decade now.
Chapman’s students run the gamut from ages 9 to 57, and their backgrounds range from grade school student to dentist, but recently there haven’t been as many of them. Fencing students, that is, not dentists. He’s only got one of those.
As for the shrinking pool of students, it’s a recent development. The economy isn’t helping much, but mainly the problem is a wrong impression as opposed to the wrong price, Chapman said.
“Ninety-five percent of people are inspired by the swashbuckling,” he explained. “Theatrical fighting is slow and big so you can see it. Errol Flynn excelled at making it look easy.”
Maybe a little too easy. People will start off, Chapman said, and then realize it’s going to take them more than a lesson or two before they’re ready to cross blades with the likes of D’Artagnan or Zorro. Fencing is a martial art, after all.
I’d have done well to keep this in mind, having come to Chapman with the oh-so-slightest case of overconfidence—right about now my wife casts her eyes to heaven, muttering “slightest?”—having fenced with a historical society in my teens.
Overconfidence is a terrible thing when facing a guy with three feet of steel in his hands and 11 years of making the aforementioned three feet of steel do exactly what he wants it to. (More on overconfidence in a bit.)
The good news for those in search of a great workout is that you’re going to be using muscle groups you never knew you had. The bad news is that the muscle groups you never knew you had are going to protest. Mightily.
Even holding the proper stance—front leg bent with foot pointing forward, rear leg out behind you with the foot at a right angle to your body—is a workout. Start throwing lunges and actual, you know, fencing, into the mix and, as the saying goes: It’s on.
But back to overconfidence, because (and this is being kind) there’s no way you would call what I was doing fencing: There’s an old saying, something about broad sides of barns and being able to hit them. Yeah, Chapman is considerably smaller than the side of a barn, but there’s a pretty good chance I would have missed one of those, too.
Sadly, this is how things played out.
Chapman: Standing there en garde with what would have been, had I been able to see it through the mask, a bemused expression on his face.
Me: Trying to keep everything I’d been shown straight in my head: arm bent, foil point pointing inward, aim for his chest, step off with right foot and lunge ; right out into oblivion. My carefully planned, flawlessly executed strategy would have succeeded in what would have been a flawlessly executed touch, had Chapman been about two feet wider than he actually is.
As I stood there, fully extended in a lunge that passed somewhere around a mile off to his right, pondering what to do next (hint: step back), Chapman gave me a moment to think about it (which, considering, was awfully nice of him), and then cheerfully ran me through the middle of my chest.
He was quite the gentleman about it, though, and that’s the great thing about him. He takes what could be an otherwise overwhelming experience and presents it in a manner that’s easy to follow, even for those of us with the dexterity and footwork of a drunken sailor (my words, not his). Chapman is very good about finding something to compliment about your technique while still showing you exactly what you did wrong.
In the end, I would highly recommend anyone interested in either learning to fence (Salle des Fers is the only fencing club I could find for non-students in the area) or looking for a great workout.
If you come away from one of Chapman’s classes not drenched in sweat, you’re doing it wrong, and he’s going to make sure that doesn’t happen.
INFOBOX: Feel the burn
Anyone interested in getting the feel of steel in their hands (and the burning feeling in their legs, arms, shoulders, etc.) may call Scott Chapman at 541-4123.
All for one, and one for Nick Walter. Contact him through the executive editor at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 23-30, 2008.