One of the most significant pairs of rule changes in Olympic-rules fencing in recent years were changes specifically to return back towards swordsmanship. The FIE introduced them to try to put an end to "flick attacks" in foil, and whipping round the guard in sabre. The FIE felt that marching attacks ending in the flick had ruined the character of foil, and that the rule changes would force fencers to rely on more conventional (i.e. traditional) actions. The FIE tends only to make big changes every 10 to 15 years, so the evolution can be sometimes difficult to make out. But basically the last few decades have been trying to roll-back some of the non-swordsmanship changes that were introduced as unintended consequences of rule changes back in the 1980s.
Sounds like contrary to Judo, where the IJF tries to squeeze all meat out to make it more "viewer-friendly". I don*t think that was in the spirit of the father of Judo, Kano. But as in soccer, viewer numbers rule it all ...shame really. Good to hear that teh FIE has a different approach. (has it?)
@@Jugger_Coach Judo is still a real as hell though, which shows the other side of the "sportified martial art" argument; competition breeds excellence and weeds out the bushit "masters" who only teach their "secret techniques" to the gullible. Shame about the leg attacks, they were a victim of badly interacting with rules at the time and fears that judo would be removed from the olympics for looking too much like wrestling. Luckily, single and double legs aren't the absolutely dominant technique they are in wrestling cuz you can control someone from so much further away if they have grippable clothes.
@@internetenjoyer1044 Certainly true. Yet the "press argument" against certain techniques, as well as attack timing and such, is the thing that really bugs me. Trying to make a sport like this more "TV attractive" should not be a reason to ban techniques or change rules in sports like Judo (if "attractivity" really was the main argument).
@@Jugger_Coach If you're talking about the passivity rules and the rules about having to immediately use non standard grips, I kinda see both sides of the argument. Expert grapplers, especially when they have gi's to use, can both shut down each other indefinitely if they're trying to not get thrown first and foremost. Most grappling sports have rules against passivity for that reason; otherwise you'd have 20 minute bouts and it just wouldn't be practical. And is a ruleset that encourages it taking so long to use a technique more realistic in a "real fight", with all the uncertainty about other people jumping in etc, than encouraging behaviors that quickly end the contest (Given that Judo aims to simulate ending the fight with a high damage throw)?
I fenced 25 years ago and saw this happening. Our first coach retired 2 years in. She was European and focused more on blade work and technique and wouldn’t even let us use pistol grips at first. Then she was replaced by a newer, younger American coach right out of college who emphasized extreme athleticism as the way to win bouts. In a few years, our bladework began to suffer more and more. What l didn’t realize at the time was that this was a trend taking off nationwide. I’ll never forget the lesson I learned from going to the fencing club. We had a guy who was about 75 and fenced his whole life come every week. Nobody could beat him, even the super athletic young guys. It was because he had mastered his technique and bladework so well that people couldn’t hit him! It underscored the importance of control and technique over just the “rush in” raw athleticism (why I was never a big fan of saber fencing). That’s what I aspired to learn.
I had a similar experience, my 72 year old grandfather easily defeated 20 year old fencers with his superior bladework. It's sad in what state sports fencing currently is.
My philosophy on this (granted I'm a 'young' foil fencer by your terminology) is the following: Despite the fact that the bladework 'suffered' due to people focusing on footwork/athletics, the fact of the matter is that *athleticism beats bladework* . If it didn't, why don't we see 75+ year old masters sweeping the olympics every four years? It can't be right of way being wonky, because the best Epee fencers are also very fit, athletic and young (i.e Max Heinzer). Even the HEMA tournaments are filled with 20 somethings who are fit and have fast reactions. This isn't an accident. As an aside, I really don't understand the fuss around pistol grips. I'll be honest, if I were sent back in time to the 1700s and I had to fight in a duel, the first thing I'd do is befriend the local blacksmith and have him craft a simple pistol grip. It is objectively better for fencing by keeping your tip pointed the right way, particularly when you start to get tired. I can see the appeal of a brain over brawn cerebral focus on bladework (ala HEMA/classical fencing). It's romantic to think about an old hermit mastering the old ways being able to put a bunch of young whippersnappers in their place. But the fundamental truth throughout history is that youth, fitness and speed are far more consequential to how a fight turns out than technique. Technique starts to matter when both sides are equally fit. Your young american coach did more to improve the overall level of your team's fencing by emphasizing fitness and speed, rather than static bladework. To paraphrase /u/venuswasaflytrap, if you had to grapple either an average HEMA practitioner who has read their manuals or your average 220+ lbs NFL linebacker/Rugby player, who'd you choose? Thought so.
@@inscrutablemungus4143 I agree with you on some points. Fitness of a person as a whole biologically always lends an advantage even when we control for age and gender. It's why Olympians seldom compete beyond a certain age against younger peers. I do think if you have two people of equal fitness, technique is the deciding point. I don't mean to come in and knock athleticism in general-- some of my personal experience is colored by the fact that the age of the fencers being trained were teenagers, and so in that case, they didn't have a kind of experience or strategic discipline (with bladework OR how to use the athleticism to their advantage yet) in their approach towards the entire sport yet. In that case, you'd have people not thinking things through and just rushing in, making bad mistakes, and missing a lot of touches because they overrelied on footwork and strength but had poor point control or didn't understand right of way. In a professional setting with older collegiate fencers, I wouldn't be able to comment having no knowledge, but the bar is certainly raised by that point because only the most fit and technically savvy make it. I also don't know how fencing is handled in other countries, or the differences in HEMA, but I imagine American fencing has probably become profoundly divorced from actual practical self defense and become "faster" than when I did it. It's a good examination of the idea of "the art of defense" versus the practicalities of defense versus the change in equipment and weapons used over time. Also, no hate on the pistol grips from me! I think the point (no pun intended) I'm trying to make is something more around how we are taught the sport-- what is emphasized and what is not and the neurobiological roots of it (a long subject but nit specific to fencing in particular). We are now being taught "Here is how to do X task quickly without much practice or understanding for fast results" everywhere in society, and it shows up8n sports as well. That's probably more of the location of my argument as to why I dislike the idea of overemphasizing *just* the physical athleticism with technique or understanding in a sport.
Raw athleticism matters far less in olympic saber than I think you believe. Most important is timing and sense of distance. Ofc if 2 fencers have similar timing and distance, being more athletic gives an edge plus adds additional tactical options. However, at least in the US, pure strength and speed is 99% of the time not the deciding factor in a bout.
I had the same reaction when I joined the fencing club in university. I was really looking forward to learning swordsmanship. Not the type of sword fighting I necessarily wanted to know, but close enough. Then in orientation, the coaches came forward, held up a foil and said "This is a pistol grip..." 'Disillusioned', I believe is the word.
The pistol grip derives from French officer weapons of the 19thcentury who had some of their fingers lost. So they developed this ind of grip in order using a sword with just 3 or 2 fingers
there is a reason it is called "sports fencing".. it is a good introduction.. and I guess it is really what you want to learn from swordsmanship.... it is called physical chess it is no longer involved in learning how to survive or win a duel.... but a sport in itself I guess....
History would suggest that most swords that were worth their salt really didn’t need a pistol grip for improved blade control. Unless of course literally all of those people were idiots and didn’t know a thing about sword design. Even though they were in a much better position to judge what made a good sword than me or you will ever be in. Having the luxury of seeing what worked in a real duel is something you ain’t getting it from playin electric tag with giant sowing needles. Nor will I or anyone else in HEMA ever have that while using blunted versions of historical weapons in a way that doesn’t result in death. We can talk about sword design all day, the fact we know what swords are good for chopping, which ones are good at piercing armour, and the fact fencers know what works best in their environment ain’t all that important. We ain’t killing anyone. Swords are literally only around for killing people and looking pretty.
@@lowlandnobleman6746 actually, such curvature in the grip has been well known and practiced for a while, the pistol grip is just the most extreme form. Most swords will have a less extreme version of the curvature.
@@internetenjoyer1044 seriously underrated comment. It seems martial arts that don't have a sporty side to them lose connection to fighting at all, because they don't fight at all. "Cause muh technique is to dangerous to be used...."
@@Unknown-bp3mk I have no idea what you even mean. Do you mean that a lot of martial arts have tournaments? Well, that's good and I never said anything different. Is "twunt" an insult I don't know? What is the point of your comment?
@@petritzky Except even in some of the sportier martial arts, there are techniques they don't teach anymore specifically because they're too dangerous to be used in friendly competition. Most of the Japanese sports martial arts carved out the battlefield combat arts from taijutsu and samurai budo in order to not destroy the person across from you who the martial arts teach you is your friend. For example Aikido techniques can be extremely dangerous if done full bore or with malicious intent. People just forget that it's an adaptation of samurai martial arts to counter-grappling while armed. That's why many of the techniques involve grabbing the wrist, elbow, shoulders/collar. Aikido comes from the stance that you are armed with a sword and an enemy swordsman got past your guard and is attempting to disarm or control your weapon hand. That's why it doesn't work in MMA or most fighting situations because you aren't running around with a sword in your hand so people generally won't grab you like that which would allow you to initiate one of the wrist techniques. Every once in a while though someone WILL grab them in such a way as for the technique to actually be used and it's not a pretty sight for the person getting thrown or locked. Most battlefield based schools shouldn't be considered martial arts, they're martial training. Traditionally there is no sparring in them because you're learning techniques designed specifically to maim or kill other people and theoretically, the people training with you are your friends/clan members so you aren't supposed to be trying to kill them. Although some instructors did have a training portion where they'd have students fight each other and there were deaths and disabling injuries from it. The argument being that you did potentially get a better fighter out of it, but you're doing it at the expense of the total number of fighters you have at your disposal. There was a lot of this in early kenjutsu where a wooden sword strike to the hand ends up destroying the hand permanently or a student takes a hard blow to the head and is killed. The kendo gear we see today is a relatively modern invention and they still had to further modify it with shinai because a bokken can still kill you. Many of the modern -do schools were implemented because warfare became more infrequent so you had to have an outlet for that training. Traditionally, most of the -do schools were taken as supplemental to the core martial training you had. It's similar to the European systems. The wealthy had formal training for warfare and a separate system for dueling and fencing. The techniques you learned for warfare, with the basis of it being tight, formation combat are much different from the dueling and fencing. The wealthy were trained in both, and many of the warfare based grappling techniques wouldn't have been used in sparring because you'd harm or kill your training partner doing them.
Incidentally, I fully expect this video to get more dislikes than most videos I release. It's the nature of taking on a topic like this, but I think it's something I needed to say. I do also want to reiterate that I think modern sport fencing does some things fantastically well and HEMA can learn a lot from it.... however, the fact remains that modern sport fencing has totally forgotten what swordsmanship is actually about, whether it be to first blood or for military combat. This, I think, is a great shame for sport fencing, because a huge proportion of people who used to be drawn into sport fencing will now be drawn into HEMA instead. This is good for HEMA of course.
So far i can see, you don't talk any lies about it. Not just fencing, all martial arts are being domesticated to become a mere game that does not maintain its original objectives, techniques and art.
Agreed. I come from a Sports fencing background, still do Epee training to keep my foot work and point control up, but will never ever do competition or tournament stuff again. I am lucky in that who I train with is classically trained fencing teacher, so teaches and passes on the technique to do things correctly. Watching some of the new people come out of other clubs without any knowledge of strength/weakness of blade or any real control of distance (they kinda just barrel at you) really makes me cringe. To be fair, I have issues with the SCA Heavy "lightsaber bludgeons", metal weapons groups (not WMA or HEMA) and Battle of Nations for some of the very same reasons, its not swordsmanship.
Just like you sad Matt it’s a game, it doesn’t deserve the title of fencing, in other words a science of defense. As my teacher sad it, the only way that this ultra turbo fast competitive sport fencing can go on from here is nowhere, but where fencers as people can go is back in to history where try fencing and skill is. Did you know that the orthopedic grip was originally made for a person who had his wrist or fingers broken or had some sort or hand retardation from birth and all other are now using it regardless because its after all easier to grip the sword with it, how silly.
Perhaps, the same things can be said about archery, i think. Modern sport archery is just as far from the real archery, which is now called "traditional archery", as sport fencing from the actual fencing
I've done sport fencing for 9 years and you're absolutely right. As a kid my parents told me to practice a sport. I wanted to do swordfighting but knew nothing of hema (if it already was around in my country back then nobody knew of it) so started sport fencing. Now I've switched to hema because that was the thing I actually wanted to do. Sport fencing is very intense and requires a lot of skill but it isn't sword fighting. It shares some principles though, which I've taken over to hema; my trainers often say I'm very good at judging the distance to my opponent andat facestabbing :D
As someone who has done Sport Fencing for 2 years and Kendo for 3 years I realize there can be a knee jerk reaction from our communities to precieved attack which I can understand. Both have the fundamentals of the original styles of sword fighting but have moved to be abstract sports. They still require an amazing amount of skill but they have techniques and strategies that would only be effective in a sporting context due to the nature of the practice weapons and not effective in real swordsmanship. Where I tend to tilt my head is when sport fencers start asserting that somehow they know more about real swordsmanship than treatises and first hand accounts covering periods when these weapons, the real weapons, were actually being used for combat. Saying things like the "Opponent would drop dead instantly from any thrust" which is very rare and almost always wrong, which can even be backed up by modern crime accounts. Or attacking HEMA for having "too many weapons" and therefore a less effective fighting art- which is nonsense, or citing that "any modern day Olympic fencers would come out of any sword fight unscathed" is really stretching things to absurdity. If you train with a much lighter and flexible practice weapon, likely never touching a real smallsword, in a way that you only care about stabbing your opponent first with fearless abandon, you're almost certainly going to die! You probably will take the other guy with you because you stabbed them quicker but now's there are just two dead guys, nobody wins. If you don't train for something and then are expected to do that thing that you haven't trained for, you aren't going to immediately pick it up. There needs to be a realization in these particular parts of the Sport Fencing community that Sport Fencing in the way it's practiced today is abstracted and isn't practical swordsmanship. If you're okay with that, fine, if not then make moves to change aspects of sport to be more realistic and quite frankly more enjoyable to watch. For example, the time period of striking first being raised to one second and after blows being counted against a point.
@@jonathanhou8712 Or throw dirt, scratch the eyes, kick the groin or any number of things we're taught to be considered underhanded but they'd actually do in a heartbeat if it meant that they got to go home alive at the end of the day. I've seen quite a few fairly talented MMA fighters get the piss beat out of them in street fights because the street doesn't have rules and that dumb mook you may be able to mop up in the ring will beat you to death or put you in the hospital when he pulls out a knife or some other weapon. This is why the military tries to make a very clear distinction between fighting and combat. You'll get trained in SOME ground techniques because a grappling match that leads to the ground is documented as fairly common in warfare, there is some worry though, that too many people are trying to do it on purpose because they're too into BJJs fighting success but relatively untested combat success. While I see a growing number of military personnel when I was still in that were gravitating and taking BJJ which isn't a bad thing in itself, too many of them were conditioned with the goal of taking the fight to the ground not realizing how extremely vulnerable they are shooting for a single or double if your opponent decided that they didn't want to play by the same rules. For example, had an senior NCO that did taijutsu with me and he got into a light sparring match with another guy who was a BJJ guy. The BJJ guy shoots for the takedown and gets a double and gets him on the ground but didn't realize that he had a huge red line across his throat. The NCO had a plastic knife with red dry erase marker all over the blade and had effectively slit his throat when he came in for the takedown. In taijutsu we learned to hide weapons on ourselves and he had hid the knife on him. The other guy was pissed that the NCO would bring a weapon into a sparring match and the NCO reminded him that in real combat, the enemy isn't going to play by the rules and to approach and train fighting and trying to apply it to actual combat will get you killed.
@@Talishar I'd like to also add on that some of the treatises that people who HEMA study focus on fighting to the death. A good example would be the teachings of Fiore. In the introduction of his treatise, he says, "I'll begin with grappling which there are two types: grappling for fun, or grappling for earnest, by which I mean mortal combat, where you need to employ all the cunning, deceit, and viciousness you can muster. My focus is on mortal combat, ...when you're fighting for your life." Alongside his teachings for moves for dueling, he shows a self defense moves like what a person should do if they were to be jumped in a bench, grabbed by the collar in the middle of a street, or when they only have improvised weapons to defend themselves with. Many combat sports and martial arts (including HEMA) focus on the first type of grappling Fiore talks about, which can miss what some of these systems were origionally made for, which is disabling your opponent and making sure they can't harm anyone while keeping yourself as unharmed as possable. People seem to avoid the more dangerous techniques since they can't use them in a tournament or in practice. I think in HEMA's case this is especially disapointing since HEMA is suppose to be an effective martial art (for the type of weapons people used in the time when the particular treatise was written). I worry that people who do HEMA might end up like the BBJ guy who when he practiced with a NCO guy got his neck pretend slit by a plastic knife. If people care to study a killing art like what Fiore and other masters teach they should know all the techniques the masters teach and be able use the weapons they learn as if they were in a life or death situation, not just the ones that can midigate an afterblow in a tournament or the moves that can be optimised for a certan ruleset.
@@josephlucas4024 That's why it should be important to establish the concept of a difference between martial arts and martial training. One is a lifestyle to improve yourself, the other is designed to end an opponent before they can end you so you can move onto the next opponent to end. This is probably the lamentation that a lot of the old soldiers of note in the past when they discussed dueling vs combat. Even dueling to the death is a far different beast to battlefield combat. The problem that you end up finding the hard way is that most life or death situations where people are trying to kill you are going to be more battlefield-like than dueling-like. It's going to be a chaotic mess where the adversaries you think you knew starting off may not be the ones you needed to keep an eye on. This then though does bring to light that many of Fiore's serious grappling techniques aren't what you'd be sparring with because you can seriously hurt your training partner with them. I highly doubt when Fiore was teaching them that they were doing it in full-bore sparring. It was probably a very slow and methodical approach to ensure the student understands the basic movements and motions and slowly sped them up till they were natural in flow. The only issue I see with HEMA is the same issue I saw with kenjutsu. The vast majority of the weapon techniques are relatively worthless because I'm not walking around with a sword or spear/staff everywhere. They're good to take note of should some odd circumstances find myself with a sword defending my life, but the likelihood of that situation ever happening is lower than me winning the jackpot a couple times over. At least in the U.S., firearms training and tactics would be the best form of martial training to learn and practice as that's going to be what's the most relevant. If Fiore were alive today, he wouldn't be wasting his time with swords and spears, he'd be learning everything he could on firearms. Most of those masters were smart and practical and would adopt the best technology and techniques of their time to give themselves the best advantage.
@@Talishar To be fair, if it's a sparring match with any, undisclosed weapons, I can bring a laser pointer, and say it was a lightsaber. Ssswish, you're dead. What your NCO did is a meaningless pissing contest. Unless the terms of the sparring are disclosed, the BJJ guy can also just walk across the room, pick up a chair, hurl it across the room, and send you to the ER.
What's a sword used for? To kill!! Kill what!? The enemy!! With what!? A Sword!! Well done! Fall in!! --- What's a foil used for? Beep! Beep! Beep! Win!
I disagree a little bit. A sword are designed to overcome the oponent defenses. Killing or not is a people decision. On a historical knight tournament, the blades, maces and spears keep dangerous, but the action is not intended to kill. Or on a first touch or blood duel. What I mean is that it is perfectly possible to have a sport that keeps its original features and still be civilized and safe. This is exactly what the HEMA does.
CopernicoTube A sword is a weapon designed to minimize the enemy's capability to inflict force upon yourself. Which can both mean kill and maim. I was more parodying or copying the rather famous video which is on TH-cam about an angry Scotsman teaching recruits HOW TAE FECHT WITH A BAYONET! From the BBC history series "Soldiers" (Infantry episode)
CopernicoTube Well, I think the primary function of a sword through history has generally been to inflict a disabling injury to an unarmoured or lightly armoured enemy. With a secondary defensive function, and often a tertiary function as status-symbol, the status symbol element ironically deriving from the sword's lack of utility as a tool (agricultural implement, eating device, etc). The big functional divide I think is between slashing (likely immediately disabling, and showier) and piercing (possibly greater eventual lethality, at the cost of less immediate disabling effect). Both functions are useful, and of course many swords can do both.
"How many people are really thinking about disabling when they lift their weapon?" In an actual battlefield situation I'd say they are mostly thinking 'get him before he gets me', without much concern whether 'get' means kill or just wound; hence I said 'disable'. It's different with an assassin's tool such as a sniper rifle. When IRA snipers used Barrett .50 rifles to shoot RUC policemen, the function of the rifle was to kill; a wounded policeman would be a sub-optimal outcome from the POV of the sniper. Sometimes the primary purpose of the sword is literal killing; eg the design of the Roman gladius and its training focused on lethal stomach strikes up into the vital organs. The Roman way of war was essentially battlefield butchery. But historically that seems relatively rare; usually most of the actual killing is/was done to captives, after the actual fighting is/was over. The design & associated technique of eg a Viking sword was more about disabling limb strikes, followed by an execution strike to the neck of the incapacitated or captured opponent.
As a sport fencer, I agree with a lot of this video, but i think the current sport of FIE fencing does have merits in and of itself and an evolution. If i was to have a duel in 2014 with say a smallsword, i would pick the pistol grip every time. its just functionally superior for the thrust, minus a slight bit of reach if you're pommelling. I must agree that i think a lot of FIE rules are bullshit for various reasons. The priority system basically allows incredibly risky tactics to pay off in foil and sabre, but i think most serious fencers understand that epee, without priority rules, is the most authentic. I feel like there would be easy ways to fix a lot of these issues too, which bothers me. like for sabre, just adding like a rubberized coating so only the edge can score a point would be massivly better. maybe im thinking too into it but i think both have reasons for existing
Yes, I too think that there are some relatively small and easy ways to change sport fencing equipment and rules to make it more like the real fencing that it was originally supposed to be - I'll talk about this in a future video :)
good idea but it would still not add tooo much realism - i mean it basicly stays hitting each other without any defense - i would actually add the rule that you ONLY get the point if you are NOT hit for 2 or 3 seconds after you hit the enemy so you actually "survived" your maneuver - and maybe add a scoring system that a hit to the toe does not count as much as a hit to he heart. I think you would have to change a LOT to get sport fencing back to what it was originally. But to be honest i am glad things evolved as they did - this way we have more possibilites - in some countries they do full contact fights with steel (blunt) weapons in armor where the winner is decided by actually winning the fight like enemy gives up, is disarmed or actually knocked out or simply hit badly enough that he lies on the ground and the opponent (in a real situation) could stab him. In germany is a group who do this even with axes however they do have broken bones relatively often. Anyway if sport fencing would be more historically correct who knows what would have happened - i am relatively sad cause in my area most clubs for medieval stuff are actually show fighters so no chance to learn there either and the one hema club here only teaches longsword - quite a pain in the...cause i want to learn poleaxe and 2 handed axe
It would be interesting to see what real swordmanship would be like if sword fighting for real (as opposed than for sport) was a thing people did. What kind of equipment we'd have for that scenario if people still duelled to death with swords, for instance, or if it was still important in war.
Altrantis i guess like in most cultures the duell to death thing would have evolved into a duell of first blood and i guess the protective gear would have evolved while the weapon itself may have become even more "harmles" to prevent accidental deaths. In war...actually it is very hard to say. Basicly i guess weapon design would have changed a bit but overall it would not be too different from warfare in the last 2000 years as BASICLY the only thing that happened was armor getting better and weapons getting bigger. If we follow this scenario for fun we would now wield 3 meter long swords and wear full plate armor with protective glass in the eyeslits
Orkar Isber Actually blades are still used in combat and they have followed the same trend as firearms, that is to say they have gotten shorter. A long bladed weapon like a sword is superfluous on a modern battlefield, however a good fighting knife/bayonet or even a short machete is often carried for a last ditch close quarters weapon. A carbine is small enough that in hand to hand you're close enough to use a knife, so a fixed bayonet isn't used much. Besides, the point of a carbine is compactness and a bayonet counters that.
As one that fenced extensively through high school and university I think perhaps this is a little too dismissive of the skills that sport fencing builds. Understanding of tempo, precise footwork and strong body position through parry, riposte and lunge are all key parts of sport fencing and these translate critically to good 'swordsmanship'. As to the point that sport fencing registers insignificant hits. Well, when one fences foil we only score hits to the torso (a fairly vital area!) and the buttons on the end of our swords require at least 500 grams of pressure to register the hit. On such a small point this is more than enough to cause significant injury. If one watches any competition fencing its easy to see the force of the hits in the bend of a scoring blade. Translate this force to a more stiff small sword and your target is in some serious trouble! Furthermore, having subsequently spent some time attending a local HEMA club, I found the general level of skill (especially in footwork) far below the average of the sport fencing community. Were I to have to fight a 18th century style small sword duel, I think I would prefer to face the average sketchy movement of a HEMA practitioner over the average highly agile foil fencer.
