Santa Clara Boasts Growing Fencing Scene
By Alessio Cei
“I’ve always been attracted to blades,” said Ra’ad Rabieh, describing his home as an “arsenal”. Rabieh is the head coach of the new International Fencing Academy facility that opened on October 1st just on the outskirts of Santa Clara. The IFA is only one of two fencing schools to open or move to Santa Clara in the last year; the other is the Fencing Masters Program, which has a thirty-year-history in the Bay Area.
Fencing has long considered “an aristocratic sport,” says Rabieh, “Now it’s for everybody.” Interest in the sport has spiked in recent years; enrollment in the Masters Program has doubled since 2004. Fencing has become even more popular since the U.S. women’s sabre team took gold, silver, and bronze in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, earning the U.S. its first medals in the ceremonies.
The two institutions teach very different styles of fencing. The Fencing Masters Program “is based on a school that existed in Italy in the late 1800s, early 1900s, called the Scuola Magistrale,” said Janine Sahm, who co-directs the program with her husband Ralph Sahm. “We can walk our history back about five hundred years, without a break in tradition,” said Sahm.
The program maintains a strong focus on history and Italian culture. It was originally founded by William M. Gaugler, a professor of archaeology at San Jose State University who received his Master’s in fencing in Naples. It grants three levels of certification: Instructor level, which requires skill with one weapon and knowledge of Italian fencing theory, Provost level, which requires skill with three, and the Master level, which requires a BA or BS degree and a fifty-page research thesis. The Fencing Masters Program is the only one of its kind in the United States. San Jose State University dropped the program without explanation; since then, the FMP has located itself at Santa Clara Adult Education. “We’re incredibly grateful to Santa Clara Adult Ed for picking us up, and happy to be there,” said Sahm, “[however,] because it is not a four year university, currently we can only give instructor or provost level. We need to find an affiliation with a four-year university in order to keep with the [Masters] tradition.” In the meantime, the Fencing Masters Program continues to offer classes for everyone from complete beginners to experts.
While the Fencing Masters Program has been around much longer than the International Fencing Academy, the IFA teaches a more novel curriculum. “We do not teach the Italian school, the German school,” says Rabieh. “We created a system that was unique.” Few people are more qualified to teach sport fencing than Rabieh. His office houses a breathtaking array of medals from international fencing organizations as well as his native Jordan, where in his youth he was ranked as the #1 fencer for five years and the kingdom’s champion for four. Although Rabieh holds two law degrees, “I’m not happy with [practicing law],” he said. “The happiest I am is [when] I am teaching.” Rabieh has been coaching for fifteen years and has sent multiple students to the U.S. World Cup team. His colleague, Alexander Maximovich, of Kazakhstan, has also placed students on the World Cup team. Rabieh’s own fencing career took a shocking downward turn in 2000. “We were coming back from the Pacific Bay Cup,” he recalls. “I was hit by a drunk driver…on El Camino.” The resulting nerve damage to his arm left him unable to compete effectively.
Fencing is a sport with an ancient pedigree; carvings in Egyptian pyramids depict athletes wearing protective masks and dueling before judges. The modern sport of fencing involves three types of weapons – foil, épée, and sabre – and follows rules formalized by the French centuries ago. Scoring in sport fencing is done by means of an electronic sensor embedded in the sword, which transmits to a scoreboard via a wire that runs under the fencer’s clothing and out behind her, though the Fencing Masters Program still adjudicates bouts using human judges instead.
