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Story by: Lisa Blackwell
Reprinted with Permission.

Cole Harkness likes hitting people.

An instructor at Halberstadt Fencing Club in San Francisco, Harkness started fencing as a way to get his legs in shape but, he says, "it turns out it was a lot of fun."

Fencing, as it does for many people, became Harkness’ life. He went to San Jose State University for its fencing program. Majoring in fencing meant taking all the fencing classes he wanted.

"(Fencing) is the only reason I went to college," Harkness said.

So, when San Jose State dropped its fencing program, Harkness dropped out of school and kept up the sport.

Harkness explained that fencing is a sparring sport; unlike other martial arts, it doesn’t depend as much on form. Largely, it’s a game of thinking quicker than your opponent.

Harkness started teaching in the early 1980s and took courses to earn a teaching diploma. In 1985 he got his master’s degree, which is the highest fencing honor. Earning the maitre d’armes, or the master’s, requires the fencer to be an expert in two weapons and proficient in a third.

There are three types of blades in fencing, explains Fencing.net: foil, epee, and sabre. The foil scores points in a bout with touches to the torso, including the back and groin. This style was used for civilian dueling in the sixteenth century, and resulted in the loser being dead and the victor guilty of manslaughter.

Because of the unfortunate consequences of that style of dueling, epee was developed, which scores points with touches anywhere on the body. This would leave the loser seriously maimed or crippled and the victor a free man.

Sabre, on the other hand, was a military weapon. The blade was not only pointed on the end for thrusts, but sharp on the edge for cutting, both ways of scoring points in modern times. The blades were kept rather dull so cutting was not meant to hack off limbs but rather to create bleeding, messy wounds that would not heal quickly.

Aside from being less deadly, fencing is virtually unchanged from 150 years ago.

George Nonomura, another instructor at Halberstadt, said, "(Fencing) is probably one of the safest martial arts you can do."

"Fencing has been my life," Nonomura said. He started fencing when he was 5 years old and followed his brothers, who were in high school, to class. He competed internationally for eight years and was part of the 1988 U.S. Olympic Men’s Foil Team in Seoul, S. Korea. Now, 38 years after he first discovered fencing, he works for the San Francisco Fire Department and spends his nights teaching (fencing, of course).

Nowadays, fencing is a fairly gender-neutral sport. Competitions are generally gender exclusive, Harkness said, but there’s usually a lot of mixing during training.

During his days at San Jose State there were separate training sessions for men and women, but the hardcore students attended both, Harkness said.

Tammy Lee, 20, one of the young women at Halberstadt, has been fencing for six years. Now in her second year at Berkeley and majoring in plant biology, she comes to the club three nights a week to practice.

"I started because my friend wanted to try it," Lee said. Her friend quit after about a year, but Lee continued on. Now that Lee is in college she doesn’t have as much time to compete as she did in high school. When she moved to the Bay Area from Southern California she asked a friend where to go, and he recommended Halberstadt.

"I like it because it’s a very individual sport, you don’t have to count on anyone else," Lee said.

"The best part of fencing," Harkness said, "is that you use your mind more than your body. Someone once said it’s like chess at 100 miles per hour." [X]