Long before Scud missiles, Apache choppers, and Shock and Awe, warriors lived and died by the sword. That spirit survives — albeit tempered by civility and an official rulebook — in a former bowling alley on Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis. Here, the Minnesota Sword Club has operated for 20 years. Just the other day, more than 40 young fencers, ages 8 to 19, filled the room. “The defender doesn’t lunge,” said a voice from the practice floor. “I didn’t lunge!” his opponent replied. “Yes you did!”
Fencing often appeals to young people who aren’t interested in other athletic pursuits. “It attracts smart kids because it’s a mental game, like chess,” said Sword Club owner Rich Jacobson. “It’s kind of like debate, but it’s a physical debate.”
Jacobson’s svelte physique, his wavy grey hair, and well-trimmed moustache give him the look of a dashing European villain in a swashbuckling film. But his East Coast accent, still with him three decades after moving to the Twin Cities, reveals less exotic roots. As a teen in New York, Jacobson took up fencing and competed using the foil and the saber. He moved to Minneapolis to coach several fencing groups before founding his own club in 1982.
Jacobson recalled when there were just 2,000 competitive fencers in the United States. Now, he said, the number is closer to 20,000. At the Minnesota Sword Club, there has been a particular surge of interest among girls. Alyssa Vongries is one of the most dedicated. She’s been fencing half her life. With her slight build, feathered hair, and dark eye shadow, she looks like an average 12-year-old. But armed with an épée, she’s ranked number one in the nation in her age group.
“I fence against people who are older, taller, and more experienced than me a lot,” Vongries said. Does she beat them? “Sometimes. Sometimes I lose to them. But it’s all in the game.” Alyssa’s mom, Lynne Vongries, likes those odds. She often watches her daughter and son, Alex, compete, and she values the losses as much as the victories. “Competition is something that schools tend to try to hide,” she said. “Everybody gets to win, and that’s not the way life is. Everybody doesn’t get to win. Everybody gets to lose a lot and sometimes you get to win. Our kids are learning how to win and lose on an individual basis. I think it’s helping them be better people.”
The appeal of fencing is pretty straightforward. “Kids just naturally hack at each other with two sticks,” noted Jacobson. Movies play a role as well; gunplay may be more common, but sword fights still make it to the silver screen. In the last two years, filmgoers have seen a Count of Monte Cristo remake, heartthrob Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale, Madonna teaching James Bond suggestively about swordplay, and a digitally enhanced Yoda kicking serious butt with a light saber. For Sword Club newcomers, reality sometimes suffers by comparison.
Two men bouting inside the club were secured by wires to a pulley system above their heads. The mechanism allowed back-and-forth movement and conducted electricity, triggering wall-mounted lights and buzzers each time one fencer’s sword touched his opponent’s metal lamé jacket. These sparring partners traded blows and chatted amiably about church activities. Elsewhere in the club, another group learned the en garde position and tried to maintain a slight crouch as they advanced on their rivals. The real beginners were getting a demonstration of how to put on a mesh fencing mask with one hand.
Wayne Hector was an unlikely musketeer, in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. He and his wife, Carolyn, picked their fencing course out of an Open U catalog. Others are more serious about the sport. Linda Merritt, who is 38, has gone from a 44- to a 36-inch waist since she discovered the Minnesota Sword Club. She believes fencing gives you “every bit as good a workout as you would get from taking an aerobics class, but you don’t have to dance around like a big fool.” Anna Leahy, 35, appreciates fencing’s therapeutic qualities. “I really like hitting people,” she said. “Without, you know, hurting them.”— Scott A. Briggs
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