Dance, shoot, score?

The most pressing challenge for non-traditional club sports on campus is finding financial support. Without the coffers of varsity sports, many club sports depend on donations from alumni and charge member fees to pay for competitions and equipment.

The male members of the ballroom dance team sport one-inch heels while they do the waltz and the cha-cha.

“Once guys start ballroom dance, they’re hooked,” junior president Evan Sadler said.

Though there is a marked lack of male members, the 12 men on the team love what they do, and their numbers mean they never lack dance partners. Practicing three times per week, the team receives professional coaching, which Sadler said “makes you notice muscles that you didn’t know existed.”

The team has had several successes, having already participated in seven intercollegiate competitions this year, including one at Penn two weeks ago.

Sadler joined during his freshman year with no previous dance experience. Last December, he was a finalist in a competition at Columbia.

Like they do in the ‘Matrix’

Kendo — a form of Japanese fencing — is about making the “mind, body and sword move as one,” sophomore president Jess Zhou said.

Zhou explained that Kendo “developed from the feudal Samurai way of the sword,” which combines both physical and mental training. The point of Kendo is not to simply defeat opponents, but to rise above your own emotions to do so.

The team offers professional training sessions with an experienced Kendoka, or Kendo swordsman, from a dojo in Princeton.

The team recruits by holding events such as Asian night and by taking part in the club sports fair. Beginners can be taught everything they need to know in a semester and can then start actual sparring by the second semester.

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Though the club is keen to participate in international and intercollegiate competitions, it boasts too few members. Four team members graduated last year, leaving only three experienced swordsmen. It will take time before beginners are trained to competition standards, Zhou said.

Shooting from the hip does not actually work that well

The rifle team, established in the late-19th century, is the second-oldest sports team on campus. First known as the Princeton Gun Club, it operated as a varsity team until about 20 years ago, when it was converted to club team status.

Training is held off campus at the Citizens Rifle and Revolver Club, after the Armory — where the team practiced until this year — was razed. All practices and matches are indoors.

There are currently six members on the rifle team. One captain, sophomore Abigail Fong, is taking the semester off to train for the Beijing Olympics.

The team practices three times a week and welcomes beginners to its sessions. Practice is “not an intimidating environment,” junior captain Paul Markoff said. Many of the team’s shooters had no experience before joining the team.

Matches can be up to two hours long, and the various shooting positions are “anything but comfortable,” Markoff noted, explaining that “matches involve 60 shots, 20 shots for each of three positions: prone, standing and kneeling.”

In the prone position, the shooter is lying on the ground.

“Rifle teaches you to focus on the minute details: keeping the structure of your position constant, holding your breath throughout the shot and follow through, shooting between heartbeats,” Markoff said.

The team competes in half a dozen matches each year against 16 other universities including the U.S. Naval Academy, the Coast Guard Academy, Loyola, Penn State, MIT and Virginia Military Institute.

“We are only a sport club, and as such we don’t get a lot of funding,” Markoff said. “This is just because there is a relatively small amount of money set aside to be distributed among all the sport clubs, so we’re by far not the only club that doesn’t get quite the amount of money they need.”