On strip length.
Up until moving into our current location the fencers in the Limerick School
of Arms were used to having from 14 to 20 odd meters (we’ve been around) to
fence in. It was observed at one foreign encounter that we used an awful lot
of ground.
Upon moving into our new dedicated location we found ourselves, at first,
restricted to using slightly under seven meters. Without having to say a
word the amount of travel in the bout fell off dramatically and blade work
improved correspondingly. The offending wall has subsequently been removed
and we now have slightly under 10 meters to work with.
The length of the available drilling area and bouting strip cannot be
discounted as an influence upon classical fencing; both then and now.
Jean Joseph-Renaud, in Traité d’Escrime Moderne, 1928, p.13, gives «*la
courte planche des salles d’armes de régiment,*» as the reason for the
dissappearence of the passe en avant, and gives M. le marquis de Chasseloup
Laubat, Maître Thiercelin and M. Collignon the honour of reintroducing it..
<< flanconade/soestfechten@aol.com_ (mailto:flanconade/soestfechten@aol.com)
Hope you like it!* Oh--we tested our shorter piste length over* here.
(Walter
documents its use, with such as photos of Salle* Bertrand.) Turns out it
pretty much fits the scale of a fencing environment* with no strip in place,
that
the "natural" space evolves to about that* length, confirming that size
matters!* Some folks might at first feel* uncomfortable at the idea of
reducing 14
meters to 6.3, but it works.** Rules do make a difference, indeed.* You
can't
rush and poke and the safety* factor increase is logarithmic.>>
Regards,
Neville Gawley,
Limerick School of Arms
www.limerickarms.com
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