Two masked men walk to the center of the court.

They turn and face each other, weapons drawn, thick white vests covering their chests. Each man turns his right foot forward. They raise their left hands behind their heads, and it’s game on.

One of the faceless warriors lunges forward, but his weapon is met by his foe’s defensive swipe. He tries again. Once more he’s denied. But the next time, his instrument comes through; the tip touches his opponent’s chest directly above the heart. Round one is his.

While weapons are involved in this game, the loser is doing just fine. Safety is king with the NIU Fencing Club.

“If you goof off, and don’t follow safety, you will get hurt,” said club president Evelina Zielinski, a senior fine arts major dressed in full fencing garb — vest, knickers, socks pulled up to her knees.

The face-off mentioned above, and many like it, took place at the club’s two-hour meeting Friday night at the Student Recreation Center. The group meets twice a week, Fridays and Mondays, and all are welcome, regardless if they’ve ever picked up a foil, epee or saber.

In the sport of fencing, there’s electric (fencers are attached to wires, and their weapons and clothing have sensors, which keep score) and dry (non-electric) fencing. There’s modern (faster) and classical (slower) fencing. Then there are the weapons and, with each, a different style.

For foil, the target is the waist up, excluding the arms and head. It’s the “hardest” style, according to Zielinski. “Mostly we’re a foil club,” she said.

“[Epee is] the most realistic sword fighting we can do,” Zielinski said. The target is anywhere on the body, even the tip of the toe. That is, if you can pull it off, she said.

Unlike the other two, a saber is a “slashing” or “cavalry weapon,” Zielinski said. Instead of poking, the saber employs the slashing motion. This style isn’t taught to newcomers at the meetings, because “if you put beginners in saber, they act like they’re in the movies,” said John Dickerman, NIU Fencing Club advisor and biological sciences instructor.

Freshman undecided major Vic Fiszer, holding his mask under his arm, walks to the podium near the entrance to the net-enclosed court, having just finished a duel.

“I saw it and thought, ‘Ooh, I can poke people,'” the sweat-covered Fiszer said, jokingly, on why he joined the club. “It’s harder than it looks. I’m just lazy and out of shape. I’m just trying not to die.”

Not dying, or in other words, safety; encouraging sportsmanship and discipline are all stressed at these gatherings according to Club Secretary Dan Bell.

“You’re not here to be some pirate, some soldier,” Zielinski said. “We have to get that out of [beginners’] heads.”