Incendiary threads are fun!

[delmet]

I hope that video is not the best of what CF has to offer. I don't fence foil but I would probably completely kill those people. Especially if they do that inverse lunge thingy. What the hell is that supposed to be?

Was that a foil by the way? Or was it some magical CF weapon bestowed upon them by golden elves?

[peet]

Because, at close distance, the first action each of the fencers make is to attack the opponent's blade, and not the opponent.

AE

Apparently....

[RkfdFencer]

And watching that video, I cannot agree with the statement that they are training to avoid being touched. Horrible distance and footwork. :shudder:

Upon further thought - :shudder: :groan: and :cringe:

[OROD]

So we go at it again. This time he comes at me with a beautiful lunge (I have to admit it)...at about a quarter of the speed a foot out of distance necessary to actually accomplish what he wanted to do, which was hit me.

Sounds like what we see in the video.

Apparently that was also "unfair". That was the end of that.

That's one of the sad and somewhat ironic aspects of the thinking of many classical fencers. They pretend to train as if for a real duel, but then impose arbitrary rules on themselves that are completely counter to what actually would have happened in a duel and totally fail to understand the importance of movement, distance, and conditioning... all of which someone training for a real sword fight would certainly appreciate.

let me know if you also want to hear about the time I fenced the "maestro" doing demonstrations at a Ren Faire.

Absolutely, and dont spare the detail.

.

[jeff]

Yeah, he may be a tosser, but I like his politics.

Don't get too enthusiastic about his freedom-loving habits. He's not above airbrushing out his posts when a rant turns out to have been based on his own confusion, and he's not above censoring other people's posts on his forum when they make him look inept.

[jeff]

And for those of you that doubt, I think this video will put an end to it. Nuff said. .

Oh yeah, we had a good yuk over this video a year or two ago here on f.net, but it's too good not to pull out again for a laugh.

Take a look at the still photos too. He shows a sabre action where the first thing he shows is the arm being pulled back when doing a simple head cut. Priceless.

He says he studied under Gillet. I hope nobody thinks Jean-Jacques taught this kind of rubbish.

jaketheranger: go for it, like OROD says. I'm sure we'll all enjoy it.

[crquack]

Mind you, I was in the next room...so I didn't actually hear this originally. My friends did, and they knew I was a pretty competent fencer. So then: The Challenge. The partygoers came to me with the prospect of a duel which, of course, I immediately accepted. Mr. CF changed his tune. Peer pressure and humiliation won the day and he accepted the challenge after much goading.

Obviously a weakling. A true master would have insisted that his art is much to lethal to be tested in a duel (Martial Art Rule 3.6)

I had a couple of epees in my car and a mask. Another mask was sent for...a friend had to go get it. Now the CF didn't like my epees...toys he called them...so we had to improvise and ended up with these longish dowels that were a little bit longer than an epee and thinner than a broom handle. Horribly balanced, no bell, and slippery but I was just in this for fun.

This is getting closer to a true master: ridicule any other weapon but the one you can use whille making sure you do not get nailed by someone who is proficient with the "toy" (Martial Art Rule 4.2)

He then proceeded to tell me that what I did "wasn't fair". A fleche exposed the body and was considered too dangerous a move. I explained that I had control of his blade and didn't consider it at all dangerous. Plus, this is supposed to be training for a real duel, right?

Ah, the "You attacked me wrong!" ploy...(Martial Art Rule 5.5)

Okay, that was a long post...let me know if you also want to hear about the time I fenced the "maestro" doing demonstrations at a Ren Faire.

Oh, yes please! But I am sure it will be a variation on the above...

[Chuck F.]

From their website:

In olympic fencing, the emphasis is on touching the opponent, in Classical Fencing, it is on not being touched.

The whole time i'm thinking "hot DAMN! how can they get that freakin' close, and not just reach out and freakin' HIT!"

Because, at close distance, the first action each of the fencers make is to attack the opponent's blade, and not the opponent.

Having done both, I think the biggest difference is that the conventions of classical fencing are designed to force you to do more bladework.

Just for argument's sake, I think that the logic is as thus: if you have an emphasis on not getting hit, then you want to make darn sure you are safe before you try to make a touch. (A classical fencer would probably say that to do otherwise is "suicide".) Therefore, you want to control the opponent's blade before you attack. Often, they feel they must close distance to securely do this.

