When you think of sports in the Roaring Fork Valley, you might think skiing, hiking, but what about fencing? The founder of the Roaring Fork Fencing Club wants to share his passion for what he calls a "cerebral sport," and kids are catching on.
In a dance studio at the Red Brick Center for the Arts, kids lunge at their partners, skinny fencing foils in hand. Some students aren’t taller than the foils themselves. Masks cover their faces. They wear chest protectors and thick canvas jackets to guard them from the points of their opponent’s foil.
Iola Bennett, who's 8 years old, is one of the half-dozen students in today’s beginning fencing class.
She tried ballet, soccer, figure skating, and just wasn’t that into them. When she asked her parents if she could join fencing, they were a little apprehensive at first.
"They said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? This is a little mature,’ and I said, 'Of course I want to do this,'” she said.
She thinks fencing is just more exciting.
"This is my thing. I feel like this is good for me, like this is what I should do," she said.
Greg Domashovetz founded the Roaring Fork Fencing Club two years ago. He’s determined to build a following for the sport here in the Roaring Fork Valley. He says a fencing club can grow anywhere a coach is willing to invest the time, even in some unlikely places.
“Middle-of-nowhere Oklahoma became a fencing hotbed for a couple of years while a coach built a program there” he said.
Modern fencing is a descendant of duels. But now, it’s a sport like any other.
“Sport fencing now is about scoring points. It’s not about staying alive, it’s not about redeeming your honor or whatever, and it’s definitely not going to help you on, like, the battlefield,” said Domashovetz.
Two fencers face off on the narrow strip, trying to hit their opponent on their torso without being hit themselves. The tip of the foil is the only part you can use to score points, no slashing allowed. The first fencer to score the required number of hits wins.
Strategy is key. You’re looking for a weak moment from your opponent to strike. Defensive and offensive moves flow together, so you might deflect your opponent’s foil with your own, and follow it immediately with something called a riposte, a return attack.
Domashovetz says the sport’s combination of physical and mental challenge is addictive.
“It's you and someone else, and you have to figure it out and use your physical ability, your fine technique and then also have a good strategy," he said.
Fencing’s reliance on critical thinking means that the biggest, strongest kids don’t necessarily have an advantage. Domashovetz says one of his stand-out fencers started last year, when she was just seven.
"Now she’s beating up...13-year-old boys,” he said.
There’s something a little romantic about fencing that draws people to the sport, too.
“Everyone wants to be a Jedi, everyone’s seen ‘The Princess Bride,' "Pirates of the Caribbean,'” he said.
Soren Tudge is a 5th grader in class today, and he brings his own inspiration.
“Sometimes I imagine the Musketeers,” he said.
He admits that fencing is an unusual choice for an after-school activity.
“Some of my friends don’t even know what it is," he said.
But that may change as the Roaring Fork Fencing Club teaches new students about this sport that combines brawn and brains.