Agreed. If HEMA practitioners tended to be actual athletes instead of their usual amateurism then it would be more interesting to see what a 'real duel' would look like. In peak days of fencing training we could run marathon distances, leg press 600+ easily, do 75-100 pushups, jump rope 2000 skips in minutes. I could've probably held a full squat for the entire LOTR trilogy ;) But above all else we were really good at poking that other guy in a mask! As 'unreal' HEMA claims fencing might be, at least those involved take the sport seriously.
except when you guys always double kill each other then how does any of your tempo parry riposte or anything else matter? also while a small sword is also stiff the point is a lot larger and on types besides the colichemarde then its usually larger from what ive seen. also depends on how good your local hema club is i have a club that claims its a hema school but is actually stage combat and fairly shitty. its like kenjutsu you get people who dont know shit trying to teach it, and then you get guys that could take your sword out of your hand and then proceed to kill you with your own sword if the need came about. also dueling is only one aspect of swordsmanship and its a fairly easy one to be good at as at least in european history duels were fought with equal weapons on fair and equal terms and ground. it all depends on context, and whilst sport fencing at some clubs is more realistic go take a look at olympic level fencing the guys who should be the best yet rush in and double suicide every single fucking time. the reason you see hema clubs as being less skilled or amateur is because its harder to do, foot work is more complex as generally you have to worry about being able to cut with your sword or actually position something lighter then a couple hundreds grams into place, even small swords which are light by sword standards are 500 grams plus. just cause you move your feet alot doesnt mean your foot work is good, take a look a rolan warzecha who has video of them doing bind practice with sharp swords, he says himself he often doesnt have to move more then 4 or 5 steps. also you guys only have to worry about one line, side ways movements arent allowed, which is the first step a real swordsman will take as its the easiest way to avoid most strikes with a sword and allows you to freely hit your opponent at the same time. go watch skallagrim's videos on richard marsden vs lee smith. swordsmanship isnt about being in the best shape its about being smart, hence why miyamoto musashi was beating people much younger then him without having to land fatal blows in the later portion of his life. these so called atheletes would die in a real sword fight to anyone competent with a sword. and if two of them tried dueling each other for real theyd both die seeing how common double hits are in sport fencing.
christopher rogers depends on who you are and how dedicated you are, you may have been in good shape but if i gave you something like a katana or a sword designed for cutting could you effectively weild that for the full duration of a long sword duel.....probably not, they use different muscles cool you can lunge far and not fall over however your arms would probably tire your core wouldnt be used to the movements and seeing as sport fencing has no side to side movement youd have a minimum of 2 other directions youd have to get used to moving in which also requires different muscles or your muscles to work in different ways. you also wouldnt know to move the sword by its balance point to reduce energy used to move the sword around quickly. it has so many aspects missing from proper swordsman ship, doesnt matter if youre in better shape if the other person simply makes a smarter move. you dont always even have to be faster if your opponent is predictable then it almost doesnt matter how much faster they are cause the human body can only move so fast. go watch richard marsden versus lee smith youll see what a real hema practitioner looks like. also dont forget how many people who do sport fencing and dont take it to the point of being a athlete but do it for fun. and if you want dedication to something then go to old school kenjutsu training or hema training like when they were in the time this stuff was used, you know where they trained full speed and full strength with live swords at the highest levels. something no sport fencer could do since they dont even have any idea of how a blade even feels in the hand. a foil acts nothing like a sword, cutting off any sort of sideways movement and counting double kills cause i hit you a fraction of a second sooner is dumb. your sport is basically a speed poking contest sure you need foot work and some feints to be sly but its not fencing as the whole point of fencing is to survive the duel or fight. id gladly take either you or the OP on in a sport duel, you bring your little foil and we shall see how you do when i smack it out of your hand with a bokken or a feder. you rush in knock your point to the side step in where your weapon becomes useless because the real things for small swords cant really cut, and then bam half swording or pommeling. hitting with a smallsword hilt is useless and something thats not allowed in sport fencing, you cant step sideways but i can even if you do step sideways or use the hilt as a weapon the real things are useless for hitting with, your blades cant cut and whilst they can thrust well i can simply grab the blade something else you dont practice in sport fencing. its a sport not a martial art, you cant really speak to something when your own sports best literally do nothing but double suicide every single time, theres no grapples theres rules that dont apply to real duels or fencing and a number of other flaws. cool you guys are atheletes, however your still shitty fencers by the actual defintion of fencing. maybe change your rules and get rid of those fancy ass sensor sticks cause you dont need them, maybe get a pressure sensor instead and you know try acting like these things are actual weapon simulators instead of oh hey lets run into each other like were jousting. thats what sport fencing is pretty much foot jousting. also try practicing with something thats the proper weight of the thing your meant to be simulating as ive held an actual smallsword and not one foil ive ever held has been the proper weight, which means its easier to control the point and less tiring which means you guys should never not even once in awhile except with noobs ever fucking have a double kill as you dont tire as fast your more nimble with those then youd ever be with a real sword meaning all your reactions should be faster and easier, meaning you guys shouldnt need any rules other then maybe no grappling and same size foils as those are the only two factors that could effect fairness, side steps play no part in the fairness factor so why arent they allowed? your sport has too many rules and got stupid. your super practiced lunge may be good and all but if i parry your blade to the side sweep your leg and plunge a sword in your chest what good does it do you? your precise foot work is based on a set of rules and turns to terrible footwork as soon as those rules disappear, why step back when a simple sideways step works better. your tempo is useless when you do nothing with it, you open yourselves up to double kills and the best in your sport do this every single time. and if youre going to say youre better then why arent you in the olympics winning and not getting double suicides with your opponent. its a sport, get over it, your sport doesnt teach swordsmanship, if you enjoy it then cool, but its still basically a high speed poking contest, the only concern is hit them first, but like i said in a real sword fight, your only concern is dont get hit, you dont even have to kill an enemy just disabling them is enough. all the points you brought up for why your sport is better only apply because of the rules in place, not trying to be rude but when you know nothing about swordsmanship other then what a sport thats literally useless for swordsmanship, what do you really know about the subject? youve practiced things that only work when certain rules are in place, rules go out the window in a real fight and in a duel historically there are still aspects and things that were done you dont practice for. while your busy with your fancy foot work someone with real training will just grab said blade since they arent sharp hold it and youre fucked. try adding a buckler or a maine gaunche and adding some hema back into your sport and maybe youll see what i mean.
bmxriderforlife1234 Actually the only weapon you can get a double hit and both be awarded a touch is the epee. The weapons with right of way have it because a hit to target area (a stab to the chest for foil, or a cut to the top half in saber) would debilitate or kill you. Epee on the other hand comes from the most recent dueling tradition of first blood. This is why double hits are awarded, presumably both of you stabbing each other's hand won't kill you. Stabbing into an oncoming attack coming towards you likely will. Right of way rewards correct actions.
has nothing to do with my point, double hits are essentially you guys both suicideing off each other. also since sport fencers dont aim for the hand it essentially robs you of the difficulty. fact is though sport fencing doesnt teach swordsmanship.
Couldn't agree more, Matt. I remember watching sport fencing in the olympics as a kid, and thinking "this isn't right... why aren't they defending? If this was a real fight, they'd both be so wounded it'd be pointless to have even fought."
They do not defend by blade action because statistically, it's a low percentage move. (In sabre, fewer than 1 in 20 hits are scored after a defensive blade action) So best to guard by distance, or take out your opponent before he can take you out. Ideally, both.
The only reason why I started fencing classes was because I wanted to learn how to sword fight. Quickly learned that fencing isn't "real" fencing. There aren't many, if at all, HEMA clubs here in the midwest USA. Only can hope that HEMA grows and becomes more mainstream so that one day there are some classes/clubs I can participate in. Until then, it's just backyard cutting and reading manuals on my own.
Sport fencing is hella fun though. As for comparing it with real sword play I don't see the point, It's like comparing tanks to drag racers. They're both motor vehicles, but one is meant for war and the other for sport.
I've noticed the same arc in shootings sports. After the elimination of heavier caliber rifles and pistols from Olympic competition. 3 gun (Modern and Cowboy) and long range (1000m) shooting really took off in North America with more tradition recurve and long bow archery gaining popularity. I can't speak for the rest world but I would like to know if other countries are doing the same. Now I look at Olympic Shooters and wonder if they ever learned to shoot without rests or those weird metal things on their faces. At least skeet and trap uses shotguns not so different than what may be taken into the field. I guess it's the purity of learning how to use weapons that serve a practical purpose we all share.
It seems that archers and shooters face the same problem when their sport becomes ever so focused on pin-point accuracy, their equipment evolves to serve those purposes. Unfortunately in doing so they largely remove the human from the interaction because human error is what the equipment is trying to remove. Those who start off in these sports with these rules and equipment never actually learn many of the fundamentals behind that sport and become dependent on the equipment (sights, releases and stabilizers in archery and that metal thing you mentioned).
+scholagladiatoria really interesting video. Modern fencing has definitely changed a lot since it became a sport, but the idea of it being simply a game of electronic tag, especially in epee is in my opinion a naive statement. There is definitely a great deal of skill involved in modern fencing, and I believe the reason many people don't follow through beginners courses etc. is actually because it is a lot harder than what they would expect, they realise the work they will have to do and go to historical fencing as it appears easier. Don't get me wrong, I think fencing has definitely moved away from historical fencing, especially saber and foil but I think you will find that pistol grips aside (use them but think the sport would be better without them just from a traditionalist viewpoint) that in particular epee fencing is very close to an actual duel, and is a lot more complicated and skilful than you make it out to be. In fact compared to the other types of fencing, champions usually only start happening in late 20s early 30s, which is different to say saber with most champions in early 20s. There is definitely a focus on athleticism and fitness over pure swordsmanship in modern fencing these days, but only because that's what works, and I am sure if historical fencers many years ago had access to this knowledge they would have been more successful fencers. That's the beauty of modern fencing, you use what works, and not what it necessarily says in the text book, which is true swordsmanship. Also, sometimes less blade work is actually more effective and more pure an art form e.g. use only what is necessary philosophy. Perhaps as a compromise there could be a distinction between 'historical fencing' and 'Olympic fencing'? Also have you read a really good book called epee 2.0? it is a book about a world fencing champion who technically wasn't that good but beats the world using essentially one move, where his strength is not his technique but brilliant and insightful use of strategy. Interesting contrast between the 'old' and 'new ways'. I guess probably the biggest difference between the two seems to be more of an emphasis on competition for modern fencing and mastery for historical fencing which isn't right or wrong, but could indicate why they went their separate ways. I guess they both have their flaws. Perhaps the end goal of each would be both mastery and practicality in thier respective goals
Scott Rawlins Hi, I certainly agree that modern fencing is skillful. However, I disagree that epee is more realistic. Stabbing someone in the toe fractions of a second before they stab you in the face is not realistic to any kind of duel, whether it be first blood or to the death.
I agree completely. I started in olympic sport saber in college and it was ok but I alway thought it was too rules based like "Right of Way". Years later I took up Historic fencing for rapier and saber and really loved it. To me that is real fencing and sport fencing is just race to X number of touches.
I love HEMA and modern fencing as well. I think in my opinion that epee fencing would be the closest to a real duel since there are no rules on right of way as well as the body being the whole target. Hence, with blades meant for thrusts only (going back to your other videos explaining uses on small swords and epees).
+Jonathan Collins Though in epee to score you only need to hit around 1/25th of a second before the opponent. In a real duel that would mean two stabbed people. Also, in epee a hit that lands anywhere first, scores, even if the thrust is in the toe. Not very useful if the opponent then runs their blade through your face :-)
@@scholagladiatoria thats kind of an unfair criticism. As some HEMA institutions have a very similar system. And some Olympic fencing clubs have something much closer to what you describe. In all honesty this whole argument is a bunch of generalizations that very rarely hold true.
Additionally all the blinking lights in sport fencing often lead the audience to just watch for which light goes off instead of looking at the actual fencers.
scholagladiatoria Matt, what are your thoughts on the current movement of turning HEMA in to a sport (tournament fighting)? It seems to be at the same historical crossroads you described, whereby some groups are focusing on the tournament fighting aspect of HEMA whilst others are focusing on the historical art of defense. There's been a lot of division over the last few weeks with the publication of the NY Times piece on Longpoint in the Eastern US regarding the historical vs the sport aspect of HEMA (well, that and the controversy surrounding the 100 man fight in Prague which I'd also love to hear your thoughts on, but that's unrelated and just coincidental timing). Is there really a division? Are some schools more focused on creating tournament HEMA fighters instead of expressing the historical art? Is the growing popularity of tournament HEMA good for the health of HEMA in general?
Knyght Errant at my school, we learn longsword in the liechtenauer tradition, our classes are broken up into 3 nights a week, Tuesdays are tournament training, Thursdays are the principles of longsword and Saturdays are techniques. Principles of longsword in my opinion are the best as they reach into the core of being a good swordsman. Personally, the tournament training does not interest me, as the instructor focuses on winning, forsaking the art.
In my opinion competition is what makes HEMA alive. It drives interpretation and the sense of competition, fighting someone you don't know is an aspect of the fight you will only get at tournaments. A lot of techniques only make sense when they are fast and the opponent is not willing to cooperate. The most important thing for competition are the rules. The rules have to incourage good historical fencing. That is the thing we have to keep in mind.
So im watching "Reclaiming the Sword" and see man in a goatee wearing a Scholagladiatoria shirt and think "hmmm that guy sure sounds familiar"....Just to realize in the next moment that it was you. I had no idea you were in that documentary
Tomasz Wota Matt is always sporting a faint 'name for them' side burns to his upperlips/jawbone. Which I always thought looked cool like the guy in the movie the Professional
scholagladiatoria Incidentally, while that was a decent documentary, I was disappointed it didn't demonstrate more examples of the realistic, historical inspired movie fight choreography it spent so much time talking about. A sadly missed opportunity.
Agree 100%. I started fencing (Classically) in 1964. My instructor started fencing in 1927, because boxing wasn't combative enough. He learned to fence from five European masters, (at least one of which fought duels with sharps, in Italy before coming to the U.S). Those preWWII teachers were long lived, so some of them actually were learning and teaching in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era.... And they viewed Classical Fencing as a martial art. The degeneration of Classical to Neo-fencing, (the latter what my instructor called "calisthenics with sticks") was terrible to see happen.... With the decline, in my area really kicking in, in the '70s & 80's.... Sadly, although I teach Classical exactly like my instructor, modern fencers see our fencing as old-fashioned, quaint, and sadly behind the times. HEMA folks (and we have been visited by some major names in that community) throw us in with Olympic fencing, and wonder when we are going to get serious about sword-fighting. Very frustrating.
I agree with you that sport fencing is quite far removed from actual swordfighting to the death. But then, boxing is quite far removed from brawling as well. Boxing has many illegal punches and actions, and it's entirely possible to win a match on points without doing any actual damage. Still, it does teach athleticism and a correct way to punch. Yet it would be wrong to say thay it's no longer a true martial art. Similarly, sport fencing does actually teach you to look for openings and avoid getting hit, especially in early-game epee. Both of these things are very useful in an actual swordfight, just like knowing how to punch is useful in a brawl. HEMA and fencing are very different things with only a superficial similarity and I don't think it's useful to compare them because the intentions of both are fundamentally different. In sport fencing, the intention is to score points within the rules. In HEMA, the intention is to kill/disable an assailant like you would do in an actual situation, while remaining unharmed yourself. This is, however, also true for boxing, where the intention is to defeat a single opponent either by knocking him out or winning on points, while obeying a strict set of rules. Comparing this to krav maga, where the intention is to disable or escape from an assailant of group of assailants like one would do in an actual situation. If one ends up in a real life situation, one with training in sport fencing will be better able to handle a sword, even a differently weighted one, better than someone without training because they know the correct distances and openings to look for. A boxer would be better able to fight his way out of a situation because he knows how to punch and protect his head. Both boxing and fencing are no longer fights to the death, but they still train skills that would be useful in a real situation. To call sport fencing 'electric tag' goes a bit too far, in my opinion. (The reason I kept bringing boxing into this, incidentally, is because I wanted to show that not only fencing is drifting away from its roots)
Brawling dosent do shit in a fight. Im a profesional boxer and if u think some one can just 'brawl' me your rong. Can gurentee you i beat 99% of people in a bar on the street etc. And if u think winning on points isnt hurting or getting hurt u clearly havent fought in 8oz gloves and been jabbed and hit with straight right hands for 30 minutes. That shit leeds to brain damage and brain bleeds. Trust me
I would say fencing has strayed from its root way more than boxing has and fencing is more on the 'aikido' or 'wingchun' side of the spectrum than being on the 'hema' or 'mma' side which is still not real but way more real.
@Joshua M Nevin The whole "tag the other person first and get points for that" is weapon dependent and also not entirely true. Saber is objectively suicidal, with 90% of actions taking place within .3 seconds and both fencers getting hit. Foil has suicidal actions perhaps 1/3 of the time due to the rules and target area. Epee can be less suicidal than many HEMA weapons, I've seen matches that last several minutes with no contact.
Joshua M Nevin French and Italian grip epee swords are actually almost identical to the real counterparts in weight, length, and balance. Foils of the same grip variety are on the lighter end of real smallswords, but still have similar dimensions. Sabers are the least realistic out of the three, but if you’re used to light Italian sabers,then they’re not too bad. With the exception of saber, the rule sets work well in terms of discouraging suicidal actions, even for epee, where suicidal actions can be beneficial.
it has become a goal in itself not a tract to a goal - or winning a duel (or surviving) as it was originally for I guess.... not often do you fence for 1 hit - usually bouts are the first to 5 hit (or 15 in a direct elimiation semi finals)
If you whip your wrist with an epée, you can bend the blade around the opponents guard to tag their wrist... Bs maneuver but it's another example of how different it really is
how fast are you whipping your wrist with an epee to do that? I can see you doing that with a foil and it would work even better with a sabre as you can tap them on the wrist with the edge, but you must have a remarkably flexible epee to be able to do that.
They are very good points, well explained and well made... As an added comment, I am one of those guys who wanted to learn swordsmanship and joined a hema club, when learning to fence - or sport fence, has never ever held any attraction...
I must admit that I never liked the pistol grips much, which we used for the "electrified" sports fencing back then. All in for the Italian grip there. Yet what I do like about sports fencing is the formal footwork school: We spent sweaty ages to learn "walking" again - basic steps, cross-steps and lunges -- before we were allowed on the planche. That was not just "this feels about right maybe" footwork, but very precise. Which offered us a pretty good base in footwork, which I consider an essence in most martial arts. It even helps us a lot in Jugger training.
This sort of criticism of sport fencing, that it's arbitrary or silly because it doesn't sufficiently mimic an actual sword fight strikes me as quite silly. It's like a chess player complaining that a real knight could move anywhere, and a tower shouldn't move at all. It misses the point. The benefit of sport fencing is that it has completely shed it's martial arts past. It is a SPORT. It no longer matters HOW YOU LOOK when you fence. If you get the touch, within the rule set, you get the touch. This can be extremely liberating. Imagine a soccer player having his/her goal rescinded because it was a "bad kick." If the ball goes in the goal it goes in the goal, and that's worth one point. Some people don't like it, and that's fine.
"the fact remains that modern sport fencing has totally forgotten what swordsmanship is actually about, whether it be to first blood or for military combat. " No. But not not entirely untrue in some specific regards, either.
To paraphrase Gen. Patton's 1911 fencing manual: "the involuntary spasmodic reaction induced from being run-through is usually enough to stop the deadly momentum of the opponents attack." Search the keywords 'Nicaragua knife attacker police'. The attacker charges like a wild animal and thrust his knife into three officers - which causes them to drop down instantly. This confirms what Patton wrote in his 1911 US Army manual. Perhaps Ol' Blood and Guts was speaking from personal experience. The man that puts the point on the other man first wins - period. Noone is more adept at doing this than a good modern fencer. They train to put the point on the opponent first - whether it is an opponent moving in or an opponent on the defensive. Armored knights realized this, and thus their primary weapon was the lance. As with modern fencing, they trained to put the point on the target as accurately as possible, and with as much velocity as possible. When there is something on the line - the future of a dynasty, a life, or even a trophy - this becomes the default form of fighting for those on whose shoulders rest fate. For some real amusement: you can go online and lookup 'thrust vs. cut' or 'modern vs historical fencing'. You will find proponents of reconstructed fencing arguing (and with a smug tone) with the likes of General Patton - who was not only a famous modern General with real combat experience, but a champion modern fencer and West Point graduate. Patton 'literally' wrote the (1911) manual on fencing for US soldiers! LOL What a quaint little cult. I speak with a little experience: I have competed and fought both formally and informally, in full contact and semi-full contact stick fighting. But if I were to start over, knowing what I know now, I would have invested that energy in to modern fencing. (The lauded Battle of Mactan involved just 49 Spaniards, 200 or so native allies vs. 1500+ Natives.) Modern FMA itself is influenced by European fencing.
+Dirk Kingston You need to read 'Swordsmen of the British Empire' - it contains hundreds (yes hundreds) of accounts of hand-to-hand combat in the 17th-19th centuries. Patton knew very little about swordsmanship in actual warfare. In contrast, people like Hodson, Gough and Jacob killed dozens of opponents with their own hands in actual combat - opponents who were themselves using swords and trying to kill them. Patton was a fantasist and believed that he was a reincarnation of Alexander the Great! His only experience with the sword was 20th century fencing competitions… As someone who has been wounded by swords and knives, and as someone who has studied hundreds of crime reports in my job, I can assure you that most people do not instantly stop when they are stabbed. They just carry on doing what they were doing in most cases, but it depends mostly on where exactly the wound is (1cm to the left or right can make all the difference), whether they realise they have been wounded and what their psychological condition is.
Nice troll with the Patton comment. Even your own Gen. Montgomery respected Patton - and he didn't much get on with anyone. Hell, the Nazis said Patton was a genius of tank warfare. I''m sure you think you could take Patton in a duel. While not go all the way while you're making a outrageous statements.
+Dirk Kingston I am a competitive fencer and you're trying to make fencing something it isn't; maybe in 1911 the techniques were far more relevant but these days I wouldn't bring an epee to a knife fight
In what ways do you consider epée de combat techniques to have changed from 1750 to the present? What aspects of current epée technique do you consider irrelevant to earnest encounters?
Don't you really know that right of way in the foil comes from actual history? Foil was a practice/learning sword and right of way was used as a good way to teach people when to attack. And then, the talk about handles... How in the hell pistol grip disqualifies the epee from being an actual sword? Does the definition of sword includes the design specifications of the handle? Have you ever occured to you that maybe the historical swords were like that because it was easier to produce? Do you also disqualify modern weapons from being guns because they have easier to use handles? You may not like the sport aspect of modern fencing. The thing is, nobody needs swords to actually kill people. So, the only reason fencing (or sword fighting in general) to ever exist in 21st century is that it is a game. You are not becoming warriors doing HEMA as you imagine, you are just playing with swords just as modern fencers do. It is just in a different, more olympic sporty kind of way. But then, do you actually believe that since HEMA is more 'real', you would be able to kill a olympic fencer in a duel?
Matt's point is valid. I practiced "fencing" for a number of years and walked away for the EXACT same reasons. I have never met this man. We live in two different countries and are separated by thousands of miles of ocean. But I came to the same conclusion, just like many others. Fencing isn't fencing, it is something else. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who still believe it has some basis in swordsmanship-it doesn't. Maybe the footwork. Though, the "weapons" aren't treated as such and therefore should not be named that name. When you absentmindedly toss your sword on the ground to tie your shoe or fix an article of clothing, clearly your lack of respect indicates you don't view your tool as a weapon. The list can go on.
+toothANDclaw13 Of course it is valid as an opinion. He has every right not to like modern fencing. However some of his arguments defending his point are nonsensical. As I pointed out, the right of way is an actual historical practice, for example. Or the weapon design has nothing to do with what he was talking about. For what is worth, historical fencing weapons are also not really weapons in the strict sense, they are dull. They do not function as weapons are intended, to harm or kill people. You may argue that they can be used that way if sharpened, but so can the fencing weapons be produced to have the ability to kill people. The thing that bugs me is that you seem to forget the fact that, in the end, it is a hobby, a sport, a game. Historical fencing does not make you a knight. You may be romantic enough to see yourself that way or see your weapon as a part of your soul, and that is okay. But weapons are really tools and modern fencing is as real as HEMA fencing. It is like saying modern swimming is not swimming, there are no rules in real swimming. You PREFER historical fencing, that is okay, but preference does not make a good argument for it being objectively better.
+Pool First, claiming the concept of right of way is historical and thereby using it to defend its validity is nonsensical. People were doing that 50 years ago, ten years ago. It's still a rule that comes from a time when much of fencing had ALREADY started fall into degradation. Second, attacking someone's passion for an art using reductionist comparisons is cowardly and in bad taste. Ultimately, the content of this video is questioning the validity of Olympic sport fencing still calling itself fencing when it has clearly strayed very far from its roots. No one is attacking your reasons (or anyone else's for that matter) for participating in sport fencing. That's your business, not mine.
