Alex Bailey, of Exeter, left, fences with Brian Wilson, 18, of Narragansett, at the Salute En Garde Ready Fence Academy in Narragansett. The academy recently opened with the aim of teaching both fencing and fitness.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

NARRAGANSETT — They stand at attention on a black rubber strip, their faces covered by steel mesh masks, their bodies linked to electrical cords that connect to red and green lights.

On command, they raise their swords and begin a routine that looks like a cross between a dance and a boxing match.

CLINK CLINK, goes the sound from the blades.

The two men lunge and prod at one another until Alex Bailey, 20, a freshman at the University of Rhode Island, strikes Brian Wilson, 18, a senior at Narragansett High School, just above the left knee.

The green light flashes, indicating a score by Bailey. He leads, 1 to 0.

Bailey and Wilson return to their starting positions.

“En garde,” their trainer, Lynn El-Hillow, calls. “Ready.

“Fence!”

Wilson attacks. He strikes Bailey’s sword bell, producing a clanging sound.

Bailey holds his weapon out and keeps Wilson at bay. Then he inches forward and strikes Wilson on the upper right leg.

Bailey leads, 2 to 0.

Wilson responds with three consecutive touches before El-Hillow calls the match, telling her protÉgÉs they are poking too much as they try to make contact. Extend the elbow first and then move toward your opponent, she admonishes.

Bailey and Wilson take off their masks, revealing faces shiny with sweat.

“I love it. It’s amazing,” says Bailey, who fulfilled a childhood dream the day before by taking his first lesson. “When you’re fencing, it’s like there’s nothing else going on in the world.”

The forget-the-world phenomenon is a universal claim among fencers, even if it isn’t what drives them when they’re on the strip. The overriding goal, as taught at most academies that teach this centuries-old sport, is to win.

El-Hillow is taking a different approach at her recently opened Salute En Garde Ready Fence Academy, one she hopes will shake the fencing world.

For her students, the goal is far more utilitarian: strike your opponent, and burn calories while doing so.

THAT THIS SORT of activity can be enjoyable helps to explain why some 60 people, ages 4 to 72, are paying $99 a month to get fit while fencing. The fee covers public hours at the studio, basic instruction and equipment, which is provided. Individual lessons with El-Hillow are $20 for 20 minutes.

In joining El-Hillow’s academy, many of these fencers — some of them novices, some more experienced — are buying into El-Hillow’s belief that this medieval sport is ready to go mainstream.

“It’s a fun way to do something different for exercise,” says David Kerber, a 47-year-old database designer from Narragansett. “There’s a lot of strategy and thinking that you have to go through.”

Kids like it, too.

“There’s nothing else like it,” says Katherine Pelton, 15-year-old sophomore at Coventry High School. “It’s different from usual sports because it’s one and one. It’s you and the other person.”

Like many of her students, El-Hillow, 29, discovered fencing by accident.

In the fall of 1996, the North Kingstown native walked into the athletic complex at Ohio State University in search of a job as an aerobics instructor. She left with something better: a job teaching aerobics to the Division 1 fencing team.

Within a month, El-Hillow, an accomplished ballet dancer who had also dabbled in singing and acting, was on the team. Three years later, as a senior and as captain of the saber team, she placed seventh in the NCAA Midwest regionals.

“When I heard the swords, I took a sharp left, and it was like I had no control over who I was,” she says. “It was just coming out of me. I was gravitating toward the sport.”

IN TRYING to bring fencing to the masses, El-Hillow hopes to ride a wave that started with the 2004 Olympics, when the United States won gold and bronze medals. Mariel Zagunis won the gold for women’s saber — one of three fencing styles, which are distinguished by blade types and the areas where fencers can make contact — while Sada Jacobson won the bronze for women’s saber. Since then, enrollment in the United States Fencing Association has grown to about 22,000, from 20,405, says membership director Dana Brown.

This is not to say that fencing is new, even in a small state such as Rhode Island.

