Standing face-to-face, only four meters apart from each other on a narrow piece of floor is where fencers’ game of “physical chess” begins. They will spend the next few minutes testing their opponent’s skills, fighting off attacks and adjusting tactics to score the most points.

“It’s very much like playing physical chess,” said David Bell, a member of the Des Moines Fencing Club. “With football and basketball and most other sports, it’s a team event. But here, it’s just you versus that other person. You have to go in there having a Plan A or a Plan B all the way down. It’s all about strategy.”

Twice a week, fencers from Central Iowa gather to practice with the Des Moines Fencing Club. Formed seven years ago by six fencers of varying ability, the club now boasts membership of more than 100. Steve Behrends, the group’s president, was one of the founding members. Over the years, the club has attracted participants from a wide range of professions, from neurosurgeons to mechanics.

“Our membership has skyrocketed in the last two or three years,” Behrends said. “We’ve added a youth program in recent years, and Hollywood fuels interest in the sport to a certain extent through movies such as ‘The Princess Bride’ and ‘Zorro.’”

Fencing is also growing in popularity across the country. The U.S. Fencing Association had only 12,000 members 10 years ago. As of this year, membership had more than doubled to 28,000, according to its Web site, www.usfencing.org.

Behrends, a lead information analyst for Principal Financial Group Inc., learned to fence during his senior year of college at Mankato State University, and he participated briefly as a member of the college team before moving to Des Moines in 1990. He decided to pick up the sport again in 1994, and drove to Ames to practice with the Iowa State University team for two years before starting the local club. He now serves as a fencing instructor for new members.

The Des Moines Fencing Club requires new members to complete a four-month class to learn basic footwork and bladework, tactics and distance control. After that class, fencers advance to a four-month class covering fundamentals. But even after those two classes, there’s still a great deal to be learned about the sport.

“I guarantee that the first time through fundamentals, no one picks it all up,” Behrends said.

Footwork is commonly the most difficult part of fencing technique for new members to grasp, Behrends said, along with learning how to control the distance between themselves and their opponent and getting used to hitting one another with weapons. These weapons are blunt and flexible. Points are scored electronically when the weapon strikes the opponent’s mask or lamé, a jacket that has been wired to register points.

Fencers compete using three types of weapons: the foil, the epee and the saber. There are minor physical differences between the blades, but the rules differ significantly depending on which weapon is used.

Lorinda Roth, the operations manager for Syverson Strege & Co., said she joined the fencing club a little over a year ago to keep her legs in shape during the cold-weather months when she wasn’t rowing with the Des Moines Rowing Club. She said the sport has provided a more complex workout than she originally imagined.

“I found out there was a lot more to it than legwork,” Roth said. “There’s also a lot of balance required, and much more mental concentration than I thought there would be. It’s been a good challenge.”

Bell, a mortgage banker with Heartland Mortgage Group, has also discovered during his five years of fencing that there’s much more to the sport than what meets the eye. He’s learned that because fencing can be such a fast-paced activity, fencers take on a heightened state of awareness when they walk onto the strip – the 6-foot-by-44-foot floor space where bouts are played out.

“It’s almost a different mindset,” Bell said. “When you’re fencing, you’re in fencing time. That blade comes at you in a split second, so you have to be able to think in split-second periods of time to be able to react. The adrenaline is flowing, and it’s almost like you receive a sort of a high being in that mindset.”

Jennifer Semon, a sales support analyst for EquiTrust Life Insurance Co., thrives on the competitive aspect of fencing, and she appreciates the level playing field she has with her opponents, despite her petite stature.

“I like the challenge and I like the tactics behind the sport, and I’m not a strong person, so it’s nice to use brain power instead of sheer force,” Semon said. “Muscles help, but you can compensate for not having them by putting a little more thought into the way you fence.”

Semon participated in her college fencing club at George Washington University, and spent a semester on the King’s College team at the University of London while studying in England. She recently returned from a year at Cambridge University, where she received a master’s degree in European literature and culture and was captain of the women’s epee and saber squads. Her Cambridge team won the national championship while she was there.

Participating in fencing has not only helped Semon improve her skills and agility, but also evoked changes in other areas of her life.

“Fencing has also helped me to become a little bit more outgoing,” she said. “I’m actually kind of shy, unless you put me in a room full of fencers, in which case, I’m just all over the place. It has encouraged me to try other new things that I wouldn’t normally try, such as Irish step dancing. I’m used now to being in the realm of the unique.”