As a child, Pat Cherry stared up at the big screen, watching reverently, his heroes saving beautiful damsels and slaying villains with the slice of a sword.
Zorro. The Three Musketeers. Cyrano de Bergerac.Those images of chivalrous men finally led Cherry to emulate their art through fencing.
"It looked romantic and fun," said the 39-year-old Temple City man, who practices at Salle Swords, a fencing studio that opened last year in Burbank. "They always looked so confident, and besides, they always got the girl."
But those on-screen swashbucklers who so inspired Cherry wouldn't stand a chance in a duel with him nowadays.
Their grand, sweeping movements, the endless clank-clank of rapiers slamming into each other, bears about as much resemblance to real sword fighting as Antonio Banderas does to a typical felon.
Fencers equate their sport to "physical chess," in which outfoxing the opponent with quick, small jabs like a boxer determines who lives to fight another day.
"In staged or theatrical combat, the idea is to make movements the audience can follow," said Andy Shaw, manager of Westside Fencing Center in Culver City, where a roster of more than 400 members makes it the largest of a handful of fencing studios in the Los Angeles area.
As much as Errol Flynn helped the fencers of old, today's movies and television shows, such as "Xena: Warrior Princess" and even the animated "Mulan" are attracting new fencers to the sport, said Kerry Logan, director of SwordPlay, a fencing studio that opened six years ago in Burbank.
The United States Fencing Association reports nearly 14,000 people belong to certified fencing studios in the United States. The number has been growing steadily since 1995, when membership was less than 10,000.
SwordPlay even offers classes in specialty weapons such as the quarterstaff, a stick that is held in both hands, and cloak and dagger, in which the cape is used as a shield.
Most students working with specialty weapons are actors getting ready for a part, although "Braveheart" sparked an interest among the general public in learning the broadsword.
The sport of fencing was well-established throughout the world centuries before anyone ever dreamed of the silver screen. Popular since the 16th century, fencing is one of the world's oldest sports. When guns that could actually be aimed rendered armor of little use to soldiers, fencing was transformed into a gentleman's game, mostly practiced by the upper class.