+toothANDclaw13 Its not 50 years old though. Its barely more modern than longsword. Foil has been used since 17th century as a practice weapon and you can see at the 6th paragraph it says: "During the 17th century several major changes occurred in fencing. The "fleuret", or foil, was developed in France as a lighter training weapon for dueling. Right-of-way, a set of rules which made the game a series of alternating attacks and defense, became generally accepted. With right-of-way, duelists were unlikely to impale each other, as they did not both attack at the same time. This made fencing safer and reduced the number of casualties to dueling." acfencers.tripod.com/briefhistory.html You could find other sources this came up after 5 minute google search. The part you clearly don't understand is that there isn't only 15th century longsword fighting in history. In reality, there were also a dueling period and modern fencing was a recreation of the dueling practice. Sure it has evolved somehow but you can't expect it to carry on 15th century practices. And who is not attacking the other's passion? Get a little grip of reality! All of the video is belittling modern fencing. Yes, modern fencing may not be really swordfighting but neither is historical fencing. Again, you are not being samurai's when you practice kendo just as you are not being knights when you do historical fencing. It is a fucking hobby. Be happy with your hobby instead of feeling superior for nonsensical reasons. And arguably, sports fencing has more of a right to call itself fencing since that is what fencing is in modern days, even in the dictionary the term fencing refers to competitive fencing. That is what happens to fencing when you don't try to kill each other.
I agree fully, modern fencing still takes its roots from what it once was. The pistol grip argument was a bit silly since, French grips and Italian style grips are manufactured. One could easily take principles from "real fencing" and apply them in a competitive situation. One could also get a grip and understand, its a sport, non lethal, why does it not deserve to evolve.
very helpful video! I just found out my new school's fencing club does classical fencing and was a bit apprehensive about it because the quick, high speed Olympic fencers always looked really cool to me. This video sorted out a lot of the myths and questions about both styles and how classical fits between HEMA and modern fencing. I especially liked your comments about fencers being people who want to learn to fight with a sword because that really applied to me. Thanks for this informative video!
Having done (i'v since left it) sport foil fencing for about five years, i completely agree. I went into fencing to learn real swordsmanship. i was disappointed to find that's not what it was, but stayed because i found it fun anyway. Now i have a question, I left sport fencing because it was much too hard on my knees, but is HEMA any different in that regard? If i did long sword, or even rapier, for instance, are the movements different enough that i could get away with not having super strong knees?
Jonathan Allen That's exactly it, the impossibly long lunges were killing my right knee. With no particular need for a quick recovery we were pushed to reach as far as possible (not directly by the coach, but by circumstances mostly) our coach was really understanding though and suggested i just not lunge quite so far and focus more on "blade work", but by that point i had already injured myself and needed time to recover. Thanks for the info, so long as i don't have to put full body weight on a sharply bent right knee reaching past the foot i'm fine till it strengthens back up.
zoll2000 Hello commenter from 4 years ago, I notice you say your knee passes your foot and I am here to say that is a bad idea and not encouraged in fencing due to injury risk. In all seriousness, my fencing club and many others advise practitioners to avoid exactly that.
I haven't paid too much attention to modern sport fencing, but this sounds terrible. Sport fencing always felt unreal in how each person dealt blows, and this just kinda puts the icing on the cake. Good topic Matt. I don't know enough to reply to it, but I'd imagine this should stir some people up.
Performance enhancing drugs are a huge part of every sport where lots of money is involved. You're never going to stop that, best thing would just be to allow it to happen rather than making the sports in to competition to see who can take the most drugs without getting caught. That being said training is still the most important factor.
When I did sport fencing in school I was fortunate to have a very good teacher. We didn't utilize those electric scoring system, it was an honor system. If you wanted to become better why would you challenge a point someone had against you anyway? It makes sense that if you desire to improve your skill that you be honest, and scoring a point by 0.3 of a second or some other ridiculous figure... Electric tag is essentially the best thing to call it, it's completely lost touch with what it was intended to be in the first place.
I don't know what image you have of modern fencing clubs, but we don't use electric scoring during practice -- unless we're specifically training for a tournament. Most of the practice sessions in my club (well known varsity fencing school in the US) work on the honor system -- just as you described. Furthermore, the club that I went to in high school (again, very well rated in my state), still had most of the practice bouts done by honor for the sake of convenience -- and to instill good sportsmanship. Why do tournament bouts have electric scoring? Because when you have prizes on the line, people don't follow honor as much. Fighting in a tournament -- to a lot of people, especially as they become more competitive -- is more about winning than about getting better. Obviously, you need some impartial means of adjudication and electric scoring is objectively better than a human referee using red chalk stains because of a very simple reason: The electric system only goes off once you've scored a sufficiently heavy hit. For foil, the tip needs to feel a force of atleast 500 mg (~0.5 N). I fence HEMA, and the refs in some of my tournaments have dropped very convincing hits because they just weren't fast enough to pick up my action (EDIT: And yes, the honorable HEMA fighter felt my hit for sure, but didn't own up. I wonder why...). As a result, a fair number of HEMA tournaments in my side of the world have players who intentionally fence slower so that the refs can see their hits. How is this any different from sport fencers playing to the rules, O' Historically accurate one?
Has anybody ever messed with smallsword vs foil or epee? Like if one took the guard and wacky grip of a modern fencing tool, put a solid blade with a sharp tip on it, and had a go versus a smallsword.
but also, I do give you credit for calling out sabre. Sabre fencing has changed sooo much because of the electrical system of scoring. And I also enjoy and like many of your videos. And I think you are very cool as well. No joke. I mean that sincerely.
Spencer Brasch Thanks - yes I think sabre is the most removed of the modern fencing weapons from actual swordsmanship. The right of way rule, which does come from common sense, has been grossly abused to change the art in modern sabre. And the lightness of the modern sabre, or rather the complete lack of mass in the blade specifically, means that it moves utterly unlike any actual sabre or cutting weapon. Lastly, the flick tap used in modern sabre cuts, with any edge-orientation, is nothing like an actual cut.
Casper Howell what swordsmanship? modern sport fencing teaches very little about using a real sword, dont believe me? pick up a REAL rapier or sabre and try using it like a foil or fencing sabre. you will loose.
In my last years at my last club I started pushing toward having the martial aspect of things. We picked up full scale rapiers, and I pushed for gymnasium sabres but it's hard go get that in an epee club.
Here’s the thing, your argument though it has many points I agree with, is grounded on the assumptions that all people interested in sport fencing are also interested in historical technique, and that this evolution is inherently a bad thing. The reason why fencing evolved the way it did is largely because sword fights were no longer a practical thing to train for. It then became more of a sport than something your life would depend on. Fencing or even martial arts as a whole aren’t the only things affected by this. Equestrian training is not about preparing to ride into battle or ride your horse across the continent. Rowing isn’t about the maritime tradition. Archers don’t shoot at human targets anymore. Yes, if you want to learn how to fight the historical way, look to HEMA. However, if you are just looking for a fun and challenging sport, then there’s nothing wrong with it. And as you said, Fencing teaches a lot of the same/similar skills used in HEMA. The primary differences are the weapons and rules. Pitting the two against each other doesn’t help anyone.
Many techniques taught in sport fencing are the same ones taught long ago. Parrying, counter attacking, avoidance of an attack, envelopment, binds, beat of the blade etc etc. However the more complex the action, the more chance of it going wrong. Hence why people use simple manoeuvres the most.
I can understand people who have their expectations disappointed in modern fencing. I was very disappointed with my first year of modern fencing (foil) also; I wasn't allowed to touch a blade until I had mastered my footwork, distance and tempo. Not glamorous, and really no fun at all. Still, I can say, that as a former competitive fencer who spent several years studying the art after that first awful year, I used to eat other blade arts (kali, kendo, and HEMA) for lunch. By that, I mean that if I had a reasonable amount of space, and non-treacherous terrain, I used to be able to pick practitioners of those arts apart, hitting their extremities, face, and chest frequently, while almost never being hit myself... partly because my opponents were carrying heavier blades (they thought foils were silly too), and partly because they were sloppier and slower. They would often complain that the fight wasn't realistic after I had repeatedly hit them in ways that would have put holes in their hands, and face, and feet and chest if there had been a point on the end of my foil. Perhaps. Heavier blades are necessary to cleave armor and protective garments. If you want to fight in street clothes, I would suggest that you want something sharp, durable, and as light as possible to make holes in your opponent at the highest rate of speed with the least amount of effort. In the extremely unlikely, hypothetical scenario where you run into a former competitive modern fencer in a fight with swords, I suppose that person will be carrying something like a foil... maybe even one with a pistol grip. If you are in your suit of armor at the time, then you are in excellent shape. If you are the Highlander, and can only be killed by having your head severed from your body, then you are in an equally comfortable position. However, if you are training to use a katana, or a machete, or a rapier, and you happen to be wearing a down coat with a t-shirt under it when this hypothetical sword fight occurs, you will get to experience a short and extremely unpleasant form of "tag" where someone with a silly handle on their frail, whippy blade pokes many deep holes in your body. You can go gently into that good night with the knowledge that what happened to you wasn't real swordsmanship.
I would like to mention that you do have a point on the disliking the right of way rule in foil and sabre fencing. However, epee is still the closest that you'll get to in sportsmanship since the lack of priority and its still very essential to control your opponent's blade in epee! Feel free to argue with me!
Im an ex-sport fencer and I did enjoy it, although I agree entirely that a) its not a very realistic representation of a sword fight b) you can still learn a lot from it. On the matter of pistol grips, what is wrong with a thrusting weapon using a pistol grip? It's not historical, it not supposed to be, but does it give superior handling to a traditional grip? Could a rapier-type sword with a pistol grip be considered "better" than a traditional rapier in a real fight?
That is actually an interesting point. I'm not a fencer, but watching some fights with real weapons (ie. stiff ones) I observed there's quite a lot of circular movement of the tip of sword to go around the opponent's blade and react to it (which must work differently for the sport fencing with the highly flexible blades). It seems to me that a pistol grip would impede those circular movements resulting in a poorer ability to react to opponent's blade.
@@erykczajkowski8226 On the contrary, pistol grips are far better for circular disengages and evasive coupes for light thrusting swords. Its much easier to keep the movement as small as you need due to the greater stability and strength, as well as the blade naturally sitting parallel with the forearm. You couldn't use it on a rapier, the balance would be wrong, but it wouldn't suprise me if it were an objective improvement for a smallsword.
I agree 100% I was a (sport) saber fencer in college and abandoned it because it was so far from real fencing that it became ridiculous to me. Whoever introduced the concept of "right of way" into a sport that is supposed to simulate dueling should be shot through the lungs with very slow bullets. The final straw for me was when I faced off against in a tournament against a guy I had dragged up and down the strip countless times. However *this* time somebody had taught him how to whip the point of his blade around my parry so that the flat of the blade bent and struck me on the upper arm right before my riposte cut half his face off. When you can win with a technique that would be impossible *and* ineffective with live steel, your sport has jumped the proverbial shark.
No other martial sport I can think of has degraded the martial styles used for it quite like sport fencing. Modern sport fencing seems like more of a game children play than a real competition of skill. When I first saw it, I knew nothing of real fencing and thought, "if anyone actually did this stuff in a real fight, they'd get themselves killed without doing much to their opponent." Then I saw some real fencing and realized the difference
Do not make the mistake of assuming that just because it isn't swordfighting that it doesn't take skill. Sport fencing is a game. It's game that no longer resembles actual swordfighting, but it is still a skill-intensive game. Being really good at sport fencing requires lots of practice, athleticism, and mental focus, not to mention godlike reflexes. I don't have a problem with sport fencers doing what they do. I just have a problem with sport fencers thinking that what they do is sword fighting, or anything like it.
Graidon Mabson Agreed. This should be what viewers take from the video itself. There's nothing wrong with what they do, it's just not what they say it is anymore. Foil-tag would be a good name for it, IMHO.
Graidon Mabson Nooooo, of course it's an extremely athletic and skill-heavy sport. Nobody's gonna take that away from it. But like you said, it ain't swordfighting! Not any more than chess is waging war.
I am not so sure that I agree with what is being said here. If hypothetically I had a real duel with any kind of thrusting sword coming in 3 months and I had to train for it, I am not sure that I could find a better way to train for it than sport épée training. Sure, it's not a real sword fight, but the rules are not restrictive at all like the right of way rules of florett or saber. Ultimately, it's two guys trying to thrust their sword in their opponent, and trying to avoid being hit, how they do it is up to them. Who thrusts first gets the point. Sure, there are many things that diverge from real sword fighting, like for example the lighter weapon, the pistol grip, weak thrust needed to score a point (750 grams I believe), short amount of time between touches to determine who gets the point, just to name a few. However, the footwork, reflexes, distancing, coordination and speed that one develops in sport fencing cannot be equaled. In sport fencing you develop these qualities with full gear on at EVERY practice, against many sharp opponents. I have nothing against HEMA but you have to realistic, the level of athleticism is extremely poor as far as I can see. How do you think that a real rapier duel between 10 épée-olympians vs. the 10 best HEMA rapierists in the world would play out ? Give the épée-olympians 1 month to adapt to the rapier and to the reality of the duelling and I am sure that they will win 9 out of 10 duels. Why ? Because they have trained with the best, using the best methods, all their lives. Athleticism > All.
Agreed, sports and martial arts are not the same thing at all. With a weapon or not. I discovered that with Kendo/Kenjutsu. I respect both and most of all, the dedication of any practitioner but they are two differents things.
It really sucks for me, because I actually would like to learn smallsword technique. Sport fencing is almost close enough to be reminiscent of the real thing, but only just so. There are a bunch of things like right-of-way. (UP YOURS, COMMON SENSE!!)
It seems your argument its all about in trying to recruit people to HEMA. I understand your we just ranting, but come on. If you're getting into sport fencing in order to fight like a real swordsman you're in it for the wrong reasons. Any good club will explain that on the first day. Your videos are universally good Matt but please focus on the history and the techniques of swordsmanship rather than bashing sport fencing for something that it is not.
I feel strongly as you do. Excellent video. I, unfortunately, have often encountered the perspective that sport fencing represents the "ultimate evolution" of European swordsmanship and many of my colleagues have as well. It seems a real shame to me. When the U.S.A.'s national sport fencing organization began issuing teaching certificates and titles for historical fencing I, and many people I know, felt terribly angry about it because that organization has not practiced real swordsmanship for a century, and many of the weapons for which these were issued had not had masters trained in them for much longer.
Funny. In the Olympics, the tip of a fencers blade is the 2nd fastest moving object (beaten only by a target shooter's bullet). As much as you armchair HEMA fan boys (ie, you don't practice a martial art, nor have you ever formally done so) like to say that a foil or epee are harmless the reality is quite different. If the sword breaks or the tip gets removed somehow it can result in accidents such as getting impaled by the seemingly harmless "metal stick"
@@themanformerlyknownascomme777 And your point is? If you want to go to danger the most hazardous Olympic sport is Dressage. As far as I can tell no-one has said that people cannot be accidentally killed in sport fencing. What Mr Easton has said is that sport fencing no longer accurately reflects sword work. As to the speed of the tip, the athleticism of the fencers is well acknowledged. What does that have to do with its resemblance to swordsmanship? You have peirced your strawman to the heart. Rejoice in your victory.
@@robdarvall2726 deaths? No, not yet, Injuries? Absolutely. Anyway, let me ask you a question, are you familiar with Kendo? You know that they use a piece of Bamboo as a stand in for Katanas right? Well modern fencing is the same principle, the Foil is a stand in for the Smallsword and the Epee for Epee de Combat, with Saber standing in for dueling saber. Its the same thing, can someone get killed with the Kendo stick? Its certainly possible but hasn't yet happened, same goes for foil.
@@themanformerlyknownascomme777 I still don't see your point. No-one has argued that foils, epees, and sabres are not potentially dangerous. I am familiar enough with sport fencing, having done it for some years. The possible danger has nothing to do with the argument. People who are working in both systems are proposing that sport fencing no longer reflects sword work as it was actually practiced. That's the argument. Speed of tip, potential accidents, all are irrellevent.
The funny thing is - with modern technology we can now create fair sport fencing without arbitrary decisions, that still works like real fencing (edge alignment matters, force matters, body part hit matters). It would be more expansive than electrified tag, though.
In truth, I'd say most of this really applies to Sabre and Foil more than Epee. I enjoy watching all three, but Epee tends to be the one that actually makes sense. Because any touch is a point, and the weapon lacks right of way, a lot more possibilities present themselves. It feels far more like "actual" fencing.
I've been involved in sport fencing (AFLA, USFA, Empire State Games in NY, Club level) for over 50 years. My master was taught by a master who learned in the 19th century, so I recognize I am a dinosaur. We were taught that the idea was to hit without being hit, and that the rules in foil and sabre were actually there to make you treat the toy weapon as though it were heavy and sharp. We used to comment that epee (without right-of-way rules) was more artificial than foil (where right-of-way is raised to the highest level) because hitting first had very little to do with surviving. I wonder if you have every fought a juried bout in sabre. Since you had to convince the director and judges both that something happened and that you were right to do it, it was a lot more faithful to the ideas you expressed. I stopped fencing sabre competitively when then starting changing the rules to match the equipment, instead of making the equipment work according to the spirit of fencing. In my heart of hearts I believe french grip should beat pistol-grip every time all other things being equal, but I don't think it is really the equipment that is the issue. The equipment just reflects the changes in the tides of coaching styles. It is sad but true it is easier to teach a fencer to fast than to be smart, so that is done at all levels, and then the rules are changed to handle the mess of double attacks. Let's flip a coin?! Also good fencing is 'dull' so let's penalize defensive strategies - don't want the TV audience (the what?) to tune out. Sorry I haven't had a chance to take up HEMA, in my 70's now I'm not sure it's the time. Anyway - I think you are right about the direction the sport has taken. Keep on keep'n on.
Why do they have the rule about "who first started attack"? Why don't they have the rule about afterblows? Why don't they make the weapon thicker so people who watch this can see the goddamn weapon?
These rules do actually emerge out of real saber dueling, though it is hard to tell now. The idea is, if you're in a real "fight to wound / kill" situation wielding heavy, sharp sabers and the other guy comes at you and is clearly delivering a serious cut at you, it would be suicidal to ignore such a serious attack so you can get in a blow of your own. As to the idea of a "thicker weapon" you can indeed find these. Hanwei makes a couple of them that, while straight rather than curved, make for much better saber fencing than flicking people with a metal noodle. Wielding one with enough oomph to land a substantial blow takes a bit more time, makes the exchanges feel more authentic and rewarding.
There is indeed a rule about after blows. It is called 'the box' that does not allow a hit x units of time (weapon specific for x) after the first hit was recorded. So after blows don't count because the bout has been stopped, by the referee AND the scoring box. Technology... Who knew?
Dickon Jayes I'm not positive on how it works for saber, but for foil fencing at least (and i'm pretty sure epee as well) the "hit box" is damn near instantaneous. To the point where the machine would catch a definitive touche but a judge wouldn't.
There should be at least a three second delay between hit and halt to allow for a double kill. Perhaps the scoring boxes could have two tones so you can tell the difference. Beep..................................Buzz You could have a number of additional hits by either person during that time and they should count.
Can I ask why you rarely see any seeking the bind in sport fencing? In some smallsword stuff (close enough to foil one would think) it seems much more prevalent. Sport fencing seems to be more, strike, strike, etc. with less bladework. Is it because of the faster pace of sport fencing, or is there some other reason? (I'm not running down sport fencing, but as a dude with an interest in historical fencing and no sport fencing background, I'm curious). Also I would think for military sabres, smallswords, spadroons etc. the footwork would at least be similar, is that the case?
Its because the competition meta does not allow it. If you check a pre comp foil/epee warm-up lesson you will see plenty of binds. Hell when you first learn fencing there is plenty of binds or parries in opposition . But at the higher tactical levels if you want to stand a whiff of a chance of getting to the final most actions need to be done with a absence of blade and from a much further distance away than any smallsword treatise advocates, because (counter intuitively for non sport fencers) there is reliance on the acceleration of the point being able to beat a limited human reaction time, which has a higher percentage on allowing one to be hit and not hit back. And in order to do that you cannot allow your blade to be taken. Its the same reason why sport fencers don't bother using closing the line after hitting thus preventing what HEMA terms 'afterblows'. Every sport fencing coach knows how to teach closing blade actions if necessary particulary for epee, but in a competition this 'more realistic' set of skills isn't used. Why? Because IT CAN BE USED AGAINST YOU AS A TRAP. Sport fencing at its highest levels is a tactical escalation of 'I know what you know what I know you are doing' . At a certain point in the mid 19th century it began to dawn that those pretty pretty "sentiment du fer actions" binding actions were actually less optimal that the old masters suggested. Furthermore if you actually check the old smallsword manuals there are nowhere near as many binding actions that modern smallsword proponents show. This is puzzling: why over emphasise a set of sword skills that were not that emphasised in the old treatise. I suspect its more to emphasise their difference from sport fencers. This is not to say that there are not HUGE artificiality in sport fencing, especially in Priority rules. But the lack of binding actions is not one of them.
@@inthedenoftigers5702 Thanks. That is a very good explanation! Sorry for the seemingly silly question but being a newb to historical fencing and having no background in sport fencing it seemed a glaring difference. It is hard to visualize the reason sometimes when just seeing the action, without background. And an understanding of the background and what led up to it is often not something one can easily learn by watching videos (as sadly is the only real option now during the current situation with many places closed incl. fencing clubs both historical and sport).
@@thelonerider9693 No worries. Its even more complicated than it seems. For example if you check youtube you would be forgiven for thinking fencers are constantly suicidal: TH-cam only shows the Direct elimination bouts and Finals, where athleticism, hair trigger responses and the fact the fencers already have fenced each other a number of times or pre-scouted each other, means will dispense with caution as they already know their opponents game plan and are just working the percentages. What you RARELY see on youtube are the Pool fights, where Fencers particularly epeeists, are often ultra careful, especially against unknown opponents. In a pool you might have one monster, one really good fencer, two mediocre fencers and a couple of unknown rabbits. In pool fights you may have to be really carefull because for a true contender allowing themselves to take suicidal hits may negatively affect their indicators. It 'does' matter if you win your fights 5-3 , 5-2, 5-1 5-4. The very fact you even took hits means you will have an exponentially harder route to the throughout the direct eliminations finals that if you got 5-0, 5-0, 5-0 etc. Its the difference between getting exhausted taking down a decent fencer in your DE and cruising your first couple of direct eliminations against weaker fencers Those binding closing actions to prevent afterblows are particularly important to know against the 'rabbits', as often their tactical depth isn't that great. Better to be safe and negate any chance of a double hit, because they won't have the tactical knowledge to use it covering actions against you.
Saying what I have felt for years. I had a vert brief intro to foil when I was 11. The next time I saw sportg fencing with th eoffset epee bell and the ortho grips, I was completely put off. You have crystallised my thinking exactly.
Around about 1980 the Olympic Fencing Team came to my high school. Anyone could sign up to try to fence with an Olympic athelete, and someone put my name on the list. The coach gave me about 2 sentences worth of instruction, put the mask on me and the epee in my hand, and the proceeded to bitch at me for immeadiatly dissarming my opponent, twice, telling me I'm not Errol Flinn... I replyed: I'm sorry, I thought this was supposed to be like sword fighting!
I sincerely doubt that you "immediately" disarmed someone off the Olympic team. I'm kind of curious on the details to this story. Did you just run up to him and rip the foil from his hand?
Ginger King to doubt is your right... and to be fair, I had height, strength, weight, and reach, in spades over my opponent (6'5" stagehand vs 5'2" bookworm). I don't know if I could have scored a "legal" point against him, and fencers are not trained to avoid being disarmed... it is not an "acceptable" move.
there are no height or weight classes in fencing. If he was on the Olympic team it was because he was able to hold his own against almost anyone. While fencers are generally not body builders we do have a fair share of muscle. Especially muscles that really get used and worked out, like the fingers and thumbs. I'll accept that you'd be stronger than him but training makes up for that. That being said technically disarming your opponent isn't actually unacceptable. If you disarm them and then hit in the same action than it is a perfectly valid touch. Now if your opponent drops his weapon and you chase him down and stick him in the face then that isn't allowed. It isn't very gentlemanly and proper. As a way to defend honor, you should let them reclaim the weapon so you can kill them properly. Anyway. The point is fencers have strong grips for the most part the idea is to not let go of control and we train extensively to be good at it. People still make mistakes. Who knows? Maybe you got lucky.
Ginger King I have no doubt it was 90% luck. I did something he wasn't expecting... and if I were him, I would have let it happen the second time to figure out how it worked... I have never claimed ANY skill with an épée. I have only ever practiced sword and shield, and claidheamh-mòr.
Swordsmanship is practically speaking a useless skill no matter if you are doing HEMA or fencing. It doesn't matter which weapon has an advantage over people don't get into sword fights and you can't carry a sword around legally in most places. Fencing is a sport the weapons in fencing aren't even technically rapiers people would have used in combat. The art of fencing is still an art and a sport. Its like people complaining that Jiu Jitsu doesn't teach you of the danger of being on your back in a street fight. Its a sport first and its taught as a sport. No matter what these are sports and fun/recreational activities. I can see the logic in it not being "real swordsmanship" I am just trying to figure out why something like that even matters?
Usualy weird rules get made for only one reason. People that cant stand losing changes the rules so that they are in the advantage. Simple look at children they do this all the time.
I have heard these arguments many times (though usually in not such a calm voice). I certainly agree that sport fencing has left the past behind in many ways. I'm not sure that this is the disaster that the commentator implies. Certainly in my area, sport fencing grows and continues to grow. HEMA and Historical fencing also continues to grow (though I'm not in as close touch with that group as I am with the sport fencing community). I'm not sure why these two activities can't co-exist, or why the growth of one would in any way hurt or effect the growth of the other.
