Fencing -- a swashbuckling sport that evokes images of Zorro and Lord of the Rings -- has become part of the ordinary fabric of life for Brian and Rhonda Rosen's family in Pine.

Brian Rosen said his son, Zach, now 21, was recruited into Pine Richland High School's fencing program while he was in middle school and excelled in the sport. Rosen's middle child, Hannah, followed her brother's lead and now is on the fencing team at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

And Rosen himself? He's become a fencing equipment repairman in the process.

Yesterday, Rosen was at the Three Rivers Fencing Center in Point Breeze to watch his 14-year-old daughter, Dana, fence with her friend, Erica Bednar, 15, of Irwin. Both young women have been practicing there several times a week in preparation for the United States Fencing Association's Junior Olympics in Arlington, Texas, next month.

"I want to fence in college," said Dana, a freshman at Pine-Richland High School, which is noted for its fencing program.

Brian Rosen found his own little niche in the sport without picking up a foil, sabre or epee.

He repairs the equipment that tethers the fencers' metallic vests to an electronic scoreboard that records when a fencer is touched on the torso by the tip of an opponent's foil.

As Rosen stood on the sidelines watching Dana yesterday, Iana Dakova, head coach of the Three Rivers Fencing Center, walked up and handed him a broken electronic machine. Minutes later, she handed him a second machine, also broken.

"It gives me something to do while I am watching," said Rosen, whose full-time job is with computers.

Dakova, a full-time coach and part owner of Three Rivers Fencing Center, represents one of the reasons why fencing seems to be having an upsurge in popularity in the United States. She came to the United States seven years ago from Bulgaria, where she was a professional fencer, a member of the Bulgarian National Team and had won several titles.

She is one of many Eastern European athletes who have gravitated to the United States since the breakup of the Soviet Union, generating a new interest in fencing, a sport Rosen calls "physical chess" because it tests both mind and body.

Brad Cellier, co-owner of Three Rivers Fencing, said interest in fencing also grew after NBC news broadcast fencing matches at last summer's Olympics, where the United States won gold and bronze medals in women's sabre fencing.

Three Rivers Fencing Center, which was formed in 1997, has been operating in The Factory Building on Penn Avenue since 2000. It has about 75 members, but is also a place where a novice can take introductory lessons to try out the sport.

"Fencing is one of only four sports that have been in every Olympic games since they started in Athens in 1896," said Cellier, 37, of Worthington, Armstrong County, an engineer who runs the club as a side business.

"If you watch high-level fencing, it is very fast, very powerful. Everything is done electronically," he said. "When you hit someone, the light goes on, there's lots of cheering and arguing with referees. It is a very heated, exciting sport."

Yesterday morning, 10 new students, male and female, ranging in age from 8 to middle aged, took their first introductory class under the tutelage of coach Charles Murphy of Hazelwood.

Murphy, a founding member of the club, taught them some basic moves of fencing; how to get into the "on guard" position, how to "retreat," "extend" and "lunge." Then he introduced them to foils, which have flexible rectangular blades and weigh less than a pound.

Cellier said Three Rivers Fencing Center offers classes in Point Breeze, at the Peters Township Recreation Center in Washington County and the Wexford Elementary School in the North Hills.

For information about fencing classes, call Cellier at 724-355-2482 or check the club's Web site, www.threeriversfencing.org.