Fencing, the Art of Physical Chess

In a way, the Escrimeur Fencing Club emerged from a disappointment. When Leon Spector, along with his wife Marina, immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union in 1990 he brought his insatiable enthusiasm for fencing with him. But Spector quickly realized, to his disappointment, that the nearest fencing clubs were located in either North or South Jersey.

 “(Spector) went (to the clubs in North Jersey) for a while but it was a long commute and going there after work wasn't really an option,” said Marina. “He was really disappointed.”

Understanding her husband’s passion for the sport—Marina said that when they first started dating Spector invited her to watch him fence, she did, and now they have been together for 26 years—she suggested that he start his own club.

“I didn’t even think about starting my own club,” Spector said. “But sometimes it’s the wife, you know, that can give you the push you need.”

Spector did not begin devising plans to start his own club right away, Marina said, but he began coaching at the Altitude Fencing School in Red Bank, in 2005.

“I wasn't trained as a coach, I was trained as a fencer so coaching gave me another dimension in my approach to fencing,” he said.

But with the idea of starting his own club planted in his mind, a year later Spector opened Escrimeur as a program with the . His first group, he said, consisted of only two students.

It was at the YMCA in 2008 that Spector met Bill Chau, an equally enthusiastic fencer and coach who would later become one of the coaches in Escrimeur. He started fencing in seventh grade and later created his own fencing club while enrolled at La Salle University when he discovered the school did not have one.

Chau specialized in foil fencing, where the fencer scores by touching the opponent’s torso with the tip of the blade. Spector liked fencing with saber, where it is possible to score the entire upper body with either the tip or the edge of the blade.

“I watched (Spector) fence and I thought, ‘Wow this guy really knows his stuff,’ ” said Chau. “I told him that I would teach a foil class for him if he taught me saber.”

Spector continued to operate Escrimeur from within the YMCA and slowly expanded the club to include more members. He eventually approached YMCA about branching off to establish his own club and in 2011 Escrimeur opened its new location in .

On Saturday the Escrimeur Fencing Club attended Health and Wellness Day held at the to demonstrate foil and saber fencing.

The Spectors’s daughter Arielle, 17, was one of the student fencers who engaged in a bout, or match, of saber fencing.

Arielle, like her father, drew her love and inspiration for fencing from the stories of “The Three Musketeers” and “Zorro”.

“I started fencing in fifth grade and now I’m in 11th grade,” Arielle said. “I enjoy being at my dad’s club and fencing because I always meet new people and I have great friends there.”

Another student, Barrett Ziegler, 17, of Wall Township said that he generally does not enjoy doing sports but became intrigued with fencing after participating in some open fencing classes held in his local park.

Ziegler said that fencing is a sport that enables you to expand yourself intellectually because it requires creating strategies to defeat your opponent in addition to responding quickly to attacks.

“I also find that (fencing) incorporates itself into my school life,” he said. “I used to get nervous about tests but now I approach them the same way I do fencing: try not to lose your head.”

Spector calls fencing “physical chess” and says it is the idea of strategizing that surprises his students the most.

Some of his students, he said, initially come with the mentality that they are going to swash and buckle, but when it comes to strategic thinking and beating one’s opponent, not everyone survives that.

“They learn that fencing requires work but we have a lot of members who stick to fencing and they enjoy it,” Spector said.

One of the things that Chau finds so interesting about fencing is that, because it requires so much focus, you do not realize you are exercising.

“I’m 58 and I can touch the floor without bending my knees,” he said. “You can start from the seventh grade and keep on going. There are even tournaments for people aged 80 years and plus.”

JoAnn Chmielowicz from East Brunswick said that ever since her son Henry, 11, joined Escrimeur she has noticed that the sport has improved his confidence.

“It's definitely a confidence building sport because even if you don't win a match, if you have a bout with a fencer who's a lot older than you and you can score that one point against him, it’s a really fantastic feeling,” she said.

Spector plans to continue expanding Escrimeur and to steer the club into reaching the same level of competitiveness as other fencing clubs in New Jersey.

For Spector one of the greatest joys he has experienced since founding Escrimeur is learning from, as well as coaching, his students.

“In all of life you practice and you learn,” he said. “It gives me something special in life, learning, changing, and coming up with interesting ideas that kids can really embrace.”

Escrimeur Fencing Club is located at The Fields Sports Complex in East Brunswick. For more information visit http://www.escrimeur.com or call (732) 309-8301.