Totally why I stopped with sport fencing. Just felt like a big game of tag. Also, when i first saw the pistol grip I couldn't help but find it ridiculous. Other combat sports (boxing, modern savage, judo, must thai etc...) still seem leagues closer to their sources than sport fencing. With comparatively minor changes you can apply such combat sports to less controlled encounters. And, in the case of hema,I think even sportive tourneys are closer to the source matter. That being said I will certainly agree sport fencing is a great workout. I still do the practice footwork and sport-style lunges as part of a workout. Still, I am very hopeful hema will grow even more! (All styles too)
I'd tend to agree that sport fencing has moved away from its roots, but I don't think that means its teaching bad skills. Sabre has some funky rules because of the electrical system, but Epee, by contrast, has no priority, has timing to allow double touches, and requires an actual hit pressure. Sport fencing sword design has adapted to the sport, but those development mirror technological developments as well, and I can't see why, if you were building a modern weapon, you couldn't use modern materials and designs to make a sport weapon into live steel.
Target shooting has a parallel. Consider rifle shooters with their multi-adjustable rifles, colored lenses, eye-covers, gloves, padded jackets, slings, etc, etc. I hated all the gizmos and switched to pistol, where it is just the shooter and a pistol. I do value my early initial training in foil, epe and sabre at university!
Fencing is not alone in these problems though most 'ex-combat' sports have been transformed into something which is completely different to what it actually is meant to be. Take for example rifle target shooting, it used to be training for soldiers (and the general populace), firing at targets from a distance all with the same weapon. This evolved in marksmanship competitions and things people strvied to achieve the tightest groupings on the bullseye, in other words it became a competitive sport. Now that is fine, I regularly do rifle shooting, and I like using the old wood stocked type ones with primitive iron sights, these rifles are basically what the sport originally was. (this would be the shooting equivilent to HEMA I guess) However this rifle shooting is not the same as competition type shooting which we see in big sporting events like Bisley/Commonwealth/Olympic games. I don't really like competition type shooting (unless its a milsurp bolt action comp ofc). They use specialized traget rifles adapted for them personally, they wear special jackets which chain them to the rifle to restrict its movement. This isn't 'proper' shooting it seems to me. I think there is now too much kit involed, it should be one standard rifle, with adjustable stock (just for fairness, as ppl are different sizes), and thats it. Ditch all the sling rubbish, just make it shooter and rifle, not shooter with heavily supported rifle tangled up in slinging aparatus.
I was expecting you to say things that are completely false like Skallagrim who didn't do one bit of research. But how did you even come up with Olympic fencing clubs are getting smaller and HEMA bigger my club and our biggest competitor are both growing with more and more people coming to our advanced classes that you needed to be in fencing for at least 2 years and I can't even find a HEMA club here.
Though I know little of sportfencing myself, you hit directly the cause why I didn't approach it, while I was always interested in swordsmenship. And it took me even longer to find any way into what is called HEMA, what is exactly what I was looking for as a child already. So what I want to say to you is: Thank you. Thank you for your openmindedness, for the sharing of your thoughts and experiences. It is thanks to you that I can learn at least some basics of the millitary fencing that I long for so much, it is thank to you that I finally know just how to call it - I didn't know even that, fencing always got me into the wrong direction, which was sportfencing. Again and again, thank you for your output. I believe in time HEMA clubs will be a bit more common than they are today, and swordfighting will find it's way back into modern times.
I wondered if you were being unnecessarily harsh on sports fencing. Then I looked up what an Olympic sports fencing match looked like. Damn, you were spot on.
Sadly, martial arts aren't the only things to depart far from their origins and force "traditional" arts to add additional names to distinguish themselves. Conventional agriculture and conventional medicine are two more examples. Traditional farming has been re-labeled "organic farming" (itself a misnomer because organic compounds only need to contain carbon), and traditional medicine has been re-labeled "alternative medicine" and its practitioners almost witch-hunted until quite recent times. I think all of these transitions are related to the gradual shift from a generalist population to a specialized one: the more specialized a field of study becomes, generally, the further from reality it seems to move. Some of these transitions are arguably good, while others are arguably bad. Where I think martial arts (including both armed and unarmed arts) lost their connection to reality is the moment these arts lost their "martial" (or military) context. Since we aren't actually trying to kill anyone with swords anymore, nobody is concerned with how to properly kill someone with a sword. So swordsmanship practice is far more concerned with keeping all its practitioners safe than with authenticity.
I have 2 major problems with this video : 1) that you say that fencing is only slightly technical. While out is true that athleticism has become more important this does not change the fact that fencing is a highly technical activity that requires a great deal of training. 2) You, as a person with an interest in fencing of any sort, should at least acknowledge that the sport had greatly raised the profile of all fencing through being televised. The changes made to the sport have made it far more interesting to watch, helping with the profile being raised. If you connate fencing of the 1950s to modern fencing the interest in it had gone up significantly. (Side note, while I don't know for certain I don't feel that the fencing from the 1950s was any closer to real sword fighting than now). Overall I don't think that fencing had been demolished into a sport
I honestly believe that the Asian martial arts also have something similar in store sometime in the future. A return to true historical context. Many stylists claim long legacies, but the truth is that although the movements may be passed down most of them are convoluted in a big mess. The Chinese martial arts are particularly corrupted, the false history of Kung Fu is much more well-known and bought into than what has actually happened. Japanese martial arts have been better preserved, but the problem is that kendo and judo are the only full contact sparring arts, while the others who actually teach more realistic principles and techniques have almost completely turned into Kata contests.
The same happens in competitive shooting (IPSC - USPSA). it started to help people train in pistol combat, but has turn into race gun frenzy and the best way to game a stage to be the fastest. Its still fun, but the actual martial element take a back seat (even for IDPA in my opinion). As soon has you implement scoring and competitiveness to a martial art, it become sport, its not bad in itself, you just need to be aware of it
After reading through ever single damn one of these comments I have come a realization. Every single one of you has said that sport fencing isn't "sword fighting". Of course it isn't, it is sport fencing. to the guy who said that the first thought he had was "If you did this in a real sword fight then you would be dead". Well that seems self explanatory doesn't it?!?! That is why you don't see many MMA fighters go for reverse spinning butterfly kicks when it is a move that is taught in some martial arts!!! yes you can do it in a "real" sword fight but you shouldn't. Why is everyone assuming that because what sport fencers do on the strip they are so stupid that they would try that in a real honest to god duel? it would be ludicrous to attempt. As a 6 year sport fencer with a National rating of "D" in saber and an "E" in foil (look mom I'm qualified) I want to set a few things straight here. Foil and saber both have right of way, Eepe does not. Foil is used as the begging weapon in sport fencing. It teaches you point control for Eepe and the basics of right-of-way for saber. It has always bothered me when someone says that one form of martial arts is better than another. Another thing that bothers me is when you see the youtube videos that are along the lines of "whiich is the better weapon x or x in a duel". this is because you can't compare them that way. They are two different styles and techniques and it all depends on how skilled the user is. If a fencer looses to someone using a longsword it isn't because the fencer's weapon sucks. it is because he wasn't good enough. and what about when you compare something like Saber vs Kendo? they don't even use the same target area!! Okay, that is the end of my rant now. Yes sword fighting is fun. I prefer Sport fencing with its' structure and rules. I would be more than willing to fence anyone that claims what they think is "traditional" fencing is better. I can assure you that I wouldn't try half of the stuff that works on the strip during that match though and hey, if I lose it isn't because fencing is evil and awful. it is because I am not good enough. Oh yes. in regards to the "Orthopedic" grip that you mentioned with so much hate. Not on;y does it provide you more control, it also helps prevent broken fingers when bellguards collide. The only weapon that doesn't use a pistol grip is the saber (but there is still an orthopedic grip available).
It is both ironic and bizarre that HEMA has rather quickly gone the way of so many modern martial arts, in that the compulsion towards commercialization and public acceptance seemed an inevitable result of so much suffocating self-denial. There are now commercial "schola" operating in much the same way as any commercial dojo: advertising on the internet, offering everything under the sun, from physical fitness benefits to the promise of modern street self-defense skills( WTF?? ), even kids classes. Yes! Come bring your little one down to the schola, where they can learn Teh Realz Swordfighting(TM) and how to brutally slaughter a potential enemy with a longsword! Sadly, the genuinely potent historical material that HEMA has to offer is seemingly overshadowed by its own practitioners' delusional zealotry and near fanatical unwillingness to allow reality to penetrate their own self-serving perimeter. They remain blind to the fact that it isn't the promise of "real" sword fighting drawing people away from modern fencing and into the schola, but rather the blatant misrepresentation of it.
Ginger King Incidentally, I am a member of the Bujinkan. That isn't a confession, just a admission purely in the interest of full disclosure. :) But I agree. The irony hasn't been lost on me that so much of what I see wrong with HEMA practices is essentially the same malignancy that has afflicted the Bujinkan for many years now.
Combat sports do a great job of eliminating bad crap that will get you hurt. What I see with a number of traditionalists in ARMA and HEMA with regards to sport fencing is the same as you see with kung fu'ers and karatekas with regards to MMA. Their stuff is the reals and meant to kill, but your just sport. Yet, sport fighters routinely mop the floor with "traditionalists." Makes you wonder how they can continue in denial. Now, to be fair, with fencing there are some bad habits that you can pick up that would definitely get you killed in a real sword fight. Right of way was meant to teach against these bad habits but people just try to game it instead. That's not good, of course. And to that end, the maker of the video is correct. But its also the case that the average sport person will likely have vastly superior basics (timing, distance, rhythm, etc.) than the traditionalist.
As a B in epee and C in foil I applaud what you have said. You definitely know more of what you are talking about then the guy in the video. Well thought out contribution to the discussion. Thank you for representing our sport intelligently.
As a fencer and in defense of modern fencing, it largely depends on the school of fencing. I know in my club and in the clubs surrounding me we practice a 1 light game. In other words a hit and don’t be hit methodology. Modern Sabre is a mess for a bounty of reasons and Foilists nowadays are more or less playing tag on the whole, however modern Epee is very patient and deliberate and because of a lack of right away it has to be a one light game.
I'm new to fencing, so I possibly don't know what I'm talking about, but here we go. From what I've been watching in sport fencing bouts like in the Olympics or World Championships, epee seems to be the most realistic of the three types. There's no right of way. If you both hit simultaneously, you both score a point. A book I've been reading from the 30s on fencing was talking about having a conversation with the blades with different types of attacks and parries. This type of dueling appeals to me probably because of all the movies I've watched and books I've read that involved swordplay. (Yes, I know that movie duels are notoriously unrealistic, but they're still fun to watch.) I think epee keeps to that tradition of more realistic swordsmanship when compared with the crazy fast, over in a second sabre duel or the weird right of way stuff in foil. Honestly, if I can, I would like to get into rapier fencing and maybe longsword, but if not, epee looks like a decent substitute.
i think you are wrong. I fence foil. Foil has not changed much. And I believe that if we fenced in a "historical fencing" match, I would still beat you, even though I have been training in what you call "electrified tag" for the latter fifteen years of my 21 years of life.
Spencer Brasch If we both used smallswords then maybe you would beat me - it's not a weapon I have given much attention at all. However, I can pretty much assure you that if you used a sharp foil (smallsword) and I used a sharp military sabre, then I would have all the advantages :-) I agree that foil has changed the least in the last hundred years - however, the main differences between foil and smallsword fencing is that in smallsword you can defend and grab with the left hand, and of course the whole body is a target - targetting the face really changes quite a lot of things.
scholagladiatoria Most of the foil fencers also sometimes fence epee, too, so attack to the whole body is not such a problem. What I found that the use of the non-armed hand works when both players are using the same hand (right vs right) in case of leftie vs right handed, the non-armed hand is way less useful...
I think that aim of sport fencing is training most important abilities for real fencing: speed, reaction, technics, tactics and experience (e.g. ability to see strike before it's done). Of course sport fencing differs from fencing with real saber (the last is heavier and the power of strikes is important). But because of sport fencing much faster, olympic fencers have much better speed and reaction (tactics and technics differs not so much). That's why I think sport fencers will see fight with real sabers like in slow-motion. Sorry for my English.
Sir: I enjoyed this clip, as I do all your others! As a sport fencer who did indeed get into fencing because of my interest in swords and sword-fighting, I completely understand your point here. Have you heard of Mr. Nick Evangelista? A traditional fencing master, Nick has been a "voice crying in the wilderness" for some twenty years, despite great criticism, pointing out how sport fencing has departed from traditional fencing thought and practice. I still fence but I shed a tear when I see rules allowing such nonsense as the "flick" and bent-arm attacks. Keep up the good work. (I fence epee)
I'm a fencer and I agree with this 100%. Fencing trains certain parts of my body and it has strengthened it but I will always feel uncomfortable in a swordfight with a broadsword or a sabre.
I happily feel comfortable fencing epée de combat versus (highland) broadsword or longsword, including any ruleset that carefully tries to cope with afterblows. People don't expect the blades to be effective in defending against attacks from substantially heavier blades. But this is what the techniques were developed for. Hmmm, I feel yet another blog post coming along. I'll try to get it up on fightingwords-blog.blogspot.co.uk/ asap
Cause fencing isn't about sword fighting believe it or not. It's about technique and conventions. It's a sport. And comparing a sport to a duel to death I'm afraid makes barely no sense. Would you compare a walk in your garden with exploring Amazonia? Course not. My opinion is you're kicking down open doors mate.
+Toghebon Actually where the word 'fencing' even comes from is in the 13th century, to 'fence' meant to defend yourself. As if one was putting up a fence to keep bad people out, yeah? Fencing therefor, was the practice of learning to defend ones' self with a sword, mainly during duels. There's... Kind of where we get the comparison to the dueling part I'm afraid. There isn't much technique to sport fencing. Most sport fencers don't even learn the 'anatomy of physics' behind a sword so to speak. Out of most fencing clubs, you ask a sport fencer what the 'strong and weak' of a sword is and you get a look like you're pouring orange juice on your head. I would agree however, that it's about conventions. And in my opinion, arbitrary ones.
Well I don't know where you come from but this etymology seems kinda self-centered to me. In latin languages the words "scherma", "esgrima", "escrime" all originate from late latin "schermare" (the art of weilding a sword) which dates back from somewhere like the third century. Actually even anglo-saxon lands adopted the latin root in their own language as suggest scandinavian word "skrimen" and german "schirmen". I don't know how and when this root was replaced by fencing, fechten, fekten aso and why this seemed more appropriate, I'm not that much of an expert. All I mean is etymology isn't quite the right angle to prove any point here. So as for the "duel" aspect of it I think it's best to just forget it. We gotta admit that fencing is only a game where you use a blade to harmlessly hit your opponent and you, too, expect to come out of your fencing lesson alive! Duel has that connotation of a game of life and death that fencing hasn't. You don't seek to give your opponent the deadliest hit possible, you just try and give as many hits as you can in a given time duration. The only remains of duel in sport fencing is that it's one on one... and that's all. So now, having fenced and studied fencing for 18 years or so, it's kinda hurtful to hear that's there's not much technique in sport fencing. There's a crap load of technique in it actually and each weapon has its own. So it would take me weeks to explain all the subtleties and you'd probably die of boredom before i'm done. Just to stick with your argument, it's true there's not much knowledge of physics in modern fencing but actually it's mainly because we don't need it. Most fencers don't know what the weak and the strong are but they use it instinctively (for example sabre fencers are taught to parry using the "bottom" section of the blade, and épée fencers do "prises de fer" using the strong of their blade to catch the weak of their opponent's). We're actually taught about it very briefly as kids and those who don't know probably just don't remember. I could keep going (I actually badly want to and I don't know much about HEMA and would be glad to learn more, so if you're up for debate let's keep this up :D) but I'm afraid I'd lose you if I continue. Sorry if I sounded rude at times, it's just my approximate knowledge of english.
Well, if we're going to continue this discussion, for my part I believe I should start by apologizing. I was overly dismissive of the sport you practice, and I'm sorry for any offense that I may have caused by my rudeness. Some of the arguments I leveled were unreasonable; I'm certain there's definitely technique to fencing, although moreso with some types compared to others. (From what I have heard, Epee is the form still closest to real swordsmanship.) But I do still have arguments to make. Let's take for example, modern combative arts that *are* expected to be used in defense to incapacitate and perhaps kill an attacker in present day, much like a student of fencing all the way through the 1600's would have expected from his craft. We can see this in hand to hand systems, such as the homebrew martial arts programs the US Marines follow, or Krav Maga, an Israeli Defense Force hand to hand system. Both designed by militaries, specifically for soldier's defense of their own lives in hand to hand combat. In practice, these soldiers aim to walk out alive as well, even though they learn practices to kill! As well, they aim for their partner to walk out relatively unhurt. This is similar to the attitude of a fencer in ages passed, and one reflected in HEMA, where there is a greater chance for injury to sparring partners, especially when doing longsword (Much more protective equipment is required, as federschwert or sparring blunts still can break bones. Control is required as well.) Yet, a historical fencer from HEMA is still doing fencing as a martial discipline. Any double that happens is always ruled in favor of the man who makes a more lethal hit. Debilitating hits are counted as points when they are done with no risk to the attacker. Surely you can see although you can say that Sport Fencing surely is a game and has lost all sense of what is martial, HEMA has not?
There are a few things that I truly believe HEMA could take from sport fencing however. The athleticism for one, and for two the focus on learning from competition. I know in my club, I am very loathe of the rarity in which I can convince one of my fellow practitioners to get on all their protective gear (padded jacket, hard-plated gloves, arm protection, mask, gorget, thigh guards.) to do a full-speed competitive spar. One always learns best by doing, and the only way anyone can really expect to get good at swordsmanship is by having many, many competitive fights in addition to drills and practice.
It's always interesting to compare which sport fencing weapon would be the most useful in real combat situations. Epee teaches you about keeping distance and trying to surprise your opponent, getting him into range and striking when he's unprepared or getting too close. If your opponent also weilds a fencing weapon which is quite unlikely nowadays then maybe it is the best. But the fact it is slightly heavier than other weapons and that you always keep it steady aiming straight at your opponent makes it easier to catch bare handedly. Against unarmed opponent saber would be best cause it's all about runnig forwards quickly and smashing the other guy with your blade. And it would be more efficient against several persons. As for foil, it would be completely uneffective I'm afraid. Foil fencing is too hampered by conventions (which makes it beautiful to watch imo) and doesn't teach you too much tactics nor baldness. But I'm an épée fencer and if I had the choice between my blade and a stick/bat to protect myself I'd definitely pick the stick. If you don't know about it, check some canne de combat videos. It derives from italian and french fencing and it's much more efficient in a street fighting context. I've done just a little bit of it and a good hit hurts like hell. Plus you're taught to deliver several hits to make points, whereas fencing only teaches you to hit one and get away. It may be a detail, but I guess it might hinder your efficiency in a real fight. Fencing (I mean the brand of fencing with light weapons and no body armour) once was a military art but is now pretty much obsolete and is no longer taught as a way to kill/protect yourself. So the comparison between fencing and krav maga for example is interesting. It's an example amongst millions about how the "art" of fighting is evolving. Maybe krav maga will be supplanted by a new, more efficient close combat technique and then it will cease to exist or only be taught in a "recreative" way just like fencing is. But that's just my point : fencing as a self defence technique is so weak and unefficient it's no longer taken seriously even by fencers themselves (ecept for competitors but competition is still pretty much a game to me). On the other hand I consider HEMA as much more useful self-defence techniques and that's why I think they are still strongly related to martial arts with a connotation of the act of killing your opponent. I don't know about the popularity of HEMA though. It takes big numbers to set up a competitive circuit, at least sport fencing isn't struggling with that for now. I also believe competition should be the place for high intensity fighting cause you often develop bad habits in training. When I was younger and fencing at junior (U21) level a few years ago I would just have a go at every opponent to try and win every match, now I'm struggling with my self-taught reflexes against unknown opponents in competition and I have to try new stuff in training everytime and lose if necessary just to get rid of them. It's very frustrating. Off course it's still good to have competitive fights in training so... wish you to find someone as motivated as you are! By the way don't you aopologize again -- I'm fine. Having a nice, polite conversation on TH-cam is an achievement I will cherish all my life.
Hmm... I am not sure I agree with everything you say, but you do bring up some good points. Having said that most people who think of sword fighting think of lord of the rings, petter pan, princess bride even, but as many sword fighting enthusiasts know sparring with a sword is nothing like that. Having taken fencing classes when I was young (about 9) I used the foil. I believe many of the changes are good ones.
I entirely agree. I love reenactment combat, and fencing seemed a natural step, easily reachable in my area, to further learn sword fighting techniques. My first impressions were not good. 'Electrical tag' is a good way of putting it.
What don't you like about pistol grips and curved sword handles? Is it because you don't like them aesthetically, or because you think they're actually less practical for thrusting weapons than a straight grip? Because IMO these ergonomic grips make a lot of sense for thrusting weapons.
Now I see why my instructor hates foil. too many rules. Epee is more like simulated combat....even though you fence for points. I like to think that any touch on me equals death. a double touch is death to both. Only good clean fencing wins. one mistake costs you. but I wouldn't say its a shame that sports fencing has gone away from swordsmanship, it still teaches many good things. If someone wants to get into the historical aspect and study more of the killin arts and way of life...well HEMA is there. I hope both can exist.
***** The problem with epee is that the person wins a point for hitting about a 25th of a second before the other person hits them. So most points scored in epee would be double kills in a real duel.
True...I dont like lockouts either. My mentality is hit and not be hit. Still, way less rules than foil. At the end of the day its sports. Theres classical fencing, and theres whatever works...most people..especially athletes do whatever works lol.
BTW, how many reconstructed fencing practitioners have died? You guys are practicing the "real deal" right? Modern fencing is 'just a sport'. I imagine there must be a pile of bodies.
+Dirk Kingston That is known as a strawman argument. The effectiveness of a sport of martial art in duel or war is not measured by the number of people killed in practice….
this is pretty much true of any martial arts which has a strong "sport category" developed from it. I'm into karate and modern "free combat" competitions are at the same time so histerically funny and so incredibly sad to look at for someone who cares slightly for what the martial art was originally created for. The higher you go in competitions, the worse it gets.
I was watching another video on here from a guy who does both HEMA and traditional fencing, and he made a very interesting point. Modern fencing is fashioned after 18th century formalized small sword duels where more often than not, whoever drew first blood won the duel. Fights to the death were rare. And still, small swords could be very deadly. I think the HEMA movement is an incredible, worthy pursuit. And it has it's own problems. The historical fighting manuals HEMA uses are from masters who were teaching advanced fighters who had already mastered fundamentals of fighting for historical age. There was no need to talk about footwork, how to properly grip a sword, etc. This leaves big gaps in our understanding of western martial arts. So I think it's a huge mistake to discount sport fencing as little more than electronic tag. Historical context is critical to understanding the art..
My old sparing partner and I would make oak short swords. We would generally follow SCA rules. A solid hid to a limb, and you can't use that limb(arm behind the back or down on one knee.) A solid hit to the head or torso and you're dead. Start next round. Rinse and repeat.
One of the most significant pairs of rule changes in Olympic-rules fencing in recent years were changes specifically to return back towards swordsmanship.
The FIE introduced them to try to put an end to "flick attacks" in foil, and whipping round the guard in sabre.
The FIE felt that marching attacks ending in the flick had ruined the character of foil, and that the rule changes would force fencers to rely on more conventional (i.e. traditional) actions.
The FIE tends only to make big changes every 10 to 15 years, so the evolution can be sometimes difficult to make out. But basically the last few decades have been trying to roll-back some of the non-swordsmanship changes that were introduced as unintended consequences of rule changes back in the 1980s.
true
Sounds like contrary to Judo, where the IJF tries to squeeze all meat out to make it more "viewer-friendly". I don*t think that was in the spirit of the father of Judo, Kano. But as in soccer, viewer numbers rule it all ...shame really. Good to hear that teh FIE has a different approach. (has it?)
@@Jugger_Coach Judo is still a real as hell though, which shows the other side of the "sportified martial art" argument; competition breeds excellence and weeds out the bushit "masters" who only teach their "secret techniques" to the gullible. Shame about the leg attacks, they were a victim of badly interacting with rules at the time and fears that judo would be removed from the olympics for looking too much like wrestling. Luckily, single and double legs aren't the absolutely dominant technique they are in wrestling cuz you can control someone from so much further away if they have grippable clothes.
@@internetenjoyer1044 Certainly true. Yet the "press argument" against certain techniques, as well as attack timing and such, is the thing that really bugs me. Trying to make a sport like this more "TV attractive" should not be a reason to ban techniques or change rules in sports like Judo (if "attractivity" really was the main argument).
@@Jugger_Coach If you're talking about the passivity rules and the rules about having to immediately use non standard grips, I kinda see both sides of the argument. Expert grapplers, especially when they have gi's to use, can both shut down each other indefinitely if they're trying to not get thrown first and foremost. Most grappling sports have rules against passivity for that reason; otherwise you'd have 20 minute bouts and it just wouldn't be practical. And is a ruleset that encourages it taking so long to use a technique more realistic in a "real fight", with all the uncertainty about other people jumping in etc, than encouraging behaviors that quickly end the contest (Given that Judo aims to simulate ending the fight with a high damage throw)?
