fencing on TLC

[jkormann]

In one of their promos for "Human Instinct: The Will to Win" on TLC, they show fencing. If the promo is any indication of the episode, it'll be about 1/2 of the show.

[HilandDoug]

Got an air date and time? Yo might want to post it, just in case.

[jkormann]

Duh, stoopid me..

Tonight, 9pm EST. Check you listings or www.discovery.com

[oiuyt]

The program was about the will to win and how the human drive to competition comes from basic evolutionary traits. The fencing segment was about 3 minutes long about a third of the way through the program (and a 2-3 second clip right at the beginning and end). Good fencing techinque which was a pleasant surprise. Not much about fencing per se, the main point was that the development of the technique of parrying with the sword (unmentioned in the program, but as opposed to parrying with the off-hand?) was a revolutionary development. Once people started using the sword to parry anyone who knew how to successfully won, those who didn't died.

So, not much fencing, the fencing that there was was good. Hardly worth the hour to watch the program.

-B:)

[Sildar]

Originally posted by oiuyt
Not much about fencing per se, the main point was that the development of the technique of parrying with the sword (unmentioned in the program, but as opposed to parrying with the off-hand) was a revolutionary development. Once people started using the sword to parry anyone who knew how to successfully won, those who didn't died.

Did they actually claim this was something that happened in the last few centuries?

If the makers of the show actually pinned down a definite date for when parrying with the sword was first developed, I'd love to hear about it. To the best of my knowledge, the oldest swordfighting book which currently exists is the German manuscript known as I.33, and it clearly illustrates parries using the sword.

Hand parries became popular with the development of the rapier, and were primarily taught by the Italian Masters, as part of a complex fighting system which also involved parries with the blade. There is no real evidence that their style was ineffective; on the contrary, during the late 16th and early 17th century, the Italians were regarded as the best rapier fencers in the world by most Europeans (though many considered the Spanish at least as good).

Hand parries didn't go away completely until the 19th century, when duels became highly regulated and ritualized with strict codes and ettiquete. Survival had little to do with it at that point, as the vast majority of duels were nonfatal public demonstations of machismo rather than all-out battles to the death.

So it sounds as though the makers of the show are either privy to secret documents that no other fencing historians have ever heard about, or they were repeating modern rationalizations as facts without looking very deeply at the evidence.

Or was this merely speculation about some unspecified point in the distant past when parries were "discovered?"

[Jeric]

Do you know if it airs in the UK?

[D'Artagnan1673]

Sildar,

Are you a historian? Your posts seem to always have a very insightful ring to them.

[oiuyt]

They claimed that parrying was invented in the late 16th-century (I guess before that you allowed your opponent to run you through).

Jeric- It's an American rebroadcast of a BBC production (one of the episodes of "Human Instinct" or some such name). As such, yes it undoubtedly aired in the UK. When or if it will re-air you'd have to talk to your local station about.

-B :)

[Sildar]

Originally posted by oiuyt
They claimed that parrying was invented in the late 16th-century (I guess before that you allowed your opponent to run you through).

Naturally. Or perhaps early 16th century swordfights were more like the quickdraw; two guys got ready, then they both tried to thrust a fast as possible (like bad modern epee fencers!)...

The world's oldest known fencing treatise, which is from about 1300, does in fact show parries with the sword, even though most techniques use the buckler for defense. So perhaps the makers of the show were argueing that using the sword for offense and defense was an advantage over using a sword and shield...which also isn't really true. The greater use of the sword for parries had more to do with the separation of dueling and self-defense methods from battlefield training than with inherent superiority of one style over another. It also had to do with the laws of the time regarding what sort of weaponry it was acceptable to carry in cities. That's why the term "swashbuckler" implied a thug or brawler in Elizabethan England; it was normal to carry a sword and dagger, but if you had a buckler too you were assumed to be looking for a fight or otherwise up to no good.

In a general sense it was a kind of evolution, in that techniques were adapted to a new environment, but to say that newer fencing styles were in a general way inherently superior to old techniques is a bit of an oversimplification.

D'Art-

Only a historian in the amateur sense, though I am trained as an anthropologist. If someone wants to pay me to do fencing history research I'd be happy to take the job though...

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Sildar
Naturally. Or perhaps early 16th century swordfights were more like the quickdraw; two guys got ready, then they both tried to thrust a fast as possible (like bad modern epee fencers!)...

The world's oldest known fencing treatise, which is from about 1300, does in fact show parries with the sword, even though most techniques use the buckler for defense. So perhaps the makers of the show were argueing that using the sword for offense and defense was an advantage over using a sword and shield...which also isn't really true. The greater use of the sword for parries had more to do with the separation of dueling and self-defense methods from battlefield training than with inherent superiority of one style over another. It also had to do with the laws of the time regarding what sort of weaponry it was acceptable to carry in cities. That's why the term "swashbuckler" implied a thug or brawler in Elizabethan England; it was normal to carry a sword and dagger, but if you had a buckler too you were assumed to be looking for a fight or otherwise up to no good.

In a general sense it was a kind of evolution, in that techniques were adapted to a new environment, but to say that newer fencing styles were in a general way inherently superior to old techniques is a bit of an oversimplification.

D'Art-

Only a historian in the amateur sense, though I am trained as an anthropologist. If someone wants to pay me to do fencing history research I'd be happy to take the job though...

