Sport of Fencing Making Forward Thrust in County : Recreation: The Conejo Fencers are making their mark with a strong program, attracting would-be swashbucklers to engage in romantic combat.

Sounding more like a Samurai than a swashbuckler, Jason Naohara let out a whoop and lunged abruptly at his foe, thrusting a sword toward his opponent’s chest. The 16-year-old athlete won that point, but narrowly lost the practice bout to his more experienced opponent.

“I’ve done a lot of sports, and I think this is the most exciting,” the young fencer said over the din of clinking swords. Sweat ringed his black hair like salt on a margarita glass.

The Newbury Park High School junior said fencing has more appeal than such workaday sports as football or baseball.

“I’m selfish. I’m not a team player. I don’t like sitting on a bench waiting for my team,” Jason said. Besides, he said, fencing carries a rare thrill that other sports can’t duplicate.

“There’s a guy trying to throw this point at you,” he said. “It’s probably the fastest sport in the world.”

Three days a week at the Conejo Community Center, between classes of kiddie gymnastics and Jazzercise, Jason and some 20 other fencers thrust and parry on faded linoleum.

They are the Conejo Fencers, dedicated to the seemingly anachronistic sport of swordplay. It is the only Ventura County club recognized by the United States Fencing Assn.

Although the sport is rooted in the more gruesome arts of dueling and hand-to-hand combat, its romantic side is what attracts many club members.

“I’m a swashbuckler at heart,” said Thom (T.C.) Cate of Thousand Oaks. “I stay up until 3 a.m. and watch pirate movies on Channel 9. I’ve probably seen everything Errol Flynn was in. I’ve always wanted to fence.”

David Varon, a Camarillo bank teller, understands the lure.

“At the toy store, when all the other kids would run up and grab the toy machine guns, I would go and grab the sword,” Varon said. He was 12 when he started lessons with the founder of the Conejo Fencers, the late Duris De Jong. Now 26, Varon recently returned to competitive fencing.

De Jong, who ran the Fencers until his death two years ago, was legendary in local fencing circles. He competed in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics and was a contemporary of Ralph B. Faulkner, who taught Flynn to fence.

After De Jong’s death, his longtime student, Phil Hareff, took over the fencing club. Hareff, a test engineer for a Thousand Oaks optical company, puts novices through their paces at classes sponsored by the Conejo Recreation and Park District.

“Attack. Now parry. That’s it. Now attack,” Hareff said one evening as he put a Musketeer wanna-be through a few basic fencing moves. The instructor wore a well-padded vest and thick screen mask as protection from any misaimed thrusts by his student.

Fencers follow a sequence of moves, although the action in a real match moves so quickly, the pattern is little more than a blur. As one attacks, the other must parry, or deflect the opponent’s blade. The defender then tries to counter with a riposte, or counterattack.

Unlike the freewheeling sword fights in pirate movies, fencers are restricted to a strip that measures 14 by 2 meters, or about 46 by 6 1/2 feet.

“Fencers can come in all shapes in sizes,” said Hareff, who is small and wiry. “What really makes someone a fencer is how much he can think when he’s on the fencing strip.”

Fencers often describe their sport as physical chess, and say the brain must be as supple as the arm. That is another attraction of the sport: In fencing, age and treachery can overcome youth and skill.

“As you lose your speed a little bit, you’re supposed to get it back upstairs,” Hareff said, tapping his forehead.

Last year, the United States fielded an Olympic fencing team whose oldest member was 40.

“With a lot of sports, you hit 25 or 30 and you’re on the downhill slope. The world’s best fencers are in their 30s,” Varon said.

Fencing novice Linda Hostetler, who has practiced dance for 16 years, said age is one reason she took up the sport this summer.

“I’m getting older with the dancing,” said Hostetler, who lives in Thousand Oaks. “I wanted something challenging for the mind as well as the body.”

She is all of 20--old, she said, for a dancer.

Enthusiasts say newcomers like Hostetler are responsible for a surge of popularity in the sport of swordsmanship.

Colleen Walker Mar of the U.S. Fencing Assn. said an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Americans fence recreationally. Membership in the association, which represents mostly competitive fencers, has grown 40% in the last decade and includes more than 10,000 members in 800 fencing clubs.

