Things To Do In Silver Spring

At DC Fencers Club (DCFC), head coach Janusz Smolenski leads a team of athletes that molds young fencers into champions. Thanks to his formidable swordsmanship, he has trained Olympic fencers at the ASZ AWF Katowice in Poland and national champions and junior Olympians at DCFC. Working with Coach Smolenski, a trio of coaches brings unique backgrounds and styles to the classes. Dariusz Gilman was a member of the Polish national team and a World Cup finalist, Robert Suchorski was a Polish National Junior Champion and has trained under top Polish and Russian fencing masters, and Ilya Lobanenkov worked with world class Russian, Hungarian, and Polish schools and has led students to two silver meals in the US Open Women’s épée team.

The DCFC facility boasts 10 full-size electric strips on a sprung-wood floor where fencers can lunge, parry, and riposte for hours on end without incurring injury. When not parrying and jousting, the team repairs or custom builds swords for fighters who want better balance, or a foil that can shoot other foils out of the end.

High-energy beats from artists such as Flo Rida, B.o.B., and the Black Eyed Peas bounce forth from the spinning studio at Rock Creek Sports Club, where nationally certified trainers lead stationary cyclists through challenging routes. In addition to these pop-powered workouts, the studio hosts more than 50 other fitness classes, an array of options that prompted the editors of Bethesda Magazine to name the studio 2012’s Best Neighborhood Gym. Zumba classes encourage students to boogie away calories to latin beats, and boxing clinics incorporate one-on-one attention from Golden Glove winner Russell Davis. The team of trainers can also coach visitors through the weight-loss process, or helm small group workout sessions capped at eight participants. The gym also welcomes independent workouts, with equipment such as treadmills, benches, and weights awaiting a few breathless reps of their own.

Drenched 5K events soak participants in the name of good health, good fun, and raising money for local charities. Runners of all makes and models can skip monthly jogs through the neighborhood car wash to converge on 5-kilometer courses, which start out dry, but quickly become lively fetes fueled by H2O. Along the routes misters, sprinklers, and fire hoses activate as groups pass by. Spectators also do their worst, launching water balloons and spraying water weapons at runners from the sidelines. A final 75-foot water slide sends runners gliding across the finish line, where a festival stocked with refreshments, live entertainment, and other water-related activities greets them.

Now in its 21st year, the AFI Latin American Film Festival celebrates hitting the drinking age by hosting an array of cinematic achievements by Latin American filmmakers, with this year’s slate of films extending to motion pictures from Spain and Portugal. The 2010 lineup includes Revolution, a collection of short films from 10 Mexican moviemakers, including actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, that explores the themes of the Mexican Revolution on its 100th anniversary. Those with an off-kilter sense of humor or an unhealthy love for con-artistry can check out Uruguay’s Bad Day to Go Fishing, which follows a wrestler and his manager as they navigate through South America, putting on fake exhibitions of strength. Venezuela’s Story of a Day enthralls its viewers by poetically chronicling the numerous parties, feasts, and chores in a Venezuelan village, and Honduras’s Love and Beans comically details marital mysteries and draws attention to the plight of beans everywhere. Check the full lineup to see how the festival's schedule of silver-screen offerings matches up to your own sci-fi screenplay about the 1993 Buffalo Bills.

At Montgomery Royal Theater, six screens beam larger-than-life stars into the eyes of moviegoers during showings of recently released flicks and Hollywood blockbusters. Viewers can sink into the theater's plush, cushioned seats to absorb action-packed reels that showcase the twists of budding romance or the dire consequences of resurrecting an extinct flower’s DNA. The theater’s concession stand outfits viewers with buckets of popcorn and cups brimming with soda, providing the appropriate rations to accompany treks into the fantastical worlds of first-run films.

Canadian electrofunk duo Chromeo exhales party-starting inertia, kicking off its Night Falls Tour by rolling out a carpet of dance-floor passports. Melding the talents of guitarist, vocalist, and French-literature buff Dave 1 with the dexterous fingers and throwback savvy of synthmaster P-Thugg, Chromeo has earned reverence from funkophiles for its slick grooves and mastery of jam architecture. Fans can expect congenial beats, riffing Moogs, and song craft that father-and-son yachts can enjoy together in support of the band's latest album, Business Casual. Inflating the soulful evening, singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Mayer Hawthorne channels wandering Motown spirits with a retroactive Detroit sound, and French funk enthusiast Breakbot sets the scene with genre jumping and remixes that rumble like tubas in a Cuisinart.