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February
15, 2004 |
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AROUND LIFEWISE |
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Making her mark with her sabre
By MARILYN LINTON -- Toronto
Sun
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CUTTING EDGE ... Donna
Saworski is a Canadian and world sabre champ.
-- Zoran
Bozicevic, SUN | By the time
Donna Saworski got to college, she already had her top 10 list of
"things I want to do in life." The list included kayaking, learning
to fly, rock climbing, and parachuting. Then one day at the
University of Saskatchewan she saw a bulletin advertising fencing
tryouts. "I gotta go to that!" she said, praising her luck because
fencing was also on her list.
That first fencing information
night tweaked her interest even more, especially when she saw the
sabre with its flashing silver handle. Right away she was attracted
to the weapon that has its historical roots in the cavalry. "I saw
that sabre, and I said to myself, 'This is it!' " But the coach said
no. Beginners have to stick with foil, which she dutifully did and
mastered.
She fenced "religiously" throughout university;
she took the time to devote to the sport even though her classes in
chemical engineering were a weighty challenge. After graduation, she
launched her career in the laboratory inspection and testing of
asbestos. It was upon being transfered to Toronto, however, that she
decided to move onto the sabre.
"In the sport of fencing,
three different types of weapons are used -- the foil, the sabre,
and the epee," Saworski explains. Though the footwork and strategy
are the same in both the sabre and foil, in the former you use a
thrusting motion to hit your opponent's chest, stomach, groin or
back. In sabre work, you hit with a cut, not a thrust and anything
from the waist up -- the head included -- is the target.
Saworski loves her sport "for its speed and movement. The
foil has finesse, but the sabre is more flamboyant," says the Women
on the Move nominee, who says she never thought that sports would
become the obsession it has. "It was when I started competing
against the men and doing well that I felt this was my niche."
Saworski says her obsession costs about $15,000 a year to
maintain in club and coaching fees, training camps and traveling
costs: She's at the point where she fences against opponents from
countries that are dedicated to the sport -- Poland, Russia, France
and Italy. In those countries, fencing is a way of life for those
who get to compete.
Though her T-shirt reads, "Fencing: It's
all fun and games" the sport is physically demanding, Saworski says.
"It's all leg work," she says, explaining that the lunge gives you
the power in your attack even though you lead off with the hand,
follow through with the body, then use your legs to propel you to
finish the cut. The sport of strategy depends on correctly
anticipating what your opponent is capable of, she says.
It's a sport of body language, and Saworski describes it as
communicating "a confidence without arrogance." Good fencers have to
be secure within themselves, she explains. "If you doubt yourself,
you will have doubt in your actions," says the six-time Canadian
women's sabre champ who, last year, won the world championship in
her sport.
But as satisfied as she is about having come so
far, Saworski is unhappy with what she calls her sport's "gender
issue." While there's no difference between men and women's sabre,
only men's sabre has been approved as a sport. "It distresses me and
I feel a little bitter about it. There's funding for men in the
sport, but not for the women."
But the inequities of the
game don't prevent her from continuing to play hard. The morning I
interviewed her she began her day at 5:30 a.m. with a 11/2-hour
fitness workout at her Coburg home. That was followed by a regular
working day, then a training session beginning at 5 p.m.
Training three hours a day as she does is "not enough," says
the world champ: "A few months ago I went away to sabre camp. We
ate, slept and fenced all day long. I was in my glory."
This article first appeared on October 25, 1999. |
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