Lunge Date

“Advance! . . . Advance! . . . Lunge! . . . Retreat!” Instructor Carlos Fuertes’ steady commands slice through the warm air. So, too, do the swords.

And it all happens at SwordPlay, a flashy gym of sorts for the Errol Flynn or “Braveheart” set. It’s a bustling place, filled with pirate-wannabes and Olympic hopefuls, science-fiction fans and archery buffs.

Under Fuertes’ expert eye, boys and girls as young as 5 take up swords, perhaps at the urging of parents or with dreams of becoming the next Olympic champion. Adults come, possibly to resurrect happy memories of old movies and mock duels with siblings around the holidays, when cardboard tubes that once held Christmas paper symbolized a blade. And actors appear at the studio, some hoping to fill positions at next spring’s Renaissance Faire.

On a recent weeknight, Fuertes directed about 30 students--young and old, male and female--through a series of drills. After a one-hour stretch-and-workout session, the students stand in military formation, feet spread and knees bent slightly for balance.

They have no swords but hold their sword arms straight out, moving forward and back to Fuertes’ commands. “Advance!” They shuffle forward, trying to preserve good form and not wiggle their hips. “Retreat!” They shuffle back, some still not sure how to control their hips.

“Don’t do the hula,” Fuertes jokes.

Five years ago, Tim Weske opened SwordPlay for the community to use like a local gym where participants pay monthly membership fees. Weske, who has taught stage combat since 1984 for theater, television and film, said he would like his studio to shatter some of the misconceptions attached to this 16th century art.

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“It’s boomed because it’s become fashionable,” said Kerry Logan, director of SwordPlay. He attributes the trend to fencing’s increased visibility in advertising spots and television shows such as “Xena: Warrior Princess” and most recently the medieval drama “Roar” as well as such films as the “Star Wars” trilogy and “Rob Roy.”

Indeed, the United States Fencing Assn. reports that approximately 12,000 people belong to certified fencing studios in the United States, an increase of 2,000 members since last year. There are just a handful of fencing studios in the Los Angeles area, but just five months ago, Tigran Shaginian, a former instructor at SwordPlay, opened another fencing studio in Burbank called Swords.

California ranks third in the nation in the number of people who belong to private studios, according to the USFA.

As beginners practice at SwordPlay, experienced students Nick Escobar and David Bienert get ready for a duel. They face one another, each wearing the full fencing apparatus of hood and gloves, their torsos and hips wrapped in a lame, a white straitjacket-like vest lined with metallic thread, extending just over their bluejeans.

Each raises the sword to his face in a polite salute, then they advance and retreat using foils, a type of blade with a rounded electronic tip connected to a cord that runs along the ceiling like a telephone wire.

The men lunge at one another, aiming for the shoulders, chest or stomach. Ultimately it is Escobar who gets tapped in the target areas five times, the total needed to be pronounced “dead.” But he who dies by the sword comes back to live by the sword.

Escobar, a Burbank High School senior who admits he had never been athletic in the past, has come to the gym about three times a week this summer. When he first walked into the fencing studio two years ago, he was struck by the beauty of the sport.

“It was almost like the interaction of the blades was articulating a thought to me,” explained the pensive 18-year-old. Then he shrugged. “It’s kind of a kooky sport.”

Like many men in the studio, Escobar has adopted the fencer’s look--his brown hair worn long, his chin and upper lip covered with a sculpted goatee and mustache.

For Bienert, a 39-year-old Granada Hills resident and sound engineer for a local production studio, fencing means forgetting about personal problems.

“I took this up because I was in the middle of a divorce and needed something that helped me focus,” said Bienert, also sporting the trademark goatee. “The only thing you focus on is this,” he said as he pinched the tip of the sword with his gloved hand.

The sport’s appeal is also, well, a two-edged sword. Its demands and grace can attract newcomers, but its reputation as an elitist enterprise can repel others. And unlike golf, it boasts no Tiger Woods.

“My one stipulation was that we don’t have an elite, snobby attitude in here,” says Weske.

But such is the Hollywood version of fencing. The movies can mislead in other ways too.

“There are people who when they first get the foils, they automatically do what they see in the movies, which is just hit the blades together,” says Logan. “But the point is to hit the other person.”

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And those who try fencing for the first time are often surprised by the mental endurance needed to be successful.

“It is very hard to do because it teaches you mental and physical discipline, focus, concentration, control, putting the mind and body together, coordination and positive thinking,” says Weske. “It’s called being in a bubble. If you think of anything else, you’re finished.”

Bill Murphree is perhaps the best proof that fencing is a physical chess game. A paraplegic since an accident three years ago, Murphree fences from a wheelchair and is known as one of the most “impenetrable” fencers in the studio.

Murphree, who learned to fence before the accident, takes on opponents of all kinds--and often wins. It is the mind and human spirit, says the 35-year-old Reseda resident, that makes a fencer a fencer.

“You’re fighting yourself more than your opponent,” he says. “If you get hit, it’s your fault. You win or you lose.”