Lets try not to overanalyze too much, folks. they just used it as a convenient analogy for why natural selection favors more competitive and competent people.

-m

[Purple Fencer]

Originally posted by Sildar
That's why the term "swashbuckler" implied a thug or brawler in Elizabethan England; it was normal to carry a sword and dagger, but if you had a buckler too you were assumed to be looking for a fight or otherwise up to no good.

As Michael Cesario said on the 1997 (?) Drum Corps Intl. championship broadcast following the Madison Scouts' show, titled "The Pirates of Lake Mendota"...that swashed MY buckle!!

You kinda had to see it.

[Sildar]

Originally posted by epeemike81
Lets try not to overanalyze too much, folks. they just used it as a convenient analogy for why natural selection favors more competitive and competent people.

-m

Understood. But since this is a fencing board, I thought it relevant to point out that that the commonly accepted view of fencing history (as propagated by this show) is inaccurate. Aside from which, it would have made more sense to use examples they actually knew something about.

I'm simply amused that something calling itself the Learning Channel doesn't do its homework. But then again, this particular myth is a pet peeve of mine.

If you think I'm getting carried away, look over the threads on fencing in the Bond movie. A number of people seem to think that James Bond movies have a sacred obligation to portray fighting realistically

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Sildar
Understood. But since this is a fencing board, I thought it relevant to point out that that the commonly accepted view of fencing history (as propagated by this show) is inaccurate. Aside from which, it would have made more sense to use examples they actually knew something about.

I'm simply amused that something calling itself the Learning Channel doesn't do its homework. But then again, this particular myth is a pet peeve of mine.

If you think I'm getting carried away, look over the threads on fencing in the Bond movie. A number of people seem to think that James Bond movies have a sacred obligation to portray fighting realistically

The one issue I will take with this post is the contention that the show propogated the commonly held view. I don't know anybody who would believe that parrying wasn't around til the 16th century (or for that matter the 13th). I suppose it depends on your definition of parrying, but...

-m

[Sildar]

Originally posted by epeemike81
The one issue I will take with this post is the contention that the show propogated the commonly held view. I don't know anybody who would believe that parrying wasn't around til the 16th century (or for that matter the 13th). I suppose it depends on your definition of parrying, but...

-m

You might be surprised; many people still consider Egerton Castle, author of "Schools and Masters of Fence..." to be the definitive fencing historian, despite some rather incredible errors contained in that work. Castle claimed, among other things, that Achille Marozzo's "Opera Nova" of 1536 contained no parries with the sword, which is just plain wrong. Richard Cohen's recent book "By the Sword" repeats a great deal of Castle's opinions, such as in this passage:

"Marozzo was the first to establish a regular system. Parrying had not yet been invented; he describes instead how to deflect an attack either with a dagger in the nonsword hand, with different forms of shields, or with a cloth wound around the defending arm."

So now a whole new generation of fencers get to hear an expert spreading false historical "facts."

[Jason]

Originally posted by Sildar
You might be surprised; many people still consider Egerton Castle, author of "Schools and Masters of Fence..." to be the definitive fencing historian, despite some rather incredible errors contained in that work. Castle claimed, among other things, that Achille Marozzo's "Opera Nova" of 1536 contained no parries with the sword, which is just plain wrong. Richard Cohen's recent book "By the Sword" repeats a great deal of Castle's opinions, such as in this passage:

"Marozzo was the first to establish a regular system. Parrying had not yet been invented; he describes instead how to deflect an attack either with a dagger in the nonsword hand, with different forms of shields, or with a cloth wound around the defending arm."

So now a whole new generation of fencers get to hear an expert spreading false historical "facts."

Cohen seems to have made a few more mistakes than just that.

It seems to me that he spends most of the book trying to develop a sensationalist angle to everything--often at the expense of "evidence".
Much of what he writes about the fencing scandals of the socialist nations is pretty contestable.
He even contradicts himself about various details (note the bit about Kevey: Cohen says that he left Hungary in the late '40s and then later suggests that it was the 1950s uprising that caused him to leave).

[Sildar]

Certainly. I don't know enough about the later fencing history to critique it, but the early chapters on pre-sport fencing contained so many errors and so much sloppy reasearch that I was skeptical about the accuracy of anything he said for the rest of the book. There are at least two chapters in which literally every other statement he makes is misleading or just plain wrong.

[Chris Umbs]

Hi all,

My main problem with Cohen’s book is the same one that I have with some of Gaugler’s stuff. There seems to be a tendency in the book to show that
1) There used to be historical fencing.
2) Then it became stage combat.
3) Then it became FIE sport fencing.

Without showing how certain historical lines of teaching stayed historical or the difference between the old styles of stage combat that were based on actual fencing compared to the crouching tiger style that we get now.

It seems to want to show how FIE fencing is the natural heir to historical fencing instead of one of many interesting side-branches of it. When Gaugler’s “History of Fencing” first came out, a lot of historical people criticized it for only showing those parts of historical fencing that still exist in sport fencing. In both books, the traditional Spanish and German styles are either ignored or denigrated (Cohen even quotes an article by M. Martinez and then tries to use that quote to show how useless the Spanish school was – despite what Silver said to the contrary) and there is very little information about how the changing weapons forced changes in technique. For a historical fencer the work is worse than useless.

Chris

[Pltdan]

i happened to see the show...nothing too impressive especially from the fencing standpoint