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Stephan Noonen (right), 12, battles Danny Strock, 14, during yesterday's Presidents Weekend Youth Foil Scrimmage.
I^BENT^00F1^EENT^aki de Guzman, 12, plays soccer, basketball and the piano, but says she loves fencing best of all.
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By HUGH MUIR
For most of us, what we know about swordplay we learned at the movies.
But for members of the Dark Horse Fencing Club, what we usually saw on the screen was swashbuckling, which Webster's defines as "the characteristic behavior of a blustering, swaggering, fighting man."
Dark Horse is the Fredericksburg area's major fencing club, with 30-some members ranging in age from 8 to 74 years. Some swagger, but few bluster. To them, and to hundreds of thousands of other fencers across the world, fencing is a thinking person's sport.
"It is a Mensa game, one where you think on your feet," said Dark Horse President George Havrilak. "It's sort of like three-dimensional chess, where you have to see two or three moves ahead of your opponent, how to respond to different possible attacks.
"Of course, you also have to be in shape."
Or listen to 12-year-old Iñaki de Guzman, a foil fencer for two years, who competed in the Dark Horse Youth Scrimmage yesterday: "It's difficult, and you have to do it on your own. The adrenalin gets to you."
Her mother, Wynne de Guzman, said Iñaki also plays basketball, soccer and the piano, "but it's fencing she loves."
"It is an individual as well as a team sport. It builds self-confidence," her mother said.
Eric Kelly, 15, who "lives just down the road" from the club's headquarters in Spotsylvania County, calls foil "a fast, energetic sport." Based on his four years so far on the fencing strip, he said he had "a disdain for saber fencers."
AN APPROPRIATE NAME
The Dark Horse club is celebrating its 20th year. Club Treasurer Bruce Callander, a member since its founding, thought up the name. "Dark horse, you know, an unexpected winner," he said.
"This is a member-owned club and we have no professional coaches. We have lots of trophies, but no place to put them," he added.
About two thirds of the club's members are male. A majority of them fence foil; another eight fence saber, and the rest epee.
Dark Horse meets Monday through Thursday evenings in the Social Hall of Nativity of the Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church off State Route 3 in Spotsylvania.
The hall is a bright, open room with space for three parallel fencing strips, each 17 meters by 2 meters. Across the hall, the church has loaned the club a classroom for a headquarters office.
Dark Horse has been a guest of the Greek Orthodox church for two years. Before that, it met and fenced in the lower level of The Presbyterian Church in Fredericksburg, and before that in the Rowser Building in Stafford County.
PREPARING FOR NATIONALS
Yesterday's competition was a warm-up/training event for youths still being introduced to the sport, as well as for others in the up-to-14-year-old group preparing for the Super Youth Circuit competition Feb. 22 in Jersey City, N.J.
State and regional competitions culminate each year at the Summer Nationals, this year in San Jose, Calif., in July.
Tom Lauzon, 51, a club coach as well as a saber fencer, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (which recently, to his dismay, dropped its fencing program). His son, Greg, 17, a senior at Courtland High School, also fences saber, having started when he was in the fourth grade.
"He was in a karate class but got bored with it," his father said.
Tom Lauzon and club Vice President Ron Thornton have both qualified to go to the Summer Nationals. Another Fredericksburg qualifier for the Nationals is 17-year-old Lydia Pappas, a senior at Fredericksburg Academy. She belongs to Dark Horse, but to earn extra competitive points to qualify for Nationals, she also competes at the Olde Town Fencing Gang in Alexandria.
Yesterday's foil scrimmage of 21 fencers also included a number of outsiders who came for the experience. Alyssa Pinaro, 14, from Fairfax Station, said she had been fencing for six months.
"It's a way to take out some stress," she said, sweating after a match. "I tried other sports but this is more fun. I know I have a talent for it."
Hugh Muir: 540/735-1975
Email: hmuir@freelancestar.com
WEAPONS The foil is descended from the classic dueling sword, with a slim blade, strict rules of engagement and the most limited target, the torso. Scoring is with the tip only.The saber is modeled on the cavalryman's weapon, with points scored not only by the tip but also by hits from either edge of the blade as well as the flat sides. The target is anything from the waist up, including the head. The epee, whose ancestor is the battle sword, is the heaviest of fencing's weapons. Its triangular blade scores with the tip only. But, as in battle, anywhere on the opponent's body, top to toe, is a legal target. SCORINGFor scoring purposes, all three weapons have been electrified to record a hit (or, as the French say, Touche!). The tips The wiring--and thus the uniform--differs for the epee, the foil and the saber. For the latter two, to identify whether the blade has hit the torso or upper body, fencers wear light cloth jackets containing wire mesh. The saber fencer also wears a wired head mask. If the blade hits the wired area, that triggers a red or green scoring light (depending on which fencer hit first). If an invalid area is hit, a white light goes on and no score is given. The epeeist, with a wide-open target, wears the traditional white canvas uniform containing no wire mesh. If the tip touches anywhere, it sends a signal indicating a score. If that "score" happens to be a hit on the floor or anything else that is not the opponent, the judge disqualifies it. |
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WHAT: Dark Horse Fencing Club
WHEN: 6-9 p.m., WHERE: Nativity of The Theotokos Greek Orthodox Church, 12326 Spotswood Furnace Road (off State Route 3 across from Riverbend High School) ON THE NET: |