I fenced 25 years ago and saw this happening. Our first coach retired 2 years in. She was European and focused more on blade work and technique and wouldn’t even let us use pistol grips at first. Then she was replaced by a newer, younger American coach right out of college who emphasized extreme athleticism as the way to win bouts. In a few years, our bladework began to suffer more and more. What l didn’t realize at the time was that this was a trend taking off nationwide.
I’ll never forget the lesson I learned from going to the fencing club. We had a guy who was about 75 and fenced his whole life come every week. Nobody could beat him, even the super athletic young guys. It was because he had mastered his technique and bladework so well that people couldn’t hit him! It underscored the importance of control and technique over just the “rush in” raw athleticism (why I was never a big fan of saber fencing). That’s what I aspired to learn.
I had a similar experience, my 72 year old grandfather easily defeated 20 year old fencers with his superior bladework. It's sad in what state sports fencing currently is.
My philosophy on this (granted I'm a 'young' foil fencer by your terminology) is the following: Despite the fact that the bladework 'suffered' due to people focusing on footwork/athletics, the fact of the matter is that *athleticism beats bladework* . If it didn't, why don't we see 75+ year old masters sweeping the olympics every four years? It can't be right of way being wonky, because the best Epee fencers are also very fit, athletic and young (i.e Max Heinzer). Even the HEMA tournaments are filled with 20 somethings who are fit and have fast reactions. This isn't an accident.
As an aside, I really don't understand the fuss around pistol grips. I'll be honest, if I were sent back in time to the 1700s and I had to fight in a duel, the first thing I'd do is befriend the local blacksmith and have him craft a simple pistol grip. It is objectively better for fencing by keeping your tip pointed the right way, particularly when you start to get tired.
I can see the appeal of a brain over brawn cerebral focus on bladework (ala HEMA/classical fencing). It's romantic to think about an old hermit mastering the old ways being able to put a bunch of young whippersnappers in their place. But the fundamental truth throughout history is that youth, fitness and speed are far more consequential to how a fight turns out than technique. Technique starts to matter when both sides are equally fit. Your young american coach did more to improve the overall level of your team's fencing by emphasizing fitness and speed, rather than static bladework.
To paraphrase /u/venuswasaflytrap, if you had to grapple either an average HEMA practitioner who has read their manuals or your average 220+ lbs NFL linebacker/Rugby player, who'd you choose? Thought so.
@@inscrutablemungus4143 I agree with you on some points. Fitness of a person as a whole biologically always lends an advantage even when we control for age and gender. It's why Olympians seldom compete beyond a certain age against younger peers.
I do think if you have two people of equal fitness, technique is the deciding point. I don't mean to come in and knock athleticism in general-- some of my personal experience is colored by the fact that the age of the fencers being trained were teenagers, and so in that case, they didn't have a kind of experience or strategic discipline (with bladework OR how to use the athleticism to their advantage yet) in their approach towards the entire sport yet. In that case, you'd have people not thinking things through and just rushing in, making bad mistakes, and missing a lot of touches because they overrelied on footwork and strength but had poor point control or didn't understand right of way.
In a professional setting with older collegiate fencers, I wouldn't be able to comment having no knowledge, but the bar is certainly raised by that point because only the most fit and technically savvy make it.
I also don't know how fencing is handled in other countries, or the differences in HEMA, but I imagine American fencing has probably become profoundly divorced from actual practical self defense and become "faster" than when I did it. It's a good examination of the idea of "the art of defense" versus the practicalities of defense versus the change in equipment and weapons used over time.
Also, no hate on the pistol grips from me! I think the point (no pun intended) I'm trying to make is something more around how we are taught the sport-- what is emphasized and what is not and the neurobiological roots of it (a long subject but nit specific to fencing in particular). We are now being taught "Here is how to do X task quickly without much practice or understanding for fast results" everywhere in society, and it shows up8n sports as well. That's probably more of the location of my argument as to why I dislike the idea of overemphasizing *just* the physical athleticism with technique or understanding in a sport.
Raw athleticism matters far less in olympic saber than I think you believe. Most important is timing and sense of distance. Ofc if 2 fencers have similar timing and distance, being more athletic gives an edge plus adds additional tactical options. However, at least in the US, pure strength and speed is 99% of the time not the deciding factor in a bout.
I had the same reaction when I joined the fencing club in university. I was really looking forward to learning swordsmanship. Not the type of sword fighting I necessarily wanted to know, but close enough. Then in orientation, the coaches came forward, held up a foil and said "This is a pistol grip..."
'Disillusioned', I believe is the word.
Technically he could be right. Such grips generally improve the users control over the blade.
The pistol grip derives from French officer weapons of the 19thcentury who had some of their fingers lost. So they developed this ind of grip in order using a sword with just 3 or 2 fingers
there is a reason it is called "sports fencing".. it is a good introduction.. and I guess it is really what you want to learn from swordsmanship.... it is called physical chess
it is no longer involved in learning how to survive or win a duel.... but a sport in itself I guess....
History would suggest that most swords that were worth their salt really didn’t need a pistol grip for improved blade control. Unless of course literally all of those people were idiots and didn’t know a thing about sword design. Even though they were in a much better position to judge what made a good sword than me or you will ever be in. Having the luxury of seeing what worked in a real duel is something you ain’t getting it from playin electric tag with giant sowing needles. Nor will I or anyone else in HEMA ever have that while using blunted versions of historical weapons in a way that doesn’t result in death. We can talk about sword design all day, the fact we know what swords are good for chopping, which ones are good at piercing armour, and the fact fencers know what works best in their environment ain’t all that important. We ain’t killing anyone. Swords are literally only around for killing people and looking pretty.
@@lowlandnobleman6746 actually, such curvature in the grip has been well known and practiced for a while, the pistol grip is just the most extreme form. Most swords will have a less extreme version of the curvature.
Many would argue that hema tournament fighting is going the way of modern fencing. It seems that sports and killing arts are a difficult marriage.
on the other hand, all "bullshido" martial arts that teach nonsense are those without a large sport element.
@@internetenjoyer1044 seriously underrated comment.
It seems martial arts that don't have a sporty side to them lose connection to fighting at all, because they don't fight at all.
"Cause muh technique is to dangerous to be used...."
@@petritzky loads of martial arts have there own tourneys u twunt
@@Unknown-bp3mk I have no idea what you even mean.
Do you mean that a lot of martial arts have tournaments? Well, that's good and I never said anything different.
Is "twunt" an insult I don't know?
What is the point of your comment?
@@petritzky Except even in some of the sportier martial arts, there are techniques they don't teach anymore specifically because they're too dangerous to be used in friendly competition. Most of the Japanese sports martial arts carved out the battlefield combat arts from taijutsu and samurai budo in order to not destroy the person across from you who the martial arts teach you is your friend. For example Aikido techniques can be extremely dangerous if done full bore or with malicious intent. People just forget that it's an adaptation of samurai martial arts to counter-grappling while armed. That's why many of the techniques involve grabbing the wrist, elbow, shoulders/collar. Aikido comes from the stance that you are armed with a sword and an enemy swordsman got past your guard and is attempting to disarm or control your weapon hand. That's why it doesn't work in MMA or most fighting situations because you aren't running around with a sword in your hand so people generally won't grab you like that which would allow you to initiate one of the wrist techniques. Every once in a while though someone WILL grab them in such a way as for the technique to actually be used and it's not a pretty sight for the person getting thrown or locked.
Most battlefield based schools shouldn't be considered martial arts, they're martial training. Traditionally there is no sparring in them because you're learning techniques designed specifically to maim or kill other people and theoretically, the people training with you are your friends/clan members so you aren't supposed to be trying to kill them. Although some instructors did have a training portion where they'd have students fight each other and there were deaths and disabling injuries from it. The argument being that you did potentially get a better fighter out of it, but you're doing it at the expense of the total number of fighters you have at your disposal. There was a lot of this in early kenjutsu where a wooden sword strike to the hand ends up destroying the hand permanently or a student takes a hard blow to the head and is killed. The kendo gear we see today is a relatively modern invention and they still had to further modify it with shinai because a bokken can still kill you. Many of the modern -do schools were implemented because warfare became more infrequent so you had to have an outlet for that training. Traditionally, most of the -do schools were taken as supplemental to the core martial training you had. It's similar to the European systems. The wealthy had formal training for warfare and a separate system for dueling and fencing. The techniques you learned for warfare, with the basis of it being tight, formation combat are much different from the dueling and fencing. The wealthy were trained in both, and many of the warfare based grappling techniques wouldn't have been used in sparring because you'd harm or kill your training partner doing them.
Incidentally, I fully expect this video to get more dislikes than most videos I release. It's the nature of taking on a topic like this, but I think it's something I needed to say. I do also want to reiterate that I think modern sport fencing does some things fantastically well and HEMA can learn a lot from it.... however, the fact remains that modern sport fencing has totally forgotten what swordsmanship is actually about, whether it be to first blood or for military combat. This, I think, is a great shame for sport fencing, because a huge proportion of people who used to be drawn into sport fencing will now be drawn into HEMA instead. This is good for HEMA of course.
So far i can see, you don't talk any lies about it.
Not just fencing, all martial arts are being domesticated to become a mere game that does not maintain its original objectives, techniques and art.
Agreed. I come from a Sports fencing background, still do Epee training to keep my foot work and point control up, but will never ever do competition or tournament stuff again. I am lucky in that who I train with is classically trained fencing teacher, so teaches and passes on the technique to do things correctly. Watching some of the new people come out of other clubs without any knowledge of strength/weakness of blade or any real control of distance (they kinda just barrel at you) really makes me cringe.
To be fair, I have issues with the SCA Heavy "lightsaber bludgeons", metal weapons groups (not WMA or HEMA) and Battle of Nations for some of the very same reasons, its not swordsmanship.
Just like you sad Matt it’s a game, it doesn’t deserve the title of fencing, in other words a science of defense. As my teacher sad it, the only way that this ultra turbo fast competitive sport fencing can go on from here is nowhere, but where fencers as people can go is back in to history where try fencing and skill is.
Did you know that the orthopedic grip was originally made for a person who had his wrist or fingers broken or had some sort or hand retardation from birth and all other are now using it regardless because its after all easier to grip the sword with it, how silly.
Perhaps, the same things can be said about archery, i think. Modern sport archery is just as far from the real archery, which is now called "traditional archery", as sport fencing from the actual fencing
CopernicoTube I agree with this completely.
I've done sport fencing for 9 years and you're absolutely right. As a kid my parents told me to practice a sport. I wanted to do swordfighting but knew nothing of hema (if it already was around in my country back then nobody knew of it) so started sport fencing. Now I've switched to hema because that was the thing I actually wanted to do. Sport fencing is very intense and requires a lot of skill but it isn't sword fighting. It shares some principles though, which I've taken over to hema; my trainers often say I'm very good at judging the distance to my opponent andat facestabbing :D
As someone who has done Sport Fencing for 2 years and Kendo for 3 years I realize there can be a knee jerk reaction from our communities to precieved attack which I can understand. Both have the fundamentals of the original styles of sword fighting but have moved to be abstract sports. They still require an amazing amount of skill but they have techniques and strategies that would only be effective in a sporting context due to the nature of the practice weapons and not effective in real swordsmanship.
Where I tend to tilt my head is when sport fencers start asserting that somehow they know more about real swordsmanship than treatises and first hand accounts covering periods when these weapons, the real weapons, were actually being used for combat. Saying things like the "Opponent would drop dead instantly from any thrust" which is very rare and almost always wrong, which can even be backed up by modern crime accounts. Or attacking HEMA for having "too many weapons" and therefore a less effective fighting art- which is nonsense, or citing that "any modern day Olympic fencers would come out of any sword fight unscathed" is really stretching things to absurdity. If you train with a much lighter and flexible practice weapon, likely never touching a real smallsword, in a way that you only care about stabbing your opponent first with fearless abandon, you're almost certainly going to die! You probably will take the other guy with you because you stabbed them quicker but now's there are just two dead guys, nobody wins. If you don't train for something and then are expected to do that thing that you haven't trained for, you aren't going to immediately pick it up.
There needs to be a realization in these particular parts of the Sport Fencing community that Sport Fencing in the way it's practiced today is abstracted and isn't practical swordsmanship. If you're okay with that, fine, if not then make moves to change aspects of sport to be more realistic and quite frankly more enjoyable to watch. For example, the time period of striking first being raised to one second and after blows being counted against a point.
Olympic fencing doesn't cover grappling either, do they? True swords masters would always know grappling, in my opinion.
@@jonathanhou8712 Or throw dirt, scratch the eyes, kick the groin or any number of things we're taught to be considered underhanded but they'd actually do in a heartbeat if it meant that they got to go home alive at the end of the day. I've seen quite a few fairly talented MMA fighters get the piss beat out of them in street fights because the street doesn't have rules and that dumb mook you may be able to mop up in the ring will beat you to death or put you in the hospital when he pulls out a knife or some other weapon. This is why the military tries to make a very clear distinction between fighting and combat. You'll get trained in SOME ground techniques because a grappling match that leads to the ground is documented as fairly common in warfare, there is some worry though, that too many people are trying to do it on purpose because they're too into BJJs fighting success but relatively untested combat success.
While I see a growing number of military personnel when I was still in that were gravitating and taking BJJ which isn't a bad thing in itself, too many of them were conditioned with the goal of taking the fight to the ground not realizing how extremely vulnerable they are shooting for a single or double if your opponent decided that they didn't want to play by the same rules. For example, had an senior NCO that did taijutsu with me and he got into a light sparring match with another guy who was a BJJ guy. The BJJ guy shoots for the takedown and gets a double and gets him on the ground but didn't realize that he had a huge red line across his throat. The NCO had a plastic knife with red dry erase marker all over the blade and had effectively slit his throat when he came in for the takedown. In taijutsu we learned to hide weapons on ourselves and he had hid the knife on him. The other guy was pissed that the NCO would bring a weapon into a sparring match and the NCO reminded him that in real combat, the enemy isn't going to play by the rules and to approach and train fighting and trying to apply it to actual combat will get you killed.
@@Talishar I'd like to also add on that some of the treatises that people who HEMA study focus on fighting to the death. A good example would be the teachings of Fiore. In the introduction of his treatise, he says, "I'll begin with grappling which there are two types: grappling for fun, or grappling for earnest, by which I mean mortal combat, where you need to employ all the cunning, deceit, and viciousness you can muster. My focus is on mortal combat, ...when you're fighting for your life." Alongside his teachings for moves for dueling, he shows a self defense moves like what a person should do if they were to be jumped in a bench, grabbed by the collar in the middle of a street, or when they only have improvised weapons to defend themselves with. Many combat sports and martial arts (including HEMA) focus on the first type of grappling Fiore talks about, which can miss what some of these systems were origionally made for, which is disabling your opponent and making sure they can't harm anyone while keeping yourself as unharmed as possable. People seem to avoid the more dangerous techniques since they can't use them in a tournament or in practice. I think in HEMA's case this is especially disapointing since HEMA is suppose to be an effective martial art (for the type of weapons people used in the time when the particular treatise was written). I worry that people who do HEMA might end up like the BBJ guy who when he practiced with a NCO guy got his neck pretend slit by a plastic knife. If people care to study a killing art like what Fiore and other masters teach they should know all the techniques the masters teach and be able use the weapons they learn as if they were in a life or death situation, not just the ones that can midigate an afterblow in a tournament or the moves that can be optimised for a certan ruleset.
@@josephlucas4024 That's why it should be important to establish the concept of a difference between martial arts and martial training. One is a lifestyle to improve yourself, the other is designed to end an opponent before they can end you so you can move onto the next opponent to end. This is probably the lamentation that a lot of the old soldiers of note in the past when they discussed dueling vs combat. Even dueling to the death is a far different beast to battlefield combat. The problem that you end up finding the hard way is that most life or death situations where people are trying to kill you are going to be more battlefield-like than dueling-like. It's going to be a chaotic mess where the adversaries you think you knew starting off may not be the ones you needed to keep an eye on.
This then though does bring to light that many of Fiore's serious grappling techniques aren't what you'd be sparring with because you can seriously hurt your training partner with them. I highly doubt when Fiore was teaching them that they were doing it in full-bore sparring. It was probably a very slow and methodical approach to ensure the student understands the basic movements and motions and slowly sped them up till they were natural in flow.
The only issue I see with HEMA is the same issue I saw with kenjutsu. The vast majority of the weapon techniques are relatively worthless because I'm not walking around with a sword or spear/staff everywhere. They're good to take note of should some odd circumstances find myself with a sword defending my life, but the likelihood of that situation ever happening is lower than me winning the jackpot a couple times over. At least in the U.S., firearms training and tactics would be the best form of martial training to learn and practice as that's going to be what's the most relevant. If Fiore were alive today, he wouldn't be wasting his time with swords and spears, he'd be learning everything he could on firearms. Most of those masters were smart and practical and would adopt the best technology and techniques of their time to give themselves the best advantage.
@@Talishar To be fair, if it's a sparring match with any, undisclosed weapons, I can bring a laser pointer, and say it was a lightsaber. Ssswish, you're dead. What your NCO did is a meaningless pissing contest. Unless the terms of the sparring are disclosed, the BJJ guy can also just walk across the room, pick up a chair, hurl it across the room, and send you to the ER.
What's a sword used for?
To kill!!
Kill what!?
The enemy!!
With what!?
A Sword!!
Well done! Fall in!!
---
What's a foil used for?
Beep!
Beep!
Beep!
Win!
I disagree a little bit. A sword are designed to overcome the oponent defenses. Killing or not is a people decision. On a historical knight tournament, the blades, maces and spears keep dangerous, but the action is not intended to kill. Or on a first touch or blood duel.
What I mean is that it is perfectly possible to have a sport that keeps its original features and still be civilized and safe. This is exactly what the HEMA does.
CopernicoTube
A sword is a weapon designed to minimize the enemy's capability to inflict force upon yourself. Which can both mean kill and maim.
I was more parodying or copying the rather famous video which is on TH-cam about an angry Scotsman teaching recruits HOW TAE FECHT WITH A BAYONET!
From the BBC history series "Soldiers" (Infantry episode)
CopernicoTube Well, I think the primary function of a sword through history has generally been to inflict a disabling injury to an unarmoured or lightly armoured enemy. With a secondary defensive function, and often a tertiary function as status-symbol, the status symbol element ironically deriving from the sword's lack of utility as a tool (agricultural implement, eating device, etc). The big functional divide I think is between slashing (likely immediately disabling, and showier) and piercing (possibly greater eventual lethality, at the cost of less immediate disabling effect). Both functions are useful, and of course many swords can do both.
"How many people are really thinking about disabling when they lift their weapon?"
In an actual battlefield situation I'd say they are mostly thinking 'get him before he gets me', without much concern whether 'get' means kill or just wound; hence I said 'disable'. It's different with an assassin's tool such as a sniper rifle. When IRA snipers used Barrett .50 rifles to shoot RUC policemen, the function of the rifle was to kill; a wounded policeman would be a sub-optimal outcome from the POV of the sniper.
Sometimes the primary purpose of the sword is literal killing; eg the design of the Roman gladius and its training focused on lethal stomach strikes up into the vital organs. The Roman way of war was essentially battlefield butchery. But historically that seems relatively rare; usually most of the actual killing is/was done to captives, after the actual fighting is/was over. The design & associated technique of eg a Viking sword was more about disabling limb strikes, followed by an execution strike to the neck of the incapacitated or captured opponent.
My goodness, it's good a considerable effect on morale!
As a sport fencer, I agree with a lot of this video, but i think the current sport of FIE fencing does have merits in and of itself and an evolution. If i was to have a duel in 2014 with say a smallsword, i would pick the pistol grip every time. its just functionally superior for the thrust, minus a slight bit of reach if you're pommelling. I must agree that i think a lot of FIE rules are bullshit for various reasons. The priority system basically allows incredibly risky tactics to pay off in foil and sabre, but i think most serious fencers understand that epee, without priority rules, is the most authentic. I feel like there would be easy ways to fix a lot of these issues too, which bothers me. like for sabre, just adding like a rubberized coating so only the edge can score a point would be massivly better. maybe im thinking too into it but i think both have reasons for existing
Yes, I too think that there are some relatively small and easy ways to change sport fencing equipment and rules to make it more like the real fencing that it was originally supposed to be - I'll talk about this in a future video :)
good idea but it would still not add tooo much realism - i mean it basicly stays hitting each other without any defense - i would actually add the rule that you ONLY get the point if you are NOT hit for 2 or 3 seconds after you hit the enemy so you actually "survived" your maneuver - and maybe add a scoring system that a hit to the toe does not count as much as a hit to he heart. I think you would have to change a LOT to get sport fencing back to what it was originally. But to be honest i am glad things evolved as they did - this way we have more possibilites - in some countries they do full contact fights with steel (blunt) weapons in armor where the winner is decided by actually winning the fight like enemy gives up, is disarmed or actually knocked out or simply hit badly enough that he lies on the ground and the opponent (in a real situation) could stab him.
In germany is a group who do this even with axes however they do have broken bones relatively often.
Anyway if sport fencing would be more historically correct who knows what would have happened - i am relatively sad cause in my area most clubs for medieval stuff are actually show fighters so no chance to learn there either and the one hema club here only teaches longsword - quite a pain in the...cause i want to learn poleaxe and 2 handed axe
It would be interesting to see what real swordmanship would be like if sword fighting for real (as opposed than for sport) was a thing people did. What kind of equipment we'd have for that scenario if people still duelled to death with swords, for instance, or if it was still important in war.
Altrantis i guess like in most cultures the duell to death thing would have evolved into a duell of first blood and i guess the protective gear would have evolved while the weapon itself may have become even more "harmles" to prevent accidental deaths.
In war...actually it is very hard to say. Basicly i guess weapon design would have changed a bit but overall it would not be too different from warfare in the last 2000 years as BASICLY the only thing that happened was armor getting better and weapons getting bigger. If we follow this scenario for fun we would now wield 3 meter long swords and wear full plate armor with protective glass in the eyeslits
Orkar Isber Actually blades are still used in combat and they have followed the same trend as firearms, that is to say they have gotten shorter. A long bladed weapon like a sword is superfluous on a modern battlefield, however a good fighting knife/bayonet or even a short machete is often carried for a last ditch close quarters weapon. A carbine is small enough that in hand to hand you're close enough to use a knife, so a fixed bayonet isn't used much. Besides, the point of a carbine is compactness and a bayonet counters that.
As one that fenced extensively through high school and university I think perhaps this is a little too dismissive of the skills that sport fencing builds. Understanding of tempo, precise footwork and strong body position through parry, riposte and lunge are all key parts of sport fencing and these translate critically to good 'swordsmanship'.
As to the point that sport fencing registers insignificant hits. Well, when one fences foil we only score hits to the torso (a fairly vital area!) and the buttons on the end of our swords require at least 500 grams of pressure to register the hit. On such a small point this is more than enough to cause significant injury. If one watches any competition fencing its easy to see the force of the hits in the bend of a scoring blade. Translate this force to a more stiff small sword and your target is in some serious trouble!
Furthermore, having subsequently spent some time attending a local HEMA club, I found the general level of skill (especially in footwork) far below the average of the sport fencing community. Were I to have to fight a 18th century style small sword duel, I think I would prefer to face the average sketchy movement of a HEMA practitioner over the average highly agile foil fencer.
Agreed. If HEMA practitioners tended to be actual athletes instead of their usual amateurism then it would be more interesting to see what a 'real duel' would look like.
In peak days of fencing training we could run marathon distances, leg press 600+ easily, do 75-100 pushups, jump rope 2000 skips in minutes. I could've probably held a full squat for the entire LOTR trilogy ;)
But above all else we were really good at poking that other guy in a mask!
