Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!

We don't often attend sporting events voluntarily. But when a blood relation is competing, we not only decide to show up, we figure we'll plug the event. Especially because it's free sports for spectators.

Of course, the sport in question is fencing, and everything most Americans know about fencing (and we raise our hand here) comes from The Princess Bride and random Jedi moves.

No one's going to get their hand cut off or seduced to the dark side (unless we're really lucky), but you can gorge on intense fencing action this weekend at the Salle Auriol. The second annual Battle in Seattle (not the movie, not the WTO) is taking place Saturday and Sunday.

"Top fencers from all over the Pacific Northwest" will be crossing steel. How big a deal is it? Our brother, who fences sabre, says that "there are 53 people preregistered for sabre, when a big tournament for us is usually 25."

And that, of course, doesn't count the epee or foil fencers.

Although our brother says it'll be "hella crowded," we're planning on showing up by 2:30 on Saturday for his event, mixed sabre. To prepare, we read a pretty good article in Slate about sabre at the 2004 Olympics, a completely daunting Wikihow article on understanding fencing as a spectator, and a much friendlier intro to fencing (complete with a final piece on "How to Watch Fencing") from the USFA Western Washington Division.

We also, of course, boned up on our fencing jokes.

Battle in Seattle // Salle Auriol at 760 Harrison St. // events run from 9am to 2:30pm on Saturday, 8am to 1pm on Sunday -- see FRED for the complete schedule