The Rhode Island Fencing Academy and Club, in Warren, has been teaching fencers and sending them to national and international competitions since 1994. In addition to some first-place finishes at such events, the club has trained students who went on to compete for such schools as Harvard, Brandeis and New York University, says owner Alex Rippa.

There is also the Blackstone Valley Fencing Academy, in Woonsocket, which has been operating under different names for about 15 years, says co-owner Michael Olson.

EL-HILLOW SAYS her focus on tailoring the sport to her students, rather than molding them to the sport, will help popularize it. Her students can have fun while they exercise and learn to fence, and if they want to fence competitively, she offers private lessons.

“Basically, fencing in this country is an underground sport. Many people believe it is an Olympic sport or a sport for people in private schools,” she says. “What I did was to create a product that could be taught to any person at their own pace.”

She calls her approach “Fitness Fencing,” a motto that she has copyrighted.

The concept is perfect for Narragansett resident Carole Olson (no relation to Michael Olson).

Olson, 64, wanted to exercise but hated the gym. Then she saw the Fitness Fencing sign outside.

Now she fences at least twice a week.

“I love it. It’s the best thing I ever did,” she says. “It’s so much fun, and she really works me out. It’s so good for me to relieve stress, to sort of relax and not think about anything but fencing.”

A clinical psychologist, Olson says her family also likes the idea and even gave her a mask for her birthday.

“In my wildest dreams I would not have believed I would be doing this,” she says. “I’m totally hooked.”

WHEN STUDENTS AT El-Hillow’s studio are not fencing, they are often busy jumping ropes, doing sit-ups on a stability ball, standing on a balance beam while trying to hit a target — doing exercises that help with fencing and general fitness.

But nothing compares to the thrill of standing on the strip.

Fencers love it, even if they can’t explain why.

“I don’t know how to put it. I can’t find the words,” says Erin Pelton, 13, of Coventry. “You just get to conversing, you know, with the swords.”

For El-Hillow, the magic comes in matches between fencers who have battled before. They feed off one another, she says, and if they are good, they encourage acrobatic moves that can rival the artistry of ballet. It might be an attempt by one fencer to score; it might be an attempt by an opponent to prevent a score.

“It’s when poetry happens,” she says. “You know the person so well and you’ve seen them in so many competitions, it’s just like having conversations over and over again, and it just gets deeper and more elaborate.”

The mental intensity has caused many to refer to fencing as physical chess.

“Unless you’ve got great talent, someone who can think their way through it is going to do a lot better than someone with great reflexes,” says Kerber, who started fencing seven years ago, stopped for three years and got back into it when he saw El-Hillow’s sign.

Another lure, for some, is fencing’s long tradition, which historians trace back to ancient Egypt.

MODERN FENCING as we know it dates to the 15th century, when it emerged as an honorable, if deadly, way of settling disputes.

Today, fencing is a safe form of recreation, thanks to protective gear, spring-tipped swords and a strict code of conduct.

Not that any of these things are necessarily what brings people through the door.

Ryan Marciel, 8, just knows that he likes to fence.

A second grader at Narragansett Elementary School, Ryan says he wanted to try fencing after his friend Matthew told him about it. He hounded his parents, who eventually let him give it a try.

“I started, it was fun, so I kept doing it,” he says.

Wilson, the Narragansett High School senior, says he had the same reaction after his first lesson. He’d been looking to take a sport involving one-on-one combat. Then, in August, he saw El-Hillow’s sign.

Since then, he’s been missing family dinners two or three days a week to fence, and when he looked at colleges, he focused on schools that have NCAA fencing teams. This fall, he hopes to attend Penn State.

For him, the tailor-it-to-the-student approach at El-Hillow’s academy has opened a new world of combat, and exercise.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind, unique experience,” he says. “I feel exhilaration and excitement at the end of a sword that I can’t find anywhere else.”

Salute En Garde Ready Fence Academy is at 1004 Boston Neck Rd. in Narragansett. For more information, call (401) 284-2995 or go to www.fitnessfencing.com.

redgar@projo.com