Famous Fencing People In History;)

Today is Famous History Day in my blog, so here are some facts about a few historical fencers. For starters, many early presidents took up the sword, including those depicted on Mount Rushmore. Benito Mussolini, one of the three dictators during World War II, was an expert fencer. After World War I, Helene Mayer, a German athlete, won the Gold Medal for fencing in the 1928 Summer Olympics.

Some people know that in the time of our earliest presidents, having a sword was very common among men. George Washington, having gained his fame from the Revolutionary War, learned to fence from members of his family. He was taught by his father, brothers, and friends, who each had an interesting way of using a blade. His grandfather used his blade during war and his father wielded a cutlass(dagger) on a ship. His brother was taught by a fencing master at his boarding school. All this experience in his family made Washington a good fencer.

There is not much known about Thomas Jefferson and fencing. He fenced with a short sword. Some pictures show him fencing against Marquis de Lafayette and the Earl of Carlisle.

Abraham Lincoln had to learn how to fence in the tense times he lived in(around the Civil War). His largest fencing battle won him honor and his wife,Mary Todd. He wrote nasty things about a fellow politician in a newspaper. This politician set out to find Lincoln, who was in another town on financial buisness. Wanting honor,the politician challenged Lincoln to a duel. But with Lincoln at a height of six foot five versus five foot nine, the politician did not stand a chance. But before the fight could begin an associate from each man sent by Mary Todd ended the fight and each apologized.



During World War II there were three dictators controlling the war. Hitler from Germany, Tojo from Japan, and Moussolini from Italy. On a typical day Moussolini got up, ate breakfast, and then began to fence. He fenced with a saber and a style that was totally personal, full of clever tricks, fast and sudden counterattacks,and hits so unexpected they defied logic.

After World War One Germany was not invited to the next two Olympic games. Finally they were invited to the 1928 games. Helene Mayer knew that what her country needed the most was a morale boost and she knew just how to get it. Helene went on to win the Gold Medal for fencing, which was Germany's first Olympic fencing title. Having won her country's title at fourteen sha was already a celebrity.

More historical facts will come in my next blog entry.

By The Sword Continued Again;)

Today I am going to talk about a basic duel and tournaments.

The word duel comes from the Latin word Duello, which derives from the words bellum, meaning conflict, and duo, meaning two. A duel begins with two fencers who check bells(hitting their opponents sword on the metal half circle that protects the hand) to check if the sword is working properly. Next, a fencer salutes and pulls the mask on. Once the referee says "engarde, ready, fence" the bout begins. Each fencer uses his or her reflexes and instincts to beat their opponent to a touch, for which they earn a point. Once a fencer reaches five points, they win the match. If both fencers reach four(4-4) they must take off their mask and salute again to show that they are a worthy opponent. Once there is a clear winner both fencers take off their helmet and shake hands with their ungloved hand.

Tournaments are not much different from bouts. The only differences are that the bout is to fifteen points, that a fencer does multiple bouts in about an hour, and that the age/gender groups can be split up. The age separation is roughly around thirteen and under, fourteen and up,and eighteen and up. Some clubs might have senior groups but that is up to the fencing club.

Really good fencers are ranked nationally on a scale from A to E. The only way to receive a rank is to win first place in a tournament. For people who haven't earned a rank yet they are categorized as "U". I think this ranking system is too high of a standard. Not everybody can win a tournament, which means they may stay a "U" for most of their fencing career.

Here is a montage of great fencing bouts. Enjoy.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjlXgSZ4djI&NR=1

The next tournament for my fencing club is March 26. I'll let you know how I do.

By The Sword Continued;)

Today I am going to talk about the origin of fencing and fencing in the movies.

Swords themselves first apeared between 1500 to 1100 B.C in Minoan, Crete, and Celtic Britain. The first picture of a sword (called a relief) appeared around 1190 B.C. in an Egyptian temple. Ninmus, King of Assyria, is usually credited with the development of swordplay as a formalized sport. He was also the first leader to use professional fencing masters to train his army.

Swords were different depending on the country. Most countries had a long sword similar to those in use today but other countries, such as Greece, had a different type of sword. The Greek sword was short, double-edged with hilts or crossbars, and ridged from point to hilt (to stiffen the blade). This design was used mainly for hacking instead of dueling.

Besides the sword, early combatants also had a shield, breast plate, helmet, shin guards, and a spear. The equipment altogether was very expensive. In Rome, for example, a sword and its sheath cost more than a good horse (which cost a lot back then). After the fall of the Roman Empire, the long sword lost ground and was replaced by these different weapons: a lance (basically a giant spear), a glaive (another type of spear with a blade on the side instead of on top) a lancegay (a light, throwing spear), a battleaxe, a hammer, a gisarme (a type of ax), a spiked club, and others.

Now let's change the subject and talk about fencing in movies. The most famous fencing movie of all time is (surprise!) Star Wars! In this movie, the light saber replaces the fencing sword but Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader still use basic fencing moves. Bob Anderson (who played Darth Vader) taught Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) how to fence specifically for this movie. Later on, he became the swordmaster for Walt Disney Films. Other films with fencing include: The Duelists, The Princess Bride, The Three Musketeers, The Warriors, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sword of the Avenger, Zorro, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Fencing in movies, however, was sometimes dangerous. Early films used real steel swords instead of the fake plastic ones used today. This caused many accidents. For example, in the 1941 film They Died With their Boots On, the main actor Bill Mead was thrown from his horse. He became impaled on his sword and died. The actor Lawrence Olivier had many injuries from fencing, including three ruptured achilles tendons, sword slashes across his chest, a broken foot, and more. David Niven, another actor, once tripped during a fighting scene and his blade went straight through the leg of an extra standing nearby (luckily, the extra had a wooden leg). Fred Graham, a stuntman, impaled his foot with a sword during a duel on the staircase at Nottingham Castle, and later on fell from a balcony during a fight scene. Ralph Faulkner caught his foot on a wire and he fell forward on his opponent's sword, narrowly missing his eye.

I am ending today with one of my favorite fencing scenes in a movie. It is from Cyrano de Bergerac. Please excuse the nose speech in the beginning before the fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEacXeAbHpQhttp://

By The Sword: A History of Gladiators,Musketeers,Samurai,Swashbucklers, and Olympic Champions;)

I now have a new book titled the above. This book is all about the history of fencing. It has already answered most of my questions. For starters, I discovered that some people did die in a duel from things ranging from blood loss to decapitation. In this time period that never happens. Occasionