Gavilan teacher leads a surprisingly popular class
Fencing is not considered a popular sport by any means, but
don’t tell that to the students at Gavilan College who have
enrolled in the popular Fencing for Fitness class, which takes
place on Monday nights.
Gavilan teacher leads a surprisingly popular class
Fencing is not considered a popular sport by any means, but don’t tell that to the students at Gavilan College who have enrolled in the popular Fencing for Fitness class, which takes place on Monday nights.
“We’ve got 24 in the class. That’s pretty heavy duty for fencing,” said John De Cesare, the popular instructor, who has taught the class for several years.
There are three types of fencing: Foil, Epee and Saber. Foil is the form taught at Gavilan.
All types are similar but the areas where strikes are allowed is different. In Epee, a strike with the sword anywhere is legal. In Saber, hits are allowed only from the waist up; and in Foil, only hits to the protective jacket count.
Competitors earn one point for a clean hit and duals are won by the first person to score three, five, 10 or 15 points, depending on the match.
In De Cesare’s class the students learn blade control, strategies and techniques as well as positions of attack and defense.
What may be most interesting about the class is not the body and arm movements that the students learn and everything that goes with it but De Cesare himself, whose life story could easily be converted into a movie script.
“I guess saying that I was a Jack of all trades would be a nice way to put it,” said De Cesare, who has performed as a magician for years, been a bit part actor in Hollywood, a gunfighter, and even swordsman for 17 years at the original Renaissance Faire in Marin County.
De Cesare’s life began in Beverly, Massachusetts sometime in the 1920s – although he jokes about not telling his age for fear of losing his teaching job at Gavilan.
As a child De Cesare left Massachusetts after his family opted to move to Chicago before eventually settling in Detroit.
After graduating high school, De Cesare joined the Army Air Corp not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor and wound up flying in a P-47 squadron that was stationed in Australia.
While out on a bombing run that was targeting a number of islands off the coast of Japan one afternoon sometime in 1943, De Cesare’s squadron came under heavy enemy fire.
“There were about five times as many Japs out there as they claimed there were,” De Cesare said. “Most of the squadron was wiped out. I took a lot of lead, too, but kept flying back.”
He made it to land without the realization that his landing gear had been shot up so bad that it collapsed on impact, forcing the small plane to roll.
After being pulled from the wreckage, De Cesare learned that he suffered a few broken ribs and a number of bruises all over his body. He was flown to Pearl Harbor and given an honorary discharge and also received a purple heart for his combat wounds.
Soon after his discharge, De Cesare, who had taken some engineering classes in college before entering the service, moved to California and settled near Hollywood because the opportunities for someone with an associate engineering degree in electronics and mechanical engineering was better than back home in the Detroit area.
While in Hollywood word got around that De Cesare, who had first become interested in fencing and old medieval weaponry in high school, was a gifted swordsman.
Before long, he was acting in a number of bit parts in the area as well as films, often playing a pirate in a number of fighting scenes.
During the period he was also a professional dancer as well as a polished magician – a craft that fascinated him since he was a child.
Eventually, he moved to Northern California as more and more high-tech opportunities where cropping up. Over the years he worked as a contractor for a number of companies like Lockheed Martin and Northern Telecom – and still kept up with his magic, sword fighting and fascination with the old west and its gun slinging days.
To this day, he still performs his magic at a number of places and has done so throughout the United States, and even Europe. He also likes to dress up in 1800s garb to deal a casual game of Faro, a card game that planted the seed for modern day roulette.
This summer he plans to perform in Canada as well as in the old western town of Jackson, California
“I have a busy schedule,” said De Cesare, who was briefly sidelined after suffering a stroke a handful of years ago.
“I still can’t taste or smell well,” De Cesare said. “I have to do magic more with my left hand now because I suffered some stiffness in the right side after the stroke. But I’m still lean and mean.”
And his students at Gavilan are reaping the benefits.
