In einer eMail vom 7/24/2005 6:34:40 AM W. Europe Daylight Time schreibt
editor@corporatemofo.com:

Classical fencers can not engage sport fencers on the strip for the simple
reason that one can not fence clasically unless the other fencer is a
party to it.


Okay, now here's a good start.

I waver on this sport-engagement issue as you know, Ken. Used to not. But
logically, I'm sorry to say two variations of the same thing here: 1.) I
warned in my last post "classical" can be anything you want it to be right now,
and 2.) you go past tautology here and through the looking glass. Which is
where we are anyhow, with people sniping in their little salles. And whom does
Maestro X deign to acknowledge is worth encountering? Will Maestro Y object?
Then Provost Q comes along and deploys disarms? Can we have 18th century
smallsowrd aficianados dueling someone lumbering about with rapier and
buckler? I don't know the answer, Ken, not given the pop-epistemology of the early
21st century I don't.

Let me take you at face value, though: Okay--if it ain't classical I ain't
engaging it. I'm in this phase now over here. But Chris Amberger makes a
perfectly reasonable case au contraire yours that if we follow the fundamental
rule of the duel (which is straight out of a satirical play that attributes
cowardice to technique as well, but no matter), to hit and not be hit and the
ol' as if they were sharp mantra, classical fencers should be able to whup
anyone. The experience of this, well, blow off foil and sabre, epee I now
think is iffy.

Why? 'Cause fencing's rule-bound. Okay. What rules do we accept? What I
see and have gone through is some mushy FIE for the nostalgists thing. Rules
have been known to be altered at tournaments to benefit one or another
imagined weapon preference. Is there a set of rules we all play by? Would you
accept the 6.3-meter strip we've adopted over here? Rules also determine
environments. I want out of the looking glass or back through it to reality.

You're one of the best fencing historians out there today, and I never miss
a chance to tell others that. You're a damned fine young fencer, as I know
from huffing and puffing facing you. "Classical" implies, no requires a
historical definition that is also -historical because of the nature, the
development, the etymology of the word since the 16th century. (You know enough about
such things as 18th century "philosophical" i.e., "classical" historiography
to be aware of this and know what I mean.) To say the equivalent of "I know
what it is because I do it" is unacceptable. It puts those who "know" on
the same level as those pesky little ignoranti.

So I repeat: Let's define. We can do it functionally with generally
accepted and codified rules. Our model is taken once again from Walter's
concordance of the rules used 1890-1930.

We can do it in terms of weapons: I do this using the foil, and beat people
over the head with images from Labat on my site-under-contruction to for
emphasis.

You can do it historically starting with the transition from humanist
analysis of the rapier to the a more reductionist thing from oh, about the 1730s
(Descartes vs. Thibault's a good model of a start here) that accompanied lighter
swords and highly formalized rules of honor and the duel (Hobbes and Locke
meet the fencing strip) and the introduction of a recognizably modern foil by
mid-century.

But we must do it. Must agree on a solid definition, substantive and
functional, both historical grounded, and the two must be compatible. No easy job,
by the way. I haven't pulled it off yet! And based on that, systematize
training of both the usual suspects and teachers. The replacement and
retention problem won't go away if we don't.

Bill Leckie
_flanconade/soestfechten@aol.com_ (mailto:flanconade/soestfechten@aol.com)




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