The biggest growth has been among children. At the 1993 Junior Olympics, Mar said, 925 children and teen-age fencers competed. In 1972, when Junior Olympics started, the association had trouble getting 100 young fencers to compete.

The association says fencing imparts the “reflexes of a boxer, the legs of a high-jumper and the concentration of a tournament chess player.”

Unlike duels of earlier times, fencers today do everything to avoid drawing blood. Hareff said more common injuries are bruises, muscle sprains and heel spurs.

Swords have rounded tips and no sharp edges. Fencers are required to wear several layers of padding. They cover their heads with oval masks, made of heavy screening, that give a fly-eye appearance to their uniforms.

The clothing is so protective that fencers sometimes feel as though they are fighting in suits of armor, especially when their practice arena is not air-conditioned.

Cate, trying to cool down after a bout, started peeling off layers of clothing as if he were going through an onion.

On top he wore a metallic lame vest, which is used for electronic scoring. Direct touches on the vest cause a score light to illuminate. Beneath the lame he wore a standard fencing vest, made of three layers of cotton duck.

Underneath that was an underarm protector made from three layers of ballistic nylon--similar to the material in bulletproof vests. (The protector’s seams are arranged so the point of a blade cannot penetrate through to the skin.) Finally, Cate wore a T-shirt. All were damp with perspiration.

Cate also sported knickers with kneepads, socks and sneakers made especially for fencing.

“When I started I weighed 225 pounds,” he said. “Now I weigh 200 pounds, and it’s all muscle.”

As Cate was speaking, another fencer unwittingly demonstrated one of the sport’s drawbacks.

Michael Jackson, a burly physical therapist, stormed past holding the last six inches of his blade. It had snapped under the force of an opponent’s parry and would have to be replaced.

“This is the bad part about fencing,” Jackson grumbled. “Seventeen dollars!”

The Conejo Fencers club provides basic equipment for beginners, although Hareff said selection is limited because of a lack of funds.

Enthusiasts eventually buy their own equipment, which can run to the hundreds of dollars. One fencing supply company advertises a beginner’s kit for $105, which includes a practice foil, vest, mask and glove. Replacement blades are extra.

Despite these modern trappings, fencing’s history goes back long before the Musketeers. An Egyptian temple, built about 1190 B.C., is decorated with a depiction of a fencing bout.

The modern sport was established in the 19th Century, and fencers today compete with one of three weapons--the lightweight foil, the heavier epee, and the swashbuckling saber--which are based on swords used in earlier times.

No one yells touche in a fencing match; Americans have anglicized the terms. Competitors score points by landing “touches” on their opponents in designated target areas. (The French word touche means touched.) Instead of saying “ en garde! “ at the beginning of a match, the referee--called a director or president--says “On guard.”

In most bouts, the first fencer to score five touches within six minutes wins. A round can be over in seconds because of the speed of the duelers.

When competing with foils, fencers must touch their opponents in the chest or groin with at least one pound of force--”hard enough to penetrate the body cavity,” Hareff explained. Since the blade doesn’t penetrate anything in a modern match, touches are scored electronically instead.

The epee, with a thicker and stiffer blade than the foil, is derived from the dueling sword. In a traditional duel of honor the winner was the first to draw blood, so in an epee, bout, the first fencer to touch his opponent anywhere scores a point.

The largest sword, the saber, is a descendant of the cavalry sword. To score, opponents must land a blow, either with the tip or the blade, somewhere above the top of the opponent’s legs. That is where cavalry soldiers took aim when they fought on horseback.

Other venerable fencing traditions continue in modern competition.

“Fencers shake left-handed, because you always hold your weapon in your right hand,” Hareff explained, adding that a few fencers fight left-handed. “Before the match you always take your mask off and let them see your face, because that’s the honorable thing to do.”

One of the biggest breaks from tradition is the popularity of women’s fencing. In the last century, women would never take part in a duel of honor. But women now compete--usually with other women--in the foil.

Hareff said the women sometimes employ an unusual strategy in their bouts.

“The women foils like to scream,” he said. “Not that it does you any good.”

FYI

Would-be D’Artagnans can try their hand at fencing this fall. The Conejo Recreation and Park District is sponsoring beginning lessons with Phil Hareff starting Sept. 21. The cost is $30 for eight one-hour sessions on Tuesdays or Thursdays. The fencing club also meets Saturdays. For information, call 495-2163.