St. Louis professionals are forgoing the french fries for fencing.

It’s noontime on a sunny Tuesday in St. Louis. You push your chair back from your desk, and with a slight smile (smirk?), you grab a stack of reports that are ‘must read’ and tell the receptionist you’re headed to lunch. Or so you say. Because in the trunk of your car you’ve secretly stashed your ‘workout clothes’: a pair of knickers, mask and saber. You’re not going out for a burger. You’re heading into battle.

Lunchtime is playtime for a growing number of business professionals who are learning the oldest sport of the modern Olympic Games. It’s all part of the adult beginners’ fencing classes at Olympia Fencing Academy, at I-170 and Olive in St. Louis. Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 12:55 pm, doctors, lawyers, C-level executives–you name it–put on their masks and pick up their weapons. Think of it as a new kind of self-therapy for The Great Recession.

“I think a lot more people have tried fencing than they’ve realized. If you’ve ever tried to hit someone with an object that you weren’t throwing, you were basically fencing,” jokes Tim Morehouse, a member of the U.S. Olympic saber team that brought home the silver medal in Beijing last summer. “And that’s what fencing is: You’re trying to hit someone with an object that you’re holding that’s an extension of your body.” By the way, that’s Tim in the photo above. I don’t think he’s hungry (for lunch).

Ask anyone who’s tried it, and fencing is quite a workout. But you do more than work up a sweat: According to one veteran fencer, “Fencing is such a sport of skill, physicality and intellect… nothing seems to combine so many diverse elements. It’s a beautiful sport. There is always something more to learn.” In fact, many fencers practice the sport for decades (try that with baseball or football). It truly is a sport for all ages.

Olympia Fencing Academy holds a variety of fencing classes and ‘open fencing’ for adults of all skill levels, from beginner to advanced, at various times throughout the day and evening. For a list of current adult classes, please click here: https://event-manager.compete-at.com/Manager/event/details.do?eid=1223 Or, for more information, call 314-993-9700 or visit www.olympiafencing.com.