After Hours

>>"It sounds violent, running around for two hours hacking at people with swords, but it's actually very centering and calming," says Jennifer Hobbic, public relations manager for the City of Fort Myers. She's not talking about a press conference or a gathering of downtown developers, but about her hobby: samurai sword fighting.

When she idly took her first sword-fighting class two and a half years ago, "I loved it instantly," says Hobbic, 36, who takes classes in Cape Coral. "I needed a hobby, and I'm not the quilt-making type," she quips.

The ancient practice actually is a martial art, with the attendant discipline and ceremony. That's much of what appeals to Hobbic when she's wielding either her wooden practice sword or a real blade.

"It's not a contact sport," she says. "You learn distance and discipline and concentration. You really have to pay very close attention." But the art, which is very similar to tai chi in its flowing movements, also provides a real workout when students spar "at breakneck speed," as Hobbic describes it. And the first time she flipped an attacker in a practice fight, using the discipline's principles of positive and negative energy, she learned she could defend herself in real-life situations. "I feel a lot more confident."

For Hobbic, the benefit goes beyond self-defense or earning higher levels of competence-though she's hoping to garner a green belt soon. Wielding a sword, ironically, gives her a sense of peace and centeredness. "It's very Zen," she says.

But the plainspoken Hobbic, who was partly encouraged to study sword fighting after seeing Quentin Tarantino's samurai-assassin film, Kill Bill, admits she might have a hidden agenda: "Who doesn't want to be Uma Thurman?"