Fencing is America's favorite sport because it combines the visceral excitement of swordplay with the awesome outfits of beekeeping. Fight fashionably with today's Groupon to Prise de Fer Fencing Club in North Billerica. Choose between the following options:

• For $39, you get a four-week introductory fencing class, plus 10 percent off the purchase of fencing gloves (an $80 value).
• For $70, you get a eight-week introductory fencing class, plus 10 percent off the purchase of fencing gloves (a $160 value).
  
  

Classes start September 10 and are held on Saturdays at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., and 11 a.m., on Tuesdays at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., and on Wednesdays at 6 p.m.

Prise de Fer’s blade-wielding pedagogues arm students with basic fencing knowledge and practice weapons over the course of four or eight weekly classes. Students stomp, flit, and swirl across the vast floors, mastering basic footwork techniques. Hands and minds grasp the three different fencing armaments—foil, épée, and saber—in each one-hour class, learning the heft and rules of each instrument. Class size is limited to 12, ensuring that instructors give each attendee personal attention and that no one is left with the metaphorically rich but ultimately non-instructive task of fencing their own shadow.

Hot natural light blazes through rows of windows, slicing the fencing club’s vast interior into alleys of light and dark as duelists give ground or score points. Raw elements lend the space a wild feel, with exposed brick and rafters hanging out overhead, catcalling competitors or whistling windily at spry young trees out the window.