In einer eMail vom 9/28/2005 10:54:29 PM W. Europe Daylight Time schreibt
wgreen@sallegreen.com:
wanted to let everyone know that I have been developing a series
of teaching guides for classical fencing. These are a precis of the
works of noted fencing authors of the classical period, laid out in
a standard format for use in teaching, and each one focuses on one
author and one weapon. The following titles are available:
Here in Germany we use much of Walter's material and have great respect for
his efforts to develop an online curriculum for teachers.
If the burst of messages on the last couple of days suggests anything, it's
that we need a standard body of material. Another thing Walter has done is
point out that currently not only do we lack standards but that under the
current system, replacement of even the current generation of teachers isn't
happening.
Our program in Soest draws on the work of two masters, Evangelista (French)
and Gaugler (Italian), and we use Walter's idea's to integrate them into a
systematic sequence grounded in both historical research and philosophy, and
community outreach, to make them real. It has left me nearly overwhelmed by
the response. I had planned for no more than 10 students; now from a very tiny
band we suddenly had to adjust to what may be the largest traditional
program in Germany, with planned workshops, cultural exchange tours in Eastern
Europe, and ultimately tournaments already on the agenda. I wish e-mail would
allow for non-verbal things--I ain't bragging, frankly I was shocked by the
challenge. It's not the core group but the new folks who appeared who produced
all this.
A perhaps more delicate issue: I also knew that here in Germany there was
considerable discontent with the overall fencing scene. The profile of
discontent (though the rhetoric is a bit different) seems--I stress the "seems"--to
be parallel in both sport groups and classical ones.
I am convinced that is true in the USA. I know of at least one sport
fencing coach in the US who has actually begun to develop a more traditionally
structured and school-based program that in its "business model" of salle
development closely resembles the one here. Walter is successfully doing both in his
salle.
There are issues that go beyond technique to what could I guess be called
management ones, as well. Naturally the two must be convergent. But I would
like to suggest there is a potentially broad constituency or "market" out
there for a revival of traditional fencing.and that it cuts across the
established but in my view still very fuzzy sport-classical-historical triad.
So, once again: Let's try to agree on standards. By this time next year,
we will have tried to coordinate with as many groups in Germany as we can.
Our model ain't perfect, it's provisional and we say so. It will run into
problems, we know that. We will need input from all of you and actually ask for
it.
Very soon our website will 1.) post scholarly discussion of both technical
and historical issues; 2.) will add a page, a kind of photo gallery for
instructional purposes. We won't be posing, but instead use our diagnostic images
(yes, we use photography in every individual lesson so students can see
themselves and go from there), warts and all, so that anyone interested can see
and offer suggestions and criticisms as our two-year curriculum (developed with
great help from Walter) develops. Finally (3) by early next year perhaps,
perhaps, we will offer a "business model" for salle development--we simply
could not do that now because, frankly, even with the results we have in hand,
it would be premature to crow that we have the lodestone in hand! I'm scared
to death something will go wrong!
Finally, we will reach out to sport groups. And to those who've dropped out
of the sport scene. Again, I don't know whether any of this work will pan
out. But we need your inpt, input from all of you. The serious philosophical
ground for our salle is in Juergen Habermas's idea of "discursive ethics,"
which is another big way of expressing the Enlightenment ideas traditional
fencing isbased on anyhow; it is, literally, expressed in the phrase d'armes. It
means, of course, a community of intelligent discussion.
We want and need your help, and we want to make a serious effort at building
a solid classical or traditional movement but we don't know
everything--heck, with no one to work with, I spend hours in front of a mirror trying to
master techniques new to me, such as Italian classical sabre--can make mistakes,
and want to draw as many folks as possible into this project. We ewill want
visiting masters (eventually I would love to have, say, Lupo Sinclair up here
from Italy to introduce foundational ideas on the rapier). If any of you
visit Europe, you will be warmly welcomed.
Bill Leckie
Klassisces Fechten Soest
_flanconade@aol.com_ (mailto:flanconade@aol.com)
soestfechten@aol.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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