As 'unreal' HEMA claims fencing might be, at least those involved take the sport seriously.
except when you guys always double kill each other then how does any of your tempo parry riposte or anything else matter? also while a small sword is also stiff the point is a lot larger and on types besides the colichemarde then its usually larger from what ive seen. also depends on how good your local hema club is i have a club that claims its a hema school but is actually stage combat and fairly shitty. its like kenjutsu you get people who dont know shit trying to teach it, and then you get guys that could take your sword out of your hand and then proceed to kill you with your own sword if the need came about.
also dueling is only one aspect of swordsmanship and its a fairly easy one to be good at as at least in european history duels were fought with equal weapons on fair and equal terms and ground. it all depends on context, and whilst sport fencing at some clubs is more realistic go take a look at olympic level fencing the guys who should be the best yet rush in and double suicide every single fucking time. the reason you see hema clubs as being less skilled or amateur is because its harder to do, foot work is more complex as generally you have to worry about being able to cut with your sword or actually position something lighter then a couple hundreds grams into place, even small swords which are light by sword standards are 500 grams plus. just cause you move your feet alot doesnt mean your foot work is good, take a look a rolan warzecha who has video of them doing bind practice with sharp swords, he says himself he often doesnt have to move more then 4 or 5 steps. also you guys only have to worry about one line, side ways movements arent allowed, which is the first step a real swordsman will take as its the easiest way to avoid most strikes with a sword and allows you to freely hit your opponent at the same time.
go watch skallagrim's videos on richard marsden vs lee smith. swordsmanship isnt about being in the best shape its about being smart, hence why miyamoto musashi was beating people much younger then him without having to land fatal blows in the later portion of his life. these so called atheletes would die in a real sword fight to anyone competent with a sword. and if two of them tried dueling each other for real theyd both die seeing how common double hits are in sport fencing.
christopher rogers depends on who you are and how dedicated you are, you may have been in good shape but if i gave you something like a katana or a sword designed for cutting could you effectively weild that for the full duration of a long sword duel.....probably not, they use different muscles cool you can lunge far and not fall over however your arms would probably tire your core wouldnt be used to the movements and seeing as sport fencing has no side to side movement youd have a minimum of 2 other directions youd have to get used to moving in which also requires different muscles or your muscles to work in different ways. you also wouldnt know to move the sword by its balance point to reduce energy used to move the sword around quickly. it has so many aspects missing from proper swordsman ship, doesnt matter if youre in better shape if the other person simply makes a smarter move. you dont always even have to be faster if your opponent is predictable then it almost doesnt matter how much faster they are cause the human body can only move so fast.
go watch richard marsden versus lee smith youll see what a real hema practitioner looks like. also dont forget how many people who do sport fencing and dont take it to the point of being a athlete but do it for fun. and if you want dedication to something then go to old school kenjutsu training or hema training like when they were in the time this stuff was used, you know where they trained full speed and full strength with live swords at the highest levels. something no sport fencer could do since they dont even have any idea of how a blade even feels in the hand. a foil acts nothing like a sword, cutting off any sort of sideways movement and counting double kills cause i hit you a fraction of a second sooner is dumb. your sport is basically a speed poking contest sure you need foot work and some feints to be sly but its not fencing as the whole point of fencing is to survive the duel or fight.
id gladly take either you or the OP on in a sport duel, you bring your little foil and we shall see how you do when i smack it out of your hand with a bokken or a feder. you rush in knock your point to the side step in where your weapon becomes useless because the real things for small swords cant really cut, and then bam half swording or pommeling. hitting with a smallsword hilt is useless and something thats not allowed in sport fencing, you cant step sideways but i can even if you do step sideways or use the hilt as a weapon the real things are useless for hitting with, your blades cant cut and whilst they can thrust well i can simply grab the blade something else you dont practice in sport fencing.
its a sport not a martial art, you cant really speak to something when your own sports best literally do nothing but double suicide every single time, theres no grapples theres rules that dont apply to real duels or fencing and a number of other flaws. cool you guys are atheletes, however your still shitty fencers by the actual defintion of fencing. maybe change your rules and get rid of those fancy ass sensor sticks cause you dont need them, maybe get a pressure sensor instead and you know try acting like these things are actual weapon simulators instead of oh hey lets run into each other like were jousting. thats what sport fencing is pretty much foot jousting. also try practicing with something thats the proper weight of the thing your meant to be simulating as ive held an actual smallsword and not one foil ive ever held has been the proper weight, which means its easier to control the point and less tiring which means you guys should never not even once in awhile except with noobs ever fucking have a double kill as you dont tire as fast your more nimble with those then youd ever be with a real sword meaning all your reactions should be faster and easier, meaning you guys shouldnt need any rules other then maybe no grappling and same size foils as those are the only two factors that could effect fairness, side steps play no part in the fairness factor so why arent they allowed? your sport has too many rules and got stupid. your super practiced lunge may be good and all but if i parry your blade to the side sweep your leg and plunge a sword in your chest what good does it do you? your precise foot work is based on a set of rules and turns to terrible footwork as soon as those rules disappear, why step back when a simple sideways step works better. your tempo is useless when you do nothing with it, you open yourselves up to double kills and the best in your sport do this every single time. and if youre going to say youre better then why arent you in the olympics winning and not getting double suicides with your opponent.
its a sport, get over it, your sport doesnt teach swordsmanship, if you enjoy it then cool, but its still basically a high speed poking contest, the only concern is hit them first, but like i said in a real sword fight, your only concern is dont get hit, you dont even have to kill an enemy just disabling them is enough. all the points you brought up for why your sport is better only apply because of the rules in place, not trying to be rude but when you know nothing about swordsmanship other then what a sport thats literally useless for swordsmanship, what do you really know about the subject? youve practiced things that only work when certain rules are in place, rules go out the window in a real fight and in a duel historically there are still aspects and things that were done you dont practice for. while your busy with your fancy foot work someone with real training will just grab said blade since they arent sharp hold it and youre fucked. try adding a buckler or a maine gaunche and adding some hema back into your sport and maybe youll see what i mean.
bmxriderforlife1234
Actually the only weapon you can get a double hit and both be awarded a touch is the epee. The weapons with right of way have it because a hit to target area (a stab to the chest for foil, or a cut to the top half in saber) would debilitate or kill you. Epee on the other hand comes from the most recent dueling tradition of first blood. This is why double hits are awarded, presumably both of you stabbing each other's hand won't kill you. Stabbing into an oncoming attack coming towards you likely will. Right of way rewards correct actions.
has nothing to do with my point, double hits are essentially you guys both suicideing off each other.
also since sport fencers dont aim for the hand it essentially robs you of the difficulty. fact is though sport fencing doesnt teach swordsmanship.
Couldn't agree more, Matt. I remember watching sport fencing in the olympics as a kid, and thinking "this isn't right... why aren't they defending? If this was a real fight, they'd both be so wounded it'd be pointless to have even fought."
There're reasons as to why they developed into sports. And yes, you can defend.
They do not defend by blade action because statistically, it's a low percentage move. (In sabre, fewer than 1 in 20 hits are scored after a defensive blade action) So best to guard by distance, or take out your opponent before he can take you out. Ideally, both.
The only reason why I started fencing classes was because I wanted to learn how to sword fight. Quickly learned that fencing isn't "real" fencing. There aren't many, if at all, HEMA clubs here in the midwest USA. Only can hope that HEMA grows and becomes more mainstream so that one day there are some classes/clubs I can participate in. Until then, it's just backyard cutting and reading manuals on my own.
Sport fencing is hella fun though. As for comparing it with real sword play I don't see the point, It's like comparing tanks to drag racers. They're both motor vehicles, but one is meant for war and the other for sport.
yes indeed... fencing wit the electric gear is great fun s you don't have to rely on hand judges to see if your point lands.....
I've noticed the same arc in shootings sports. After the elimination of heavier caliber rifles and pistols from Olympic competition. 3 gun (Modern and Cowboy) and long range (1000m) shooting really took off in North America with more tradition recurve and long bow archery gaining popularity. I can't speak for the rest world but I would like to know if other countries are doing the same. Now I look at Olympic Shooters and wonder if they ever learned to shoot without rests or those weird metal things on their faces. At least skeet and trap uses shotguns not so different than what may be taken into the field. I guess it's the purity of learning how to use weapons that serve a practical purpose we all share.
It seems that archers and shooters face the same problem when their sport becomes ever so focused on pin-point accuracy, their equipment evolves to serve those purposes. Unfortunately in doing so they largely remove the human from the interaction because human error is what the equipment is trying to remove. Those who start off in these sports with these rules and equipment never actually learn many of the fundamentals behind that sport and become dependent on the equipment (sights, releases and stabilizers in archery and that metal thing you mentioned).
+scholagladiatoria really interesting video. Modern fencing has definitely changed a lot since it became a sport, but the idea of it being simply a game of electronic tag, especially in epee is in my opinion a naive statement. There is definitely a great deal of skill involved in modern fencing, and I believe the reason many people don't follow through beginners courses etc. is actually because it is a lot harder than what they would expect, they realise the work they will have to do and go to historical fencing as it appears easier. Don't get me wrong, I think fencing has definitely moved away from historical fencing, especially saber and foil but I think you will find that pistol grips aside (use them but think the sport would be better without them just from a traditionalist viewpoint) that in particular epee fencing is very close to an actual duel, and is a lot more complicated and skilful than you make it out to be. In fact compared to the other types of fencing, champions usually only start happening in late 20s early 30s, which is different to say saber with most champions in early 20s. There is definitely a focus on athleticism and fitness over pure swordsmanship in modern fencing these days, but only because that's what works, and I am sure if historical fencers many years ago had access to this knowledge they would have been more successful fencers. That's the beauty of modern fencing, you use what works, and not what it necessarily says in the text book, which is true swordsmanship. Also, sometimes less blade work is actually more effective and more pure an art form e.g. use only what is necessary philosophy. Perhaps as a compromise there could be a distinction between 'historical fencing' and 'Olympic fencing'? Also have you read a really good book called epee 2.0? it is a book about a world fencing champion who technically wasn't that good but beats the world using essentially one move, where his strength is not his technique but brilliant and insightful use of strategy. Interesting contrast between the 'old' and 'new ways'. I guess probably the biggest difference between the two seems to be more of an emphasis on competition for modern fencing and mastery for historical fencing which isn't right or wrong, but could indicate why they went their separate ways. I guess they both have their flaws. Perhaps the end goal of each would be both mastery and practicality in thier respective goals
Scott Rawlins Hi, I certainly agree that modern fencing is skillful. However, I disagree that epee is more realistic. Stabbing someone in the toe fractions of a second before they stab you in the face is not realistic to any kind of duel, whether it be first blood or to the death.
+scholagladiatoria agreed
I agree completely. I started in olympic sport saber in college and it was ok but I alway thought it was too rules based like "Right of Way". Years later I took up Historic fencing for rapier and saber and really loved it. To me that is real fencing and sport fencing is just race to X number of touches.
I love HEMA and modern fencing as well. I think in my opinion that epee fencing would be the closest to a real duel since there are no rules on right of way as well as the body being the whole target. Hence, with blades meant for thrusts only (going back to your other videos explaining uses on small swords and epees).
+Jonathan Collins Though in epee to score you only need to hit around 1/25th of a second before the opponent. In a real duel that would mean two stabbed people. Also, in epee a hit that lands anywhere first, scores, even if the thrust is in the toe. Not very useful if the opponent then runs their blade through your face :-)
+scholagladiatoria Well of course haha
There was one notable fencer who called Epee "the most unforgiving of all sword combat" back in the 19th century
@@scholagladiatoria thats kind of an unfair criticism. As some HEMA institutions have a very similar system. And some Olympic fencing clubs have something much closer to what you describe. In all honesty this whole argument is a bunch of generalizations that very rarely hold true.
Dueling was to first blood though. A hit to the hand or arm would settle a duel of honor in most historical cases
Additionally all the blinking lights in sport fencing often lead the audience to just watch for which light goes off instead of looking at the actual fencers.
scholagladiatoria Matt, what are your thoughts on the current movement of turning HEMA in to a sport (tournament fighting)? It seems to be at the same historical crossroads you described, whereby some groups are focusing on the tournament fighting aspect of HEMA whilst others are focusing on the historical art of defense. There's been a lot of division over the last few weeks with the publication of the NY Times piece on Longpoint in the Eastern US regarding the historical vs the sport aspect of HEMA (well, that and the controversy surrounding the 100 man fight in Prague which I'd also love to hear your thoughts on, but that's unrelated and just coincidental timing). Is there really a division? Are some schools more focused on creating tournament HEMA fighters instead of expressing the historical art? Is the growing popularity of tournament HEMA good for the health of HEMA in general?
Knyght Errant at my school, we learn longsword in the liechtenauer tradition, our classes are broken up into 3 nights a week, Tuesdays are tournament training, Thursdays are the principles of longsword and Saturdays are techniques. Principles of longsword in my opinion are the best as they reach into the core of being a good swordsman. Personally, the tournament training does not interest me, as the instructor focuses on winning, forsaking the art.
In my opinion competition is what makes HEMA alive. It drives interpretation and the sense of competition, fighting someone you don't know is an aspect of the fight you will only get at tournaments.
A lot of techniques only make sense when they are fast and the opponent is not willing to cooperate.
The most important thing for competition are the rules. The rules have to incourage good historical fencing. That is the thing we have to keep in mind.
So im watching "Reclaiming the Sword" and see man in a goatee wearing a Scholagladiatoria shirt and think "hmmm that guy sure sounds familiar"....Just to realize in the next moment that it was you. I had no idea you were in that documentary
***** Yeah, I get around!
goatee? No friggin' way.
Tomasz Wota Matt is always sporting a faint 'name for them' side burns to his upperlips/jawbone. Which I always thought looked cool like the guy in the movie the Professional
scholagladiatoria Incidentally, while that was a decent documentary, I was disappointed it didn't demonstrate more examples of the realistic, historical inspired movie fight choreography it spent so much time talking about. A sadly missed opportunity.
Agree 100%. I started fencing (Classically) in 1964. My instructor started fencing in 1927, because boxing wasn't combative enough. He learned to fence from five European masters, (at least one of which fought duels with sharps, in Italy before coming to the U.S). Those preWWII teachers were long lived, so some of them actually were learning and teaching in the late Victorian and early Edwardian era.... And they viewed Classical Fencing as a martial art. The degeneration of Classical to Neo-fencing, (the latter what my instructor called "calisthenics with sticks") was terrible to see happen.... With the decline, in my area really kicking in, in the '70s & 80's.... Sadly, although I teach Classical exactly like my instructor, modern fencers see our fencing as old-fashioned, quaint, and sadly behind the times. HEMA folks (and we have been visited by some major names in that community) throw us in with Olympic fencing, and wonder when we are going to get serious about sword-fighting. Very frustrating.
Well Roark, if I had access to classical fencing, I'd do it. I'm sure it would help my HEMA practice. Not all HEMA folks are anti-classical fencing.
I agree with you that sport fencing is quite far removed from actual swordfighting to the death. But then, boxing is quite far removed from brawling as well. Boxing has many illegal punches and actions, and it's entirely possible to win a match on points without doing any actual damage. Still, it does teach athleticism and a correct way to punch. Yet it would be wrong to say thay it's no longer a true martial art. Similarly, sport fencing does actually teach you to look for openings and avoid getting hit, especially in early-game epee. Both of these things are very useful in an actual swordfight, just like knowing how to punch is useful in a brawl.
HEMA and fencing are very different things with only a superficial similarity and I don't think it's useful to compare them because the intentions of both are fundamentally different. In sport fencing, the intention is to score points within the rules. In HEMA, the intention is to kill/disable an assailant like you would do in an actual situation, while remaining unharmed yourself.
This is, however, also true for boxing, where the intention is to defeat a single opponent either by knocking him out or winning on points, while obeying a strict set of rules. Comparing this to krav maga, where the intention is to disable or escape from an assailant of group of assailants like one would do in an actual situation.
If one ends up in a real life situation, one with training in sport fencing will be better able to handle a sword, even a differently weighted one, better than someone without training because they know the correct distances and openings to look for. A boxer would be better able to fight his way out of a situation because he knows how to punch and protect his head.
Both boxing and fencing are no longer fights to the death, but they still train skills that would be useful in a real situation. To call sport fencing 'electric tag' goes a bit too far, in my opinion. (The reason I kept bringing boxing into this, incidentally, is because I wanted to show that not only fencing is drifting away from its roots)
Brawling dosent do shit in a fight. Im a profesional boxer and if u think some one can just 'brawl' me your rong. Can gurentee you i beat 99% of people in a bar on the street etc. And if u think winning on points isnt hurting or getting hurt u clearly havent fought in 8oz gloves and been jabbed and hit with straight right hands for 30 minutes. That shit leeds to brain damage and brain bleeds. Trust me
I would say fencing has strayed from its root way more than boxing has and fencing is more on the 'aikido' or 'wingchun' side of the spectrum than being on the 'hema' or 'mma' side which is still not real but way more real.
@Joshua M Nevin
The whole "tag the other person first and get points for that" is weapon dependent and also not entirely true.
Saber is objectively suicidal, with 90% of actions taking place within .3 seconds and both fencers getting hit. Foil has suicidal actions perhaps 1/3 of the time due to the rules and target area. Epee can be less suicidal than many HEMA weapons, I've seen matches that last several minutes with no contact.
Joshua M Nevin
French and Italian grip epee swords are actually almost identical to the real counterparts in weight, length, and balance. Foils of the same grip variety are on the lighter end of real smallswords, but still have similar dimensions. Sabers are the least realistic out of the three, but if you’re used to light Italian sabers,then they’re not too bad.
With the exception of saber, the rule sets work well in terms of discouraging suicidal actions, even for epee, where suicidal actions can be beneficial.
Agreed. Sport "fencing" seems to have lost sight of the fact that it was supposed to represent the use of weapons!
it has become a goal in itself not a tract to a goal - or winning a duel (or surviving) as it was originally for I guess....
not often do you fence for 1 hit - usually bouts are the first to 5 hit (or 15 in a direct elimiation semi finals)
If you whip your wrist with an epée, you can bend the blade around the opponents guard to tag their wrist... Bs maneuver but it's another example of how different it really is
+Paul Paul Indeed!
how fast are you whipping your wrist with an epee to do that? I can see you doing that with a foil and it would work even better with a sabre as you can tap them on the wrist with the edge, but you must have a remarkably flexible epee to be able to do that.
+Paul Paul which epee are you using ? I haven't seen this ever.
+Paul Paul
You can flick all day with a foil! Its a joke!
Yes Foils you can as you can with feders
They are very good points, well explained and well made...
As an added comment, I am one of those guys who wanted to learn swordsmanship and joined a hema club, when learning to fence - or sport fence, has never ever held any attraction...
Nowadays tennis problably represents swordfighting closer than fencing... :)
I must admit that I never liked the pistol grips much, which we used for the "electrified" sports fencing back then. All in for the Italian grip there. Yet what I do like about sports fencing is the formal footwork school: We spent sweaty ages to learn "walking" again - basic steps, cross-steps and lunges -- before we were allowed on the planche. That was not just "this feels about right maybe" footwork, but very precise. Which offered us a pretty good base in footwork, which I consider an essence in most martial arts. It even helps us a lot in Jugger training.
This sort of criticism of sport fencing, that it's arbitrary or silly because it doesn't sufficiently mimic an actual sword fight strikes me as quite silly. It's like a chess player complaining that a real knight could move anywhere, and a tower shouldn't move at all. It misses the point. The benefit of sport fencing is that it has completely shed it's martial arts past. It is a SPORT. It no longer matters HOW YOU LOOK when you fence. If you get the touch, within the rule set, you get the touch. This can be extremely liberating. Imagine a soccer player having his/her goal rescinded because it was a "bad kick." If the ball goes in the goal it goes in the goal, and that's worth one point. Some people don't like it, and that's fine.
"the fact remains that modern sport fencing has totally forgotten what swordsmanship is actually about, whether it be to first blood or for military combat. "
No. But not not entirely untrue in some specific regards, either.
To paraphrase Gen. Patton's 1911 fencing manual: "the involuntary spasmodic reaction induced from being run-through is usually enough to stop the deadly momentum of the opponents attack."
Search the keywords 'Nicaragua knife attacker police'.
The attacker charges like a wild animal and thrust his knife into three officers - which causes them to drop down instantly. This confirms what Patton wrote in his 1911 US Army manual. Perhaps Ol' Blood and Guts was speaking from personal experience.
The man that puts the point on the other man first wins - period. Noone is more adept at doing this than a good modern fencer. They train to put the point on the opponent first - whether it is an opponent moving in or an opponent on the defensive.
Armored knights realized this, and thus their primary weapon was the lance. As with modern fencing, they trained to put the point on the target as accurately as possible, and with as much velocity as possible.
When there is something on the line - the future of a dynasty, a life, or even a trophy - this becomes the default form of fighting for those on whose shoulders rest fate.
For some real amusement: you can go online and lookup 'thrust vs. cut' or 'modern vs historical fencing'. You will find proponents of reconstructed fencing arguing (and with a smug tone) with the likes of General Patton - who was not only a famous modern General with real combat experience, but a champion modern fencer and West Point graduate. Patton 'literally' wrote the (1911) manual on fencing for US soldiers! LOL
What a quaint little cult.
I speak with a little experience: I have competed and fought both formally and informally, in full contact and semi-full contact stick fighting. But if I were to start over, knowing what I know now, I would have invested that energy in to modern fencing. (The lauded Battle of Mactan involved just 49 Spaniards, 200 or so native allies vs. 1500+ Natives.) Modern FMA itself is influenced by European fencing.
+Dirk Kingston You need to read 'Swordsmen of the British Empire' - it contains hundreds (yes hundreds) of accounts of hand-to-hand combat in the 17th-19th centuries. Patton knew very little about swordsmanship in actual warfare. In contrast, people like Hodson, Gough and Jacob killed dozens of opponents with their own hands in actual combat - opponents who were themselves using swords and trying to kill them. Patton was a fantasist and believed that he was a reincarnation of Alexander the Great! His only experience with the sword was 20th century fencing competitions… As someone who has been wounded by swords and knives, and as someone who has studied hundreds of crime reports in my job, I can assure you that most people do not instantly stop when they are stabbed. They just carry on doing what they were doing in most cases, but it depends mostly on where exactly the wound is (1cm to the left or right can make all the difference), whether they realise they have been wounded and what their psychological condition is.
Nice troll with the Patton comment. Even your own Gen. Montgomery respected Patton - and he didn't much get on with anyone. Hell, the Nazis said Patton was a genius of tank warfare. I''m sure you think you could take Patton in a duel. While not go all the way while you're making a outrageous statements.
+Dirk Kingston I am a competitive fencer and you're trying to make fencing something it isn't; maybe in 1911 the techniques were far more relevant but these days I wouldn't bring an epee to a knife fight
In what ways do you consider epée de combat techniques to have changed from 1750 to the present? What aspects of current epée technique do you consider irrelevant to earnest encounters?
Don't you really know that right of way in the foil comes from actual history? Foil was a practice/learning sword and right of way was used as a good way to teach people when to attack.
And then, the talk about handles... How in the hell pistol grip disqualifies the epee from being an actual sword? Does the definition of sword includes the design specifications of the handle? Have you ever occured to you that maybe the historical swords were like that because it was easier to produce? Do you also disqualify modern weapons from being guns because they have easier to use handles?
You may not like the sport aspect of modern fencing. The thing is, nobody needs swords to actually kill people. So, the only reason fencing (or sword fighting in general) to ever exist in 21st century is that it is a game. You are not becoming warriors doing HEMA as you imagine, you are just playing with swords just as modern fencers do. It is just in a different, more olympic sporty kind of way.
But then, do you actually believe that since HEMA is more 'real', you would be able to kill a olympic fencer in a duel?
Matt's point is valid. I practiced "fencing" for a number of years and walked away for the EXACT same reasons. I have never met this man. We live in two different countries and are separated by thousands of miles of ocean. But I came to the same conclusion, just like many others.
Fencing isn't fencing, it is something else. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who still believe it has some basis in swordsmanship-it doesn't. Maybe the footwork. Though, the "weapons" aren't treated as such and therefore should not be named that name. When you absentmindedly toss your sword on the ground to tie your shoe or fix an article of clothing, clearly your lack of respect indicates you don't view your tool as a weapon. The list can go on.
+toothANDclaw13 Of course it is valid as an opinion. He has every right not to like modern fencing. However some of his arguments defending his point are nonsensical. As I pointed out, the right of way is an actual historical practice, for example. Or the weapon design has nothing to do with what he was talking about. For what is worth, historical fencing weapons are also not really weapons in the strict sense, they are dull. They do not function as weapons are intended, to harm or kill people. You may argue that they can be used that way if sharpened, but so can the fencing weapons be produced to have the ability to kill people.
The thing that bugs me is that you seem to forget the fact that, in the end, it is a hobby, a sport, a game. Historical fencing does not make you a knight. You may be romantic enough to see yourself that way or see your weapon as a part of your soul, and that is okay. But weapons are really tools and modern fencing is as real as HEMA fencing. It is like saying modern swimming is not swimming, there are no rules in real swimming.
You PREFER historical fencing, that is okay, but preference does not make a good argument for it being objectively better.
+Pool First, claiming the concept of right of way is historical and thereby using it to defend its validity is nonsensical. People were doing that 50 years ago, ten years ago. It's still a rule that comes from a time when much of fencing had ALREADY started fall into degradation.
Second, attacking someone's passion for an art using reductionist comparisons is cowardly and in bad taste.
Ultimately, the content of this video is questioning the validity of Olympic sport fencing still calling itself fencing when it has clearly strayed very far from its roots. No one is attacking your reasons (or anyone else's for that matter) for participating in sport fencing. That's your business, not mine.
+toothANDclaw13 Its not 50 years old though. Its barely more modern than longsword. Foil has been used since 17th century as a practice weapon and you can see at the 6th paragraph it says:
"During the 17th century several major changes occurred in fencing. The "fleuret", or foil, was developed in France as a lighter training weapon for dueling. Right-of-way, a set of rules which made the game a series of alternating attacks and defense, became generally accepted. With right-of-way, duelists were unlikely to impale each other, as they did not both attack at the same time. This made fencing safer and reduced the number of casualties to dueling."
acfencers.tripod.com/briefhistory.html
You could find other sources this came up after 5 minute google search. The part you clearly don't understand is that there isn't only 15th century longsword fighting in history. In reality, there were also a dueling period and modern fencing was a recreation of the dueling practice. Sure it has evolved somehow but you can't expect it to carry on 15th century practices.
And who is not attacking the other's passion? Get a little grip of reality! All of the video is belittling modern fencing. Yes, modern fencing may not be really swordfighting but neither is historical fencing. Again, you are not being samurai's when you practice kendo just as you are not being knights when you do historical fencing. It is a fucking hobby. Be happy with your hobby instead of feeling superior for nonsensical reasons.