I think that there is an attempt to replicate the "fear" of getting run-through with a reluctance to receive a touch. When there is more at risk, you take fewer reckless chances. (Maybe a classical fencer would say that sport fencing is like playing poker without betting real money. It's easier to bluff when you have nothing to lose.)

Just for argument's sake.

[jeff]

Chuck, there's nothing at all wrong with your line of argument. If the idea is to fence "as if it were sharp" then it makes sense to be conservative and emphasize protecting yourself over hitting the other guy.

First of all, it's foil, so by definition it's a teaching weapon with conventions - like ROW - so being completely realistic already flew out the window.

But specifically (and what's either funny or pathetic, depending on your point of view), what's going on in the video, and what peet, veeco, Evans, and the others are pointing out, is that the fencing they're doing is terribly bad in ways that would get you killed "if it were sharp". Like: don't step into close distance where the other guy can just reach out and hit you, and attack his blade instead of him. By that time, you're horribly too close and alarm bells should be going off, because he can hit you while you're wasting time. Or don't make a slow-motion attack from out of distance so the other guy can see it developing. (Where did these people ever get the idea that fighting for your life was done at half-speed?)

Nice thought, and kudos for being open minded! However, what these folks are doing is very bad and very unrealistic fencing.

[fencerchica]

Yeah, not only are the aggressively obstreperous CF'ers full of BS re technique, they've also got crossed fingers on their holier-than-thou attitude re: honesty and courtesy. I entered a dry foil event run by a CF'er last year as a lark and boy, it was hilarious. I respected their coach's willingness to host the event, but I didn't respect his strutting around like a diminutive rooster, loudly and repeatedly admonishing his inept students to "quit being sloppy like SPORT fencers" at the times when I was standing nearby in my conspicuously SF kit. Or that most of his students weren't willing to acknowledge touches despite the silly more-honest-than-thou mystique, or even the "courtesy" to pay token attention when on duty as members of the jury. Or the fact that he wasn't even competent to call actions correctly in even an old school interpretation -- my non-fencer girlfriend had been to perhaps a half dozen tournaments with me before, and she was hanging out up in the bleachers of the gym, amusedly rendering the correct calls in an undertone while he botched the actions!

[leapyear]

Has anyone read Sir Alfred Hutton's "The Sword Through the Centuries"? After reading just a few accounts of actual duels, you can see what nonsense all of this talk of the "beauty" or "elegance" of real swordfighting really is. A real swordfight is two macho half-wits wildly trying to kill each other over some trivial issue.

Classical fencing is just a game, no matter what the CFers say. I think the only point on which I disagree with most of y'all is that CF can be a lot of fun, if you are lucky enough to find someone who is good (unlike those two in the video). Unfortunately, if you are an E or higher in foil, you're better than the overwhelming majority of CFers.

[OROD]

I think the only point on which I disagree with most of y'all is that CF can be a lot of fun...

I dont think many here would say that it cant be fun. But unfortunately the way it's portrayed by those who practice CF just doesnt seem very much fun, or whorthwhile even.

I'm not even sure what they are refering to with "classical fencing" anyway. Maybe they mean "the way bad fencers fenced 100 years ago"... because, I'm pretty sure no one who was any good fenced that way back then. Watch some newsreels from the early 20th century and you'll see what I mean.

On the other hand, you have people like ARMA that actually seem to get it. What they do is actually a martial art in form, as opposed to what the CF fencers (like the ones in the video) are doing.

.

[fencer1960]

If you'll notice, in the video they fence in engagement a lot, perhaps exclusively. This is a big thing with Classical fencers. I've heard them complain about opponents who wont "give the blade" i.e. who fence with absence of blade. They can't do their cool bladework if their opponent doesn't cooperate. I'm not going to get too deep into the "real weapons" issue here, but hearing someone say "let me take your blade" is a little like hearing them say "hold still so I can shoot you". My first instinct is to be uncooperative.

[crquack]

I'm not even sure what they are refering to with "classical fencing" anyway. Maybe they mean "the way bad fencers fenced 100 years ago"... because, I'm pretty sure no one who was any good fenced that way back then.

...and lived to tell the tale. Common sense would dictate to believe that in the age when

a) duelling was a norm, and
b) there were many people who carried a sword and were prepared to use it,

a high level of skill *on average* had to be present purely on evolutionary, self-preservatory principle. Whether what we are seeing in CF today in any way represents what was being done then is highly doubtful.

Our knowledge of historical weapons use comes from only a few texts which may or may not be representative of the true state of affairs then.

The one thing BTW they seem to have in common is the emphasis on defense as a more successful strategy to stay alive.

[MUHSfencing]

...and lived to tell the tale. Common sense would dictate to believe that in the age when

a) duelling was a norm, and
b) there were many people who carried a sword and were prepared to use it,

a high level of skill *on average* had to be present purely on evolutionary, self-preservatory principle. Whether what we are seeing in CF today in any way represents what was being done then is highly doubtful.

Our knowledge of historical weapons use comes from only a few texts which may or may not be representative of the true state of affairs then.

The one thing BTW they seem to have in common is the emphasis on defense as a more successful strategy to stay alive.

In the traditional fencing community, there's a distinction between classical and historical fencing. The classical weapons include foil, epee and sabre whereas historical fencers use rapiers, longswords, polearms, et c.

In general, there are living lineages of classical fencing and there are not for historical fencing.

(This may not be of any concern to any of you guys, but it's quite a meaningful difference to people who go for that sort of thing)

More later...

[jeff]

IIn general, there are living lineages of classical fencing

Go back just a few generations, and all of our fencing ancestors were classical, even the most modern flickmeister. So that's not a point of differentiation.

More germane is authenticity or accuracy of that living lineage. Consider, for instance, Adam Crown, mentioned in the opening post. He trained at the fencing academy which once existed in Ithaca, New York. When he was there it was run by Maitre Gillet, and was - I assure you, since I fenced at the club co-hosted with it - completely "sport fencing" in the way we understand it now. In fact, aggressively modern for the time; the first place I ever fenced where it was considered foolish to fence without being on the machine. Other products of that school include people like Buckie Leach. So where did Crown's retro "classical fencing" come from, since says that Gillet and that academy are the basis of his training. It didn't come from where he trained, so there's no living tradition there.

The same can be said for those that claim lineage from Nadi, who after all was a professional sport fencer. Or Evangelista, whose teacher (Ralph Faulkner) was an Olympic fencer. I think the claims of living lineage in classical fencing are largely imaginary.

Back in the day, there was no "classical fencing" distinguished from "sport fencing". There was just "fencing", period, and the same person might do it in a tournament or do it (however rarely) with sharps.

What I think has happened is that there is some terribly bad fencing that goes under the name "classical fencing" (which didn't exist as an identification till the 1990s) as an excuse for the bad fencing. There may also be some high quality "classical fencing" too, but I haven't seen any evidence of that yet.

[Warrior Princess]

::flinch:: ::cringe:: ::want to cry:: That video was so bad... They were slooowww. Those blade actions were huge, it seemed like they were never even aiming for theit opponent. And as for that website? This guy seems like a pompous and incorrect a$$.

[annacattiva]

Go back just a few generations, and all of our fencing ancestors were classical, even the most modern flickmeister. So that's not a point of differentiation.

I think that the distinction was being made between classical and historical fencing rather than classical and sport fencing (MUHSfencing's distinction, at least). Classical fencers being the ones with lineages that go back to the same ones as sport fencers within a few generations, but had a few more conservative people in between, and historical fencers being the ones who have the bad reputation of pretending to be knights.

The Smith fencing team used to get confused with the SCA branch that met at Smith, generally not to our advantage. Usually it was people announcing to members of the sport fencing team that they'd seem someone fencing and doing something really stupid, at which point we'd have to explain that if they were wearing capes and had more than one sword each, that wasn't us.

Anna

[Chuck F.]

Chuck, there's nothing at all wrong with your line of argument.

Yeah, I didn't say I agreed with the logic, I just think I can follow it.

Here's my take on the mindset of a classical fencer:
IF you don't want to get hit, THEN you should control your opponent's blade.
IF you want to control your opponent's blade, THEN you need to be close.
IF you want to get close, THEN do so cautiously or you will get hit.

Hence, the apparent need to "attack the blade" instead of the target.
Hence, the close distance and "slow" footwork.

ANYWAY, l would really like some people to address the original problem (Seriously. I really am interested.):
Is there a way to explain or describe the difference between Classical Fencing and "mainstream" fencing in a clear and objective way?

[veeco]

No, there is none. The reason for it is that there is such a strong divide between the two fields that it is impossible to explain it without bringing emotional attachment into the mix.

And yes, they started it :-).