And arguably, sports fencing has more of a right to call itself fencing since that is what fencing is in modern days, even in the dictionary the term fencing refers to competitive fencing. That is what happens to fencing when you don't try to kill each other.
I agree fully, modern fencing still takes its roots from what it once was. The pistol grip argument was a bit silly since, French grips and Italian style grips are manufactured. One could easily take principles from "real fencing" and apply them in a competitive situation. One could also get a grip and understand, its a sport, non lethal, why does it not deserve to evolve.
very helpful video! I just found out my new school's fencing club does classical fencing and was a bit apprehensive about it because the quick, high speed Olympic fencers always looked really cool to me. This video sorted out a lot of the myths and questions about both styles and how classical fits between HEMA and modern fencing. I especially liked your comments about fencers being people who want to learn to fight with a sword because that really applied to me. Thanks for this informative video!
Having done (i'v since left it) sport foil fencing for about five years, i completely agree. I went into fencing to learn real swordsmanship. i was disappointed to find that's not what it was, but stayed because i found it fun anyway. Now i have a question, I left sport fencing because it was much too hard on my knees, but is HEMA any different in that regard? If i did long sword, or even rapier, for instance, are the movements different enough that i could get away with not having super strong knees?
Jonathan Allen That's exactly it, the impossibly long lunges were killing my right knee. With no particular need for a quick recovery we were pushed to reach as far as possible (not directly by the coach, but by circumstances mostly) our coach was really understanding though and suggested i just not lunge quite so far and focus more on "blade work", but by that point i had already injured myself and needed time to recover. Thanks for the info, so long as i don't have to put full body weight on a sharply bent right knee reaching past the foot i'm fine till it strengthens back up.
zoll2000
Hello commenter from 4 years ago, I notice you say your knee passes your foot and I am here to say that is a bad idea and not encouraged in fencing due to injury risk.
In all seriousness, my fencing club and many others advise practitioners to avoid exactly that.
I haven't paid too much attention to modern sport fencing, but this sounds terrible. Sport fencing always felt unreal in how each person dealt blows, and this just kinda puts the icing on the cake. Good topic Matt. I don't know enough to reply to it, but I'd imagine this should stir some people up.
Yep, it's same thing with cycling. It's not anymore about training and riding your bike, it's all about how much EPO you can inject.
Performance enhancing drugs are a huge part of every sport where lots of money is involved. You're never going to stop that, best thing would just be to allow it to happen rather than making the sports in to competition to see who can take the most drugs without getting caught.
That being said training is still the most important factor.
Jim Giant ...which eventually leads to further-evolved super-athletes...
I think I smell the new Christopher Nolan movie cooking
It would make a good movie, even documentries about PEDs are pretty interesting.
what is the most preferred uniform for attending hema lectures, orchis or elvish? personally i like the gondor suits
+Galimah I dunno. The teacher is usually dressed like Sauron
Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?
When I did sport fencing in school I was fortunate to have a very good teacher. We didn't utilize those electric scoring system, it was an honor system. If you wanted to become better why would you challenge a point someone had against you anyway? It makes sense that if you desire to improve your skill that you be honest, and scoring a point by 0.3 of a second or some other ridiculous figure...
Electric tag is essentially the best thing to call it, it's completely lost touch with what it was intended to be in the first place.
Maybe we could use "Electric Duel", as that may sound nice enough so that Sport Fencers may pick it up for themselves.
Edward
What was it intended to be in the first place?
I don't know what image you have of modern fencing clubs, but we don't use electric scoring during practice -- unless we're specifically training for a tournament. Most of the practice sessions in my club (well known varsity fencing school in the US) work on the honor system -- just as you described. Furthermore, the club that I went to in high school (again, very well rated in my state), still had most of the practice bouts done by honor for the sake of convenience -- and to instill good sportsmanship.
Why do tournament bouts have electric scoring? Because when you have prizes on the line, people don't follow honor as much. Fighting in a tournament -- to a lot of people, especially as they become more competitive -- is more about winning than about getting better. Obviously, you need some impartial means of adjudication and electric scoring is objectively better than a human referee using red chalk stains because of a very simple reason:
The electric system only goes off once you've scored a sufficiently heavy hit. For foil, the tip needs to feel a force of atleast 500 mg (~0.5 N). I fence HEMA, and the refs in some of my tournaments have dropped very convincing hits because they just weren't fast enough to pick up my action (EDIT: And yes, the honorable HEMA fighter felt my hit for sure, but didn't own up. I wonder why...). As a result, a fair number of HEMA tournaments in my side of the world have players who intentionally fence slower so that the refs can see their hits. How is this any different from sport fencers playing to the rules, O' Historically accurate one?
Has anybody ever messed with smallsword vs foil or epee? Like if one took the guard and wacky grip of a modern fencing tool, put a solid blade with a sharp tip on it, and had a go versus a smallsword.
but also, I do give you credit for calling out sabre. Sabre fencing has changed sooo much because of the electrical system of scoring. And I also enjoy and like many of your videos. And I think you are very cool as well. No joke. I mean that sincerely.
Spencer Brasch Thanks - yes I think sabre is the most removed of the modern fencing weapons from actual swordsmanship. The right of way rule, which does come from common sense, has been grossly abused to change the art in modern sabre. And the lightness of the modern sabre, or rather the complete lack of mass in the blade specifically, means that it moves utterly unlike any actual sabre or cutting weapon. Lastly, the flick tap used in modern sabre cuts, with any edge-orientation, is nothing like an actual cut.
I'm sad... They have no opportunities to learn ANYTHING with the sword other than fencing where I'm at.
corn cob because fencing is THE BEST way to learn swordsmanship, unlike the ridiculous sports of HEMA and Kendo.
Casper Howell Please explain why electrified tag is better than martial arts that follow historical manuals.
Mattias Bengtsson
please explain why people just slamming blades around is better than actual swordsmanship?
Casper Howell Answer my question instead of avoiding it.
Casper Howell what swordsmanship? modern sport fencing teaches very little about using a real sword, dont believe me? pick up a REAL rapier or sabre and try using it like a foil or fencing sabre. you will loose.
In my last years at my last club I started pushing toward having the martial aspect of things. We picked up full scale rapiers, and I pushed for gymnasium sabres but it's hard go get that in an epee club.
Here’s the thing, your argument though it has many points I agree with, is grounded on the assumptions that all people interested in sport fencing are also interested in historical technique, and that this evolution is inherently a bad thing.
The reason why fencing evolved the way it did is largely because sword fights were no longer a practical thing to train for. It then became more of a sport than something your life would depend on.
Fencing or even martial arts as a whole aren’t the only things affected by this. Equestrian training is not about preparing to ride into battle or ride your horse across the continent. Rowing isn’t about the maritime tradition. Archers don’t shoot at human targets anymore.
Yes, if you want to learn how to fight the historical way, look to HEMA. However, if you are just looking for a fun and challenging sport, then there’s nothing wrong with it.
And as you said, Fencing teaches a lot of the same/similar skills used in HEMA. The primary differences are the weapons and rules. Pitting the two against each other doesn’t help anyone.
Most modern arts that have become "sport", no longer teach any, realistic, combatives. There are no arts that are immune...
Many techniques taught in sport fencing are the same ones taught long ago. Parrying, counter attacking, avoidance of an attack, envelopment, binds, beat of the blade etc etc.
However the more complex the action, the more chance of it going wrong. Hence why people use simple manoeuvres the most.
I can understand people who have their expectations disappointed in modern fencing. I was very disappointed with my first year of modern fencing (foil) also; I wasn't allowed to touch a blade until I had mastered my footwork, distance and tempo. Not glamorous, and really no fun at all. Still, I can say, that as a former competitive fencer who spent several years studying the art after that first awful year, I used to eat other blade arts (kali, kendo, and HEMA) for lunch. By that, I mean that if I had a reasonable amount of space, and non-treacherous terrain, I used to be able to pick practitioners of those arts apart, hitting their extremities, face, and chest frequently, while almost never being hit myself... partly because my opponents were carrying heavier blades (they thought foils were silly too), and partly because they were sloppier and slower. They would often complain that the fight wasn't realistic after I had repeatedly hit them in ways that would have put holes in their hands, and face, and feet and chest if there had been a point on the end of my foil. Perhaps. Heavier blades are necessary to cleave armor and protective garments. If you want to fight in street clothes, I would suggest that you want something sharp, durable, and as light as possible to make holes in your opponent at the highest rate of speed with the least amount of effort. In the extremely unlikely, hypothetical scenario where you run into a former competitive modern fencer in a fight with swords, I suppose that person will be carrying something like a foil... maybe even one with a pistol grip. If you are in your suit of armor at the time, then you are in excellent shape. If you are the Highlander, and can only be killed by having your head severed from your body, then you are in an equally comfortable position. However, if you are training to use a katana, or a machete, or a rapier, and you happen to be wearing a down coat with a t-shirt under it when this hypothetical sword fight occurs, you will get to experience a short and extremely unpleasant form of "tag" where someone with a silly handle on their frail, whippy blade pokes many deep holes in your body. You can go gently into that good night with the knowledge that what happened to you wasn't real swordsmanship.
I would like to mention that you do have a point on the disliking the right of way rule in foil and sabre fencing. However, epee is still the closest that you'll get to in sportsmanship since the lack of priority and its still very essential to control your opponent's blade in epee!
Feel free to argue with me!
Im an ex-sport fencer and I did enjoy it, although I agree entirely that a) its not a very realistic representation of a sword fight b) you can still learn a lot from it. On the matter of pistol grips, what is wrong with a thrusting weapon using a pistol grip? It's not historical, it not supposed to be, but does it give superior handling to a traditional grip? Could a rapier-type sword with a pistol grip be considered "better" than a traditional rapier in a real fight?
That is actually an interesting point. I'm not a fencer, but watching some fights with real weapons (ie. stiff ones) I observed there's quite a lot of circular movement of the tip of sword to go around the opponent's blade and react to it (which must work differently for the sport fencing with the highly flexible blades). It seems to me that a pistol grip would impede those circular movements resulting in a poorer ability to react to opponent's blade.
@@erykczajkowski8226 On the contrary, pistol grips are far better for circular disengages and evasive coupes for light thrusting swords. Its much easier to keep the movement as small as you need due to the greater stability and strength, as well as the blade naturally sitting parallel with the forearm. You couldn't use it on a rapier, the balance would be wrong, but it wouldn't suprise me if it were an objective improvement for a smallsword.
I agree 100% I was a (sport) saber fencer in college and abandoned it because it was so far from real fencing that it became ridiculous to me. Whoever introduced the concept of "right of way" into a sport that is supposed to simulate dueling should be shot through the lungs with very slow bullets. The final straw for me was when I faced off against in a tournament against a guy I had dragged up and down the strip countless times. However *this* time somebody had taught him how to whip the point of his blade around my parry so that the flat of the blade bent and struck me on the upper arm right before my riposte cut half his face off. When you can win with a technique that would be impossible *and* ineffective with live steel, your sport has jumped the proverbial shark.
No other martial sport I can think of has degraded the martial styles used for it quite like sport fencing. Modern sport fencing seems like more of a game children play than a real competition of skill. When I first saw it, I knew nothing of real fencing and thought, "if anyone actually did this stuff in a real fight, they'd get themselves killed without doing much to their opponent." Then I saw some real fencing and realized the difference
Depending on whether or not you consider kendo fencing, I would say kendo is just as bad.
kokofan50 agreed... kendo is like sport saber's Japanese step-brother...
Do not make the mistake of assuming that just because it isn't swordfighting that it doesn't take skill.
Sport fencing is a game. It's game that no longer resembles actual swordfighting, but it is still a skill-intensive game. Being really good at sport fencing requires lots of practice, athleticism, and mental focus, not to mention godlike reflexes.
I don't have a problem with sport fencers doing what they do. I just have a problem with sport fencers thinking that what they do is sword fighting, or anything like it.
Graidon Mabson Agreed. This should be what viewers take from the video itself. There's nothing wrong with what they do, it's just not what they say it is anymore. Foil-tag would be a good name for it, IMHO.
Graidon Mabson Nooooo, of course it's an extremely athletic and skill-heavy sport. Nobody's gonna take that away from it. But like you said, it ain't swordfighting! Not any more than chess is waging war.
I'm still gonna do fencing cuz its the closest thing I have to HEMA in my area. Hopefully I can actually do HEMA in the future.
Same, also or fencing is more like swordsmanship than on olyimpics.
My friend, I'm interested in your comment about the fencing schools losing students to HEMA. I'd like to know how much percentage wise?
I am not so sure that I agree with what is being said here. If hypothetically I had a real duel with any kind of thrusting sword coming in 3 months and I had to train for it, I am not sure that I could find a better way to train for it than sport épée training.
Sure, it's not a real sword fight, but the rules are not restrictive at all like the right of way rules of florett or saber.
Ultimately, it's two guys trying to thrust their sword in their opponent, and trying to avoid being hit, how they do it is up to them. Who thrusts first gets the point.
Sure, there are many things that diverge from real sword fighting, like for example the lighter weapon, the pistol grip, weak thrust needed to score a point (750 grams I believe), short amount of time between touches to determine who gets the point, just to name a few.
However, the footwork, reflexes, distancing, coordination and speed that one develops in sport fencing cannot be equaled.
In sport fencing you develop these qualities with full gear on at EVERY practice, against many sharp opponents.
I have nothing against HEMA but you have to realistic, the level of athleticism is extremely poor as far as I can see.
How do you think that a real rapier duel between 10 épée-olympians vs. the 10 best HEMA rapierists in the world would play out ?
Give the épée-olympians 1 month to adapt to the rapier and to the reality of the duelling and I am sure that they will win 9 out of 10 duels.
Why ? Because they have trained with the best, using the best methods, all their lives.
Athleticism > All.
except in a real duel all your doubles would get you killed.
In a real duel would you go for a double hit? Very unlikely (unless it is worth the risk).
Agreed, sports and martial arts are not the same thing at all. With a weapon or not.
I discovered that with Kendo/Kenjutsu. I respect both and most of all, the dedication of any practitioner but they are two differents things.
It really sucks for me, because I actually would like to learn smallsword technique. Sport fencing is almost close enough to be reminiscent of the real thing, but only just so. There are a bunch of things like right-of-way. (UP YOURS, COMMON SENSE!!)
It seems your argument its all about in trying to recruit people to HEMA. I understand your we just ranting, but come on. If you're getting into sport fencing in order to fight like a real swordsman you're in it for the wrong reasons. Any good club will explain that on the first day. Your videos are universally good Matt but please focus on the history and the techniques of swordsmanship rather than bashing sport fencing for something that it is not.
I feel strongly as you do. Excellent video. I, unfortunately, have often encountered the perspective that sport fencing represents the "ultimate evolution" of European swordsmanship and many of my colleagues have as well. It seems a real shame to me. When the U.S.A.'s national sport fencing organization began issuing teaching certificates and titles for historical fencing I, and many people I know, felt terribly angry about it because that organization has not practiced real swordsmanship for a century, and many of the weapons for which these were issued had not had masters trained in them for much longer.
Submitting a new name for modern fencing.
"Stick tag 2: electric boogaloo"
Car Antenna Jousting
Funny.
In the Olympics, the tip of a fencers blade is the 2nd fastest moving object (beaten only by a target shooter's bullet). As much as you armchair HEMA fan boys (ie, you don't practice a martial art, nor have you ever formally done so) like to say that a foil or epee are harmless the reality is quite different. If the sword breaks or the tip gets removed somehow it can result in accidents such as getting impaled by the seemingly harmless "metal stick"
@@themanformerlyknownascomme777 And your point is? If you want to go to danger the most hazardous Olympic sport is Dressage. As far as I can tell no-one has said that people cannot be accidentally killed in sport fencing. What Mr Easton has said is that sport fencing no longer accurately reflects sword work.
As to the speed of the tip, the athleticism of the fencers is well acknowledged. What does that have to do with its resemblance to swordsmanship?
You have peirced your strawman to the heart. Rejoice in your victory.
@@robdarvall2726 deaths? No, not yet, Injuries? Absolutely.
Anyway, let me ask you a question, are you familiar with Kendo? You know that they use a piece of Bamboo as a stand in for Katanas right? Well modern fencing is the same principle, the Foil is a stand in for the Smallsword and the Epee for Epee de Combat, with Saber standing in for dueling saber. Its the same thing, can someone get killed with the Kendo stick? Its certainly possible but hasn't yet happened, same goes for foil.
@@themanformerlyknownascomme777 I still don't see your point. No-one has argued that foils, epees, and sabres are not potentially dangerous. I am familiar enough with sport fencing, having done it for some years.
The possible danger has nothing to do with the argument. People who are working in both systems are proposing that sport fencing no longer reflects sword work as it was actually practiced. That's the argument. Speed of tip, potential accidents, all are irrellevent.
The funny thing is - with modern technology we can now create fair sport fencing without arbitrary decisions, that still works like real fencing (edge alignment matters, force matters, body part hit matters). It would be more expansive than electrified tag, though.
In truth, I'd say most of this really applies to Sabre and Foil more than Epee. I enjoy watching all three, but Epee tends to be the one that actually makes sense. Because any touch is a point, and the weapon lacks right of way, a lot more possibilities present themselves. It feels far more like "actual" fencing.
I've been involved in sport fencing (AFLA, USFA, Empire State Games in NY, Club level) for over 50 years. My master was taught by a master who learned in the 19th century, so I recognize I am a dinosaur. We were taught that the idea was to hit without being hit, and that the rules in foil and sabre were actually there to make you treat the toy weapon as though it were heavy and sharp. We used to comment that epee (without right-of-way rules) was more artificial than foil (where right-of-way is raised to the highest level) because hitting first had very little to do with surviving. I wonder if you have every fought a juried bout in sabre. Since you had to convince the director and judges both that something happened and that you were right to do it, it was a lot more faithful to the ideas you expressed. I stopped fencing sabre competitively when then starting changing the rules to match the equipment, instead of making the equipment work according to the spirit of fencing.
In my heart of hearts I believe french grip should beat pistol-grip every time all other things being equal, but I don't think it is really the equipment that is the issue. The equipment just reflects the changes in the tides of coaching styles. It is sad but true it is easier to teach a fencer to fast than to be smart, so that is done at all levels, and then the rules are changed to handle the mess of double attacks. Let's flip a coin?! Also good fencing is 'dull' so let's penalize defensive strategies - don't want the TV audience (the what?) to tune out.
Sorry I haven't had a chance to take up HEMA, in my 70's now I'm not sure it's the time.
Anyway - I think you are right about the direction the sport has taken. Keep on keep'n on.
Why do they have the rule about "who first started attack"? Why don't they have the rule about afterblows? Why don't they make the weapon thicker so people who watch this can see the goddamn weapon?
These rules do actually emerge out of real saber dueling, though it is hard to tell now. The idea is, if you're in a real "fight to wound / kill" situation wielding heavy, sharp sabers and the other guy comes at you and is clearly delivering a serious cut at you, it would be suicidal to ignore such a serious attack so you can get in a blow of your own.
As to the idea of a "thicker weapon" you can indeed find these. Hanwei makes a couple of them that, while straight rather than curved, make for much better saber fencing than flicking people with a metal noodle. Wielding one with enough oomph to land a substantial blow takes a bit more time, makes the exchanges feel more authentic and rewarding.
There is indeed a rule about after blows. It is called 'the box' that does not allow a hit x units of time (weapon specific for x) after the first hit was recorded. So after blows don't count because the bout has been stopped, by the referee AND the scoring box. Technology... Who knew?
Dickon Jayes
They disallow afterblows? It makes sense from a scoring/sporting perspective, I suppose, but not from a martial one.
Dickon Jayes I'm not positive on how it works for saber, but for foil fencing at least (and i'm pretty sure epee as well) the "hit box" is damn near instantaneous. To the point where the machine would catch a definitive touche but a judge wouldn't.
There should be at least a three second delay between hit and halt to allow for a double kill. Perhaps the scoring boxes could have two tones so you can tell the difference. Beep..................................Buzz You could have a number of additional hits by either person during that time and they should count.
Can I ask why you rarely see any seeking the bind in sport fencing? In some smallsword stuff (close enough to foil one would think) it seems much more prevalent. Sport fencing seems to be more, strike, strike, etc. with less bladework. Is it because of the faster pace of sport fencing, or is there some other reason? (I'm not running down sport fencing, but as a dude with an interest in historical fencing and no sport fencing background, I'm curious).
Also I would think for military sabres, smallswords, spadroons etc. the footwork would at least be similar, is that the case?
Its because the competition meta does not allow it. If you check a pre comp foil/epee warm-up lesson you will see plenty of binds. Hell when you first learn fencing there is plenty of binds or parries in opposition . But at the higher tactical levels if you want to stand a whiff of a chance of getting to the final most actions need to be done with a absence of blade and from a much further distance away than any smallsword treatise advocates, because (counter intuitively for non sport fencers) there is reliance on the acceleration of the point being able to beat a limited human reaction time, which has a higher percentage on allowing one to be hit and not hit back. And in order to do that you cannot allow your blade to be taken. Its the same reason why sport fencers don't bother using closing the line after hitting thus preventing what HEMA terms 'afterblows'. Every sport fencing coach knows how to teach closing blade actions if necessary particulary for epee, but in a competition this 'more realistic' set of skills isn't used. Why? Because IT CAN BE USED AGAINST YOU AS A TRAP. Sport fencing at its highest levels is a tactical escalation of 'I know what you know what I know you are doing' . At a certain point in the mid 19th century it began to dawn that those pretty pretty "sentiment du fer actions" binding actions were actually less optimal that the old masters suggested. Furthermore if you actually check the old smallsword manuals there are nowhere near as many binding actions that modern smallsword proponents show. This is puzzling: why over emphasise a set of sword skills that were not that emphasised in the old treatise. I suspect its more to emphasise their difference from sport fencers. This is not to say that there are not HUGE artificiality in sport fencing, especially in Priority rules. But the lack of binding actions is not one of them.
@@inthedenoftigers5702 Thanks. That is a very good explanation! Sorry for the seemingly silly question but being a newb to historical fencing and having no background in sport fencing it seemed a glaring difference. It is hard to visualize the reason sometimes when just seeing the action, without background. And an understanding of the background and what led up to it is often not something one can easily learn by watching videos (as sadly is the only real option now during the current situation with many places closed incl. fencing clubs both historical and sport).
@@thelonerider9693 No worries. Its even more complicated than it seems. For example if you check youtube you would be forgiven for thinking fencers are constantly suicidal: TH-cam only shows the Direct elimination bouts and Finals, where athleticism, hair trigger responses and the fact the fencers already have fenced each other a number of times or pre-scouted each other, means will dispense with caution as they already know their opponents game plan and are just working the percentages. What you RARELY see on youtube are the Pool fights, where Fencers particularly epeeists, are often ultra careful, especially against unknown opponents. In a pool you might have one monster, one really good fencer, two mediocre fencers and a couple of unknown rabbits. In pool fights you may have to be really carefull because for a true contender allowing themselves to take suicidal hits may negatively affect their indicators. It 'does' matter if you win your fights 5-3 , 5-2, 5-1 5-4. The very fact you even took hits means you will have an exponentially harder route to the throughout the direct eliminations finals that if you got 5-0, 5-0, 5-0 etc. Its the difference between getting exhausted taking down a decent fencer in your DE and cruising your first couple of direct eliminations against weaker fencers Those binding closing actions to prevent afterblows are particularly important to know against the 'rabbits', as often their tactical depth isn't that great. Better to be safe and negate any chance of a double hit, because they won't have the tactical knowledge to use it covering actions against you.
Saying what I have felt for years. I had a vert brief intro to foil when I was 11. The next time I saw sportg fencing with th eoffset epee bell and the ortho grips, I was completely put off. You have crystallised my thinking exactly.
Around about 1980 the Olympic Fencing Team came to my high school. Anyone could sign up to try to fence with an Olympic athelete, and someone put my name on the list. The coach gave me about 2 sentences worth of instruction, put the mask on me and the epee in my hand, and the proceeded to bitch at me for immeadiatly dissarming my opponent, twice, telling me I'm not Errol Flinn... I replyed: I'm sorry, I thought this was supposed to be like sword fighting!
I sincerely doubt that you "immediately" disarmed someone off the Olympic team. I'm kind of curious on the details to this story. Did you just run up to him and rip the foil from his hand?
Ginger King
to doubt is your right... and to be fair, I had height, strength, weight, and reach, in spades over my opponent (6'5" stagehand vs 5'2" bookworm). I don't know if I could have scored a "legal" point against him, and fencers are not trained to avoid being disarmed... it is not an "acceptable" move.
there are no height or weight classes in fencing. If he was on the Olympic team it was because he was able to hold his own against almost anyone. While fencers are generally not body builders we do have a fair share of muscle. Especially muscles that really get used and worked out, like the fingers and thumbs. I'll accept that you'd be stronger than him but training makes up for that. That being said technically disarming your opponent isn't actually unacceptable. If you disarm them and then hit in the same action than it is a perfectly valid touch. Now if your opponent drops his weapon and you chase him down and stick him in the face then that isn't allowed. It isn't very gentlemanly and proper. As a way to defend honor, you should let them reclaim the weapon so you can kill them properly. Anyway. The point is fencers have strong grips for the most part the idea is to not let go of control and we train extensively to be good at it. People still make mistakes. Who knows? Maybe you got lucky.
Ginger King
I have no doubt it was 90% luck. I did something he wasn't expecting... and if I were him, I would have let it happen the second time to figure out how it worked... I have never claimed ANY skill with an épée. I have only ever practiced sword and shield, and claidheamh-mòr.
Hear hear. Well said.
Swordsmanship is practically speaking a useless skill no matter if you are doing HEMA or fencing. It doesn't matter which weapon has an advantage over people don't get into sword fights and you can't carry a sword around legally in most places. Fencing is a sport the weapons in fencing aren't even technically rapiers people would have used in combat. The art of fencing is still an art and a sport. Its like people complaining that Jiu Jitsu doesn't teach you of the danger of being on your back in a street fight. Its a sport first and its taught as a sport. No matter what these are sports and fun/recreational activities. I can see the logic in it not being "real swordsmanship" I am just trying to figure out why something like that even matters?
Usualy weird rules get made for only one reason. People that cant stand losing changes the rules so that they are in the advantage. Simple look at children they do this all the time.
I have heard these arguments many times (though usually in not such a calm voice). I certainly agree that sport fencing has left the past behind in many ways. I'm not sure that this is the disaster that the commentator implies. Certainly in my area, sport fencing grows and continues to grow. HEMA and Historical fencing also continues to grow (though I'm not in as close touch with that group as I am with the sport fencing community). I'm not sure why these two activities can't co-exist, or why the growth of one would in any way hurt or effect the growth of the other.
Totally why I stopped with sport fencing. Just felt like a big game of tag. Also, when i first saw the pistol grip I couldn't help but find it ridiculous. Other combat sports (boxing, modern savage, judo, must thai etc...) still seem leagues closer to their sources than sport fencing. With comparatively minor changes you can apply such combat sports to less controlled encounters. And, in the case of hema,I think even sportive tourneys are closer to the source matter. That being said I will certainly agree sport fencing is a great workout. I still do the practice footwork and sport-style lunges as part of a workout. Still, I am very hopeful hema will grow even more! (All styles too)
I'd tend to agree that sport fencing has moved away from its roots, but I don't think that means its teaching bad skills. Sabre has some funky rules because of the electrical system, but Epee, by contrast, has no priority, has timing to allow double touches, and requires an actual hit pressure. Sport fencing sword design has adapted to the sport, but those development mirror technological developments as well, and I can't see why, if you were building a modern weapon, you couldn't use modern materials and designs to make a sport weapon into live steel.
Target shooting has a parallel. Consider rifle shooters with their multi-adjustable rifles, colored lenses, eye-covers, gloves, padded jackets, slings, etc, etc. I hated all the gizmos and switched to pistol, where it is just the shooter and a pistol. I do value my early initial training in foil, epe and sabre at university!
Fencing is not alone in these problems though most 'ex-combat' sports have been transformed into something which is completely different to what it actually is meant to be.
Take for example rifle target shooting, it used to be training for soldiers (and the general populace), firing at targets from a distance all with the same weapon. This evolved in marksmanship competitions and things people strvied to achieve the tightest groupings on the bullseye, in other words it became a competitive sport.
Now that is fine, I regularly do rifle shooting, and I like using the old wood stocked type ones with primitive iron sights, these rifles are basically what the sport originally was. (this would be the shooting equivilent to HEMA I guess) However this rifle shooting is not the same as competition type shooting which we see in big sporting events like Bisley/Commonwealth/Olympic games.
I don't really like competition type shooting (unless its a milsurp bolt action comp ofc). They use specialized traget rifles adapted for them personally, they wear special jackets which chain them to the rifle to restrict its movement. This isn't 'proper' shooting it seems to me. I think there is now too much kit involed, it should be one standard rifle, with adjustable stock (just for fairness, as ppl are different sizes), and thats it. Ditch all the sling rubbish, just make it shooter and rifle, not shooter with heavily supported rifle tangled up in slinging aparatus.
I was expecting you to say things that are completely false like Skallagrim who didn't do one bit of research. But how did you even come up with Olympic fencing clubs are getting smaller and HEMA bigger my club and our biggest competitor are both growing with more and more people coming to our advanced classes that you needed to be in fencing for at least 2 years and I can't even find a HEMA club here.
Though I know little of sportfencing myself, you hit directly the cause why I didn't approach it, while I was always interested in swordsmenship. And it took me even longer to find any way into what is called HEMA, what is exactly what I was looking for as a child already. So what I want to say to you is: Thank you. Thank you for your openmindedness, for the sharing of your thoughts and experiences. It is thanks to you that I can learn at least some basics of the millitary fencing that I long for so much, it is thank to you that I finally know just how to call it - I didn't know even that, fencing always got me into the wrong direction, which was sportfencing.
Again and again, thank you for your output. I believe in time HEMA clubs will be a bit more common than they are today, and swordfighting will find it's way back into modern times.
Heck with all of this, it's all about backstreet Dominican machete fighting.
I wondered if you were being unnecessarily harsh on sports fencing. Then I looked up what an Olympic sports fencing match looked like. Damn, you were spot on.
"Fewer" attendees.
Sadly, martial arts aren't the only things to depart far from their origins and force "traditional" arts to add additional names to distinguish themselves. Conventional agriculture and conventional medicine are two more examples. Traditional farming has been re-labeled "organic farming" (itself a misnomer because organic compounds only need to contain carbon), and traditional medicine has been re-labeled "alternative medicine" and its practitioners almost witch-hunted until quite recent times. I think all of these transitions are related to the gradual shift from a generalist population to a specialized one: the more specialized a field of study becomes, generally, the further from reality it seems to move. Some of these transitions are arguably good, while others are arguably bad. Where I think martial arts (including both armed and unarmed arts) lost their connection to reality is the moment these arts lost their "martial" (or military) context. Since we aren't actually trying to kill anyone with swords anymore, nobody is concerned with how to properly kill someone with a sword. So swordsmanship practice is far more concerned with keeping all its practitioners safe than with authenticity.
I have 2 major problems with this video :
1) that you say that fencing is only slightly technical. While out is true that athleticism has become more important this does not change the fact that fencing is a highly technical activity that requires a great deal of training.
2) You, as a person with an interest in fencing of any sort, should at least acknowledge that the sport had greatly raised the profile of all fencing through being televised. The changes made to the sport have made it far more interesting to watch, helping with the profile being raised. If you connate fencing of the 1950s to modern fencing the interest in it had gone up significantly. (Side note, while I don't know for certain I don't feel that the fencing from the 1950s was any closer to real sword fighting than now).
Overall I don't think that fencing had been demolished into a sport
I honestly believe that the Asian martial arts also have something similar in store sometime in the future. A return to true historical context. Many stylists claim long legacies, but the truth is that although the movements may be passed down most of them are convoluted in a big mess. The Chinese martial arts are particularly corrupted, the false history of Kung Fu is much more well-known and bought into than what has actually happened. Japanese martial arts have been better preserved, but the problem is that kendo and judo are the only full contact sparring arts, while the others who actually teach more realistic principles and techniques have almost completely turned into Kata contests.
The same happens in competitive shooting (IPSC - USPSA). it started to help people train in pistol combat, but has turn into race gun frenzy and the best way to game a stage to be the fastest. Its still fun, but the actual martial element take a back seat (even for IDPA in my opinion). As soon has you implement scoring and competitiveness to a martial art, it become sport, its not bad in itself, you just need to be aware of it
After reading through ever single damn one of these comments I have come a realization. Every single one of you has said that sport fencing isn't "sword fighting". Of course it isn't, it is sport fencing. to the guy who said that the first thought he had was "If you did this in a real sword fight then you would be dead". Well that seems self explanatory doesn't it?!?! That is why you don't see many MMA fighters go for reverse spinning butterfly kicks when it is a move that is taught in some martial arts!!! yes you can do it in a "real" sword fight but you shouldn't. Why is everyone assuming that because what sport fencers do on the strip they are so stupid that they would try that in a real honest to god duel? it would be ludicrous to attempt.
As a 6 year sport fencer with a National rating of "D" in saber and an "E" in foil (look mom I'm qualified) I want to set a few things straight here. Foil and saber both have right of way, Eepe does not. Foil is used as the begging weapon in sport fencing. It teaches you point control for Eepe and the basics of right-of-way for saber. It has always bothered me when someone says that one form of martial arts is better than another. Another thing that bothers me is when you see the youtube videos that are along the lines of "whiich is the better weapon x or x in a duel". this is because you can't compare them that way. They are two different styles and techniques and it all depends on how skilled the user is. If a fencer looses to someone using a longsword it isn't because the fencer's weapon sucks. it is because he wasn't good enough. and what about when you compare something like Saber vs Kendo? they don't even use the same target area!!
Okay, that is the end of my rant now. Yes sword fighting is fun. I prefer Sport fencing with its' structure and rules. I would be more than willing to fence anyone that claims what they think is "traditional" fencing is better. I can assure you that I wouldn't try half of the stuff that works on the strip during that match though and hey, if I lose it isn't because fencing is evil and awful. it is because I am not good enough.
Oh yes. in regards to the "Orthopedic" grip that you mentioned with so much hate. Not on;y does it provide you more control, it also helps prevent broken fingers when bellguards collide. The only weapon that doesn't use a pistol grip is the saber (but there is still an orthopedic grip available).
It is both ironic and bizarre that HEMA has rather quickly gone the way of so many modern martial arts, in that the compulsion towards commercialization and public acceptance seemed an inevitable result of so much suffocating self-denial. There are now commercial "schola" operating in much the same way as any commercial dojo: advertising on the internet, offering everything under the sun, from physical fitness benefits to the promise of modern street self-defense skills( WTF?? ), even kids classes. Yes! Come bring your little one down to the schola, where they can learn Teh Realz Swordfighting(TM) and how to brutally slaughter a potential enemy with a longsword! Sadly, the genuinely potent historical material that HEMA has to offer is seemingly overshadowed by its own practitioners' delusional zealotry and near fanatical unwillingness to allow reality to penetrate their own self-serving perimeter. They remain blind to the fact that it isn't the promise of "real" sword fighting drawing people away from modern fencing and into the schola, but rather the blatant misrepresentation of it.
Agreed. If that is the case then it has gone the way of all the "ninjutsu" schools that are out there and that is very sad
Ginger King Incidentally, I am a member of the Bujinkan. That isn't a confession, just a admission purely in the interest of full disclosure. :) But I agree. The irony hasn't been lost on me that so much of what I see wrong with HEMA practices is essentially the same malignancy that has afflicted the Bujinkan for many years now.
Combat sports do a great job of eliminating bad crap that will get you hurt. What I see with a number of traditionalists in ARMA and HEMA with regards to sport fencing is the same as you see with kung fu'ers and karatekas with regards to MMA. Their stuff is the reals and meant to kill, but your just sport. Yet, sport fighters routinely mop the floor with "traditionalists." Makes you wonder how they can continue in denial. Now, to be fair, with fencing there are some bad habits that you can pick up that would definitely get you killed in a real sword fight. Right of way was meant to teach against these bad habits but people just try to game it instead. That's not good, of course. And to that end, the maker of the video is correct. But its also the case that the average sport person will likely have vastly superior basics (timing, distance, rhythm, etc.) than the traditionalist.
As a B in epee and C in foil I applaud what you have said. You definitely know more of what you are talking about then the guy in the video. Well thought out contribution to the discussion. Thank you for representing our sport intelligently.
As a fencer and in defense of modern fencing, it largely depends on the school of fencing. I know in my club and in the clubs surrounding me we practice a 1 light game. In other words a hit and don’t be hit methodology. Modern Sabre is a mess for a bounty of reasons and Foilists nowadays are more or less playing tag on the whole, however modern Epee is very patient and deliberate and because of a lack of right away it has to be a one light game.
I'm new to fencing, so I possibly don't know what I'm talking about, but here we go. From what I've been watching in sport fencing bouts like in the Olympics or World Championships, epee seems to be the most realistic of the three types. There's no right of way. If you both hit simultaneously, you both score a point. A book I've been reading from the 30s on fencing was talking about having a conversation with the blades with different types of attacks and parries. This type of dueling appeals to me probably because of all the movies I've watched and books I've read that involved swordplay. (Yes, I know that movie duels are notoriously unrealistic, but they're still fun to watch.) I think epee keeps to that tradition of more realistic swordsmanship when compared with the crazy fast, over in a second sabre duel or the weird right of way stuff in foil. Honestly, if I can, I would like to get into rapier fencing and maybe longsword, but if not, epee looks like a decent substitute.
i think you are wrong. I fence foil. Foil has not changed much. And I believe that if we fenced in a "historical fencing" match, I would still beat you, even though I have been training in what you call "electrified tag" for the latter fifteen years of my 21 years of life.
Spencer Brasch If we both used smallswords then maybe you would beat me - it's not a weapon I have given much attention at all. However, I can pretty much assure you that if you used a sharp foil (smallsword) and I used a sharp military sabre, then I would have all the advantages :-) I agree that foil has changed the least in the last hundred years - however, the main differences between foil and smallsword fencing is that in smallsword you can defend and grab with the left hand, and of course the whole body is a target - targetting the face really changes quite a lot of things.
scholagladiatoria haha! thanks ;)
scholagladiatoria Most of the foil fencers also sometimes fence epee, too, so attack to the whole body is not such a problem. What I found that the use of the non-armed hand works when both players are using the same hand (right vs right) in case of leftie vs right handed, the non-armed hand is way less useful...
I think that aim of sport fencing is training most important abilities for real fencing: speed, reaction, technics, tactics and experience (e.g. ability to see strike before it's done). Of course sport fencing differs from fencing with real saber (the last is heavier and the power of strikes is important). But because of sport fencing much faster, olympic fencers have much better speed and reaction (tactics and technics differs not so much). That's why I think sport fencers will see fight with real sabers like in slow-motion.
Sorry for my English.
Apples and pears.
This Video has aged soooooo badly.
Sir: I enjoyed this clip, as I do all your others! As a sport fencer who did indeed get into fencing because of my interest in swords and sword-fighting, I completely understand your point here. Have you heard of Mr. Nick Evangelista? A traditional fencing master, Nick has been a "voice crying in the wilderness" for some twenty years, despite great criticism, pointing out how sport fencing has departed from traditional fencing thought and practice. I still fence but I shed a tear when I see rules allowing such nonsense as the "flick" and bent-arm attacks. Keep up the good work. (I fence epee)
I'm a fencer and I agree with this 100%. Fencing trains certain parts of my body and it has strengthened it but I will always feel uncomfortable in a swordfight with a broadsword or a sabre.
I happily feel comfortable fencing epée de combat versus (highland) broadsword or longsword, including any ruleset that carefully tries to cope with afterblows.
People don't expect the blades to be effective in defending against attacks from substantially heavier blades. But this is what the techniques were developed for. Hmmm, I feel yet another blog post coming along. I'll try to get it up on fightingwords-blog.blogspot.co.uk/ asap
Cause fencing isn't about sword fighting believe it or not. It's about technique and conventions. It's a sport. And comparing a sport to a duel to death I'm afraid makes barely no sense. Would you compare a walk in your garden with exploring Amazonia? Course not. My opinion is you're kicking down open doors mate.
+Toghebon Actually where the word 'fencing' even comes from is in the 13th century, to 'fence' meant to defend yourself. As if one was putting up a fence to keep bad people out, yeah?
Fencing therefor, was the practice of learning to defend ones' self with a sword, mainly during duels. There's... Kind of where we get the comparison to the dueling part I'm afraid. There isn't much technique to sport fencing. Most sport fencers don't even learn the 'anatomy of physics' behind a sword so to speak. Out of most fencing clubs, you ask a sport fencer what the 'strong and weak' of a sword is and you get a look like you're pouring orange juice on your head.
I would agree however, that it's about conventions. And in my opinion, arbitrary ones.
Well I don't know where you come from but this etymology seems kinda self-centered to me. In latin languages the words "scherma", "esgrima", "escrime" all originate from late latin "schermare" (the art of weilding a sword) which dates back from somewhere like the third century. Actually even anglo-saxon lands adopted the latin root in their own language as suggest scandinavian word "skrimen" and german "schirmen". I don't know how and when this root was replaced by fencing, fechten, fekten aso and why this seemed more appropriate, I'm not that much of an expert. All I mean is etymology isn't quite the right angle to prove any point here.
So as for the "duel" aspect of it I think it's best to just forget it. We gotta admit that fencing is only a game where you use a blade to harmlessly hit your opponent and you, too, expect to come out of your fencing lesson alive! Duel has that connotation of a game of life and death that fencing hasn't. You don't seek to give your opponent the deadliest hit possible, you just try and give as many hits as you can in a given time duration. The only remains of duel in sport fencing is that it's one on one... and that's all.
So now, having fenced and studied fencing for 18 years or so, it's kinda hurtful to hear that's there's not much technique in sport fencing. There's a crap load of technique in it actually and each weapon has its own. So it would take me weeks to explain all the subtleties and you'd probably die of boredom before i'm done. Just to stick with your argument, it's true there's not much knowledge of physics in modern fencing but actually it's mainly because we don't need it. Most fencers don't know what the weak and the strong are but they use it instinctively (for example sabre fencers are taught to parry using the "bottom" section of the blade, and épée fencers do "prises de fer" using the strong of their blade to catch the weak of their opponent's). We're actually taught about it very briefly as kids and those who don't know probably just don't remember.
I could keep going (I actually badly want to and I don't know much about HEMA and would be glad to learn more, so if you're up for debate let's keep this up :D) but I'm afraid I'd lose you if I continue. Sorry if I sounded rude at times, it's just my approximate knowledge of english.
Well, if we're going to continue this discussion, for my part I believe I should start by apologizing. I was overly dismissive of the sport you practice, and I'm sorry for any offense that I may have caused by my rudeness.
Some of the arguments I leveled were unreasonable; I'm certain there's definitely technique to fencing, although moreso with some types compared to others. (From what I have heard, Epee is the form still closest to real swordsmanship.)
But I do still have arguments to make. Let's take for example, modern combative arts that *are* expected to be used in defense to incapacitate and perhaps kill an attacker in present day, much like a student of fencing all the way through the 1600's would have expected from his craft.
We can see this in hand to hand systems, such as the homebrew martial arts programs the US Marines follow, or Krav Maga, an Israeli Defense Force hand to hand system. Both designed by militaries, specifically for soldier's defense of their own lives in hand to hand combat.
In practice, these soldiers aim to walk out alive as well, even though they learn practices to kill! As well, they aim for their partner to walk out relatively unhurt.
This is similar to the attitude of a fencer in ages passed, and one reflected in HEMA, where there is a greater chance for injury to sparring partners, especially when doing longsword (Much more protective equipment is required, as federschwert or sparring blunts still can break bones. Control is required as well.)
Yet, a historical fencer from HEMA is still doing fencing as a martial discipline. Any double that happens is always ruled in favor of the man who makes a more lethal hit. Debilitating hits are counted as points when they are done with no risk to the attacker.
Surely you can see although you can say that Sport Fencing surely is a game and has lost all sense of what is martial, HEMA has not?
There are a few things that I truly believe HEMA could take from sport fencing however. The athleticism for one, and for two the focus on learning from competition.
I know in my club, I am very loathe of the rarity in which I can convince one of my fellow practitioners to get on all their protective gear (padded jacket, hard-plated gloves, arm protection, mask, gorget, thigh guards.) to do a full-speed competitive spar.
One always learns best by doing, and the only way anyone can really expect to get good at swordsmanship is by having many, many competitive fights in addition to drills and practice.
It's always interesting to compare which sport fencing weapon would be the most useful in real combat situations. Epee teaches you about keeping distance and trying to surprise your opponent, getting him into range and striking when he's unprepared or getting too close. If your opponent also weilds a fencing weapon which is quite unlikely nowadays then maybe it is the best. But the fact it is slightly heavier than other weapons and that you always keep it steady aiming straight at your opponent makes it easier to catch bare handedly. Against unarmed opponent saber would be best cause it's all about runnig forwards quickly and smashing the other guy with your blade. And it would be more efficient against several persons. As for foil, it would be completely uneffective I'm afraid. Foil fencing is too hampered by conventions (which makes it beautiful to watch imo) and doesn't teach you too much tactics nor baldness.
But I'm an épée fencer and if I had the choice between my blade and a stick/bat to protect myself I'd definitely pick the stick. If you don't know about it, check some canne de combat videos. It derives from italian and french fencing and it's much more efficient in a street fighting context. I've done just a little bit of it and a good hit hurts like hell. Plus you're taught to deliver several hits to make points, whereas fencing only teaches you to hit one and get away. It may be a detail, but I guess it might hinder your efficiency in a real fight.
Fencing (I mean the brand of fencing with light weapons and no body armour) once was a military art but is now pretty much obsolete and is no longer taught as a way to kill/protect yourself. So the comparison between fencing and krav maga for example is interesting. It's an example amongst millions about how the "art" of fighting is evolving. Maybe krav maga will be supplanted by a new, more efficient close combat technique and then it will cease to exist or only be taught in a "recreative" way just like fencing is. But that's just my point : fencing as a self defence technique is so weak and unefficient it's no longer taken seriously even by fencers themselves (ecept for competitors but competition is still pretty much a game to me).
On the other hand I consider HEMA as much more useful self-defence techniques and that's why I think they are still strongly related to martial arts with a connotation of the act of killing your opponent. I don't know about the popularity of HEMA though. It takes big numbers to set up a competitive circuit, at least sport fencing isn't struggling with that for now. I also believe competition should be the place for high intensity fighting cause you often develop bad habits in training. When I was younger and fencing at junior (U21) level a few years ago I would just have a go at every opponent to try and win every match, now I'm struggling with my self-taught reflexes against unknown opponents in competition and I have to try new stuff in training everytime and lose if necessary just to get rid of them. It's very frustrating. Off course it's still good to have competitive fights in training so... wish you to find someone as motivated as you are!
By the way don't you aopologize again -- I'm fine. Having a nice, polite conversation on TH-cam is an achievement I will cherish all my life.
Hmm... I am not sure I agree with everything you say, but you do bring up some good points.
Having said that most people who think of sword fighting think of lord of the rings, petter pan, princess bride even, but as many sword fighting enthusiasts know sparring with a sword is nothing like that. Having taken fencing classes when I was young (about 9) I used the foil. I believe many of the changes are good ones.
I entirely agree. I love reenactment combat, and fencing seemed a natural step, easily reachable in my area, to further learn sword fighting techniques. My first impressions were not good. 'Electrical tag' is a good way of putting it.
What don't you like about pistol grips and curved sword handles? Is it because you don't like them aesthetically, or because you think they're actually less practical for thrusting weapons than a straight grip? Because IMO these ergonomic grips make a lot of sense for thrusting weapons.
Now I see why my instructor hates foil. too many rules. Epee is more like simulated combat....even though you fence for points. I like to think that any touch on me equals death. a double touch is death to both. Only good clean fencing wins. one mistake costs you. but I wouldn't say its a shame that sports fencing has gone away from swordsmanship, it still teaches many good things. If someone wants to get into the historical aspect and study more of the killin arts and way of life...well HEMA is there.
I hope both can exist.
***** The problem with epee is that the person wins a point for hitting about a 25th of a second before the other person hits them. So most points scored in epee would be double kills in a real duel.
True...I dont like lockouts either. My mentality is hit and not be hit. Still, way less rules than foil. At the end of the day its sports. Theres classical fencing, and theres whatever works...most people..especially athletes do whatever works lol.
BTW, how many reconstructed fencing practitioners have died? You guys are practicing the "real deal" right? Modern fencing is 'just a sport'. I imagine there must be a pile of bodies.
+Dirk Kingston That is known as a strawman argument. The effectiveness of a sport of martial art in duel or war is not measured by the number of people killed in practice….
Actually, western fencing had a strong dueling culture. Not necessarily always to the death - but still. You know that very well.
+scholagladiatoria this guy is trying desperatly 😁
this is pretty much true of any martial arts which has a strong "sport category" developed from it. I'm into karate and modern "free combat" competitions are at the same time so histerically funny and so incredibly sad to look at for someone who cares slightly for what the martial art was originally created for. The higher you go in competitions, the worse it gets.
youre certainly selling me on HEMA, I did a bit of fencing as a kid and quickly came to the conclusion it had little to do with swords.
+Dean Booth I do like HEMA, because you use swords (and other weapons too!) how they were supposed to be used.
I was watching another video on here from a guy who does both HEMA and traditional fencing, and he made a very interesting point. Modern fencing is fashioned after 18th century formalized small sword duels where more often than not, whoever drew first blood won the duel. Fights to the death were rare. And still, small swords could be very deadly. I think the HEMA movement is an incredible, worthy pursuit. And it has it's own problems. The historical fighting manuals HEMA uses are from masters who were teaching advanced fighters who had already mastered fundamentals of fighting for historical age. There was no need to talk about footwork, how to properly grip a sword, etc. This leaves big gaps in our understanding of western martial arts. So I think it's a huge mistake to discount sport fencing as little more than electronic tag. Historical context is critical to understanding the art..
My old sparing partner and I would make oak short swords. We would generally follow SCA rules. A solid hid to a limb, and you can't use that limb(arm behind the back or down on one knee.) A solid hit to the head or torso and you're dead. Start next round. Rinse and repeat.
Well said Matt. I think you've quite nicely summed up what so many of us feel there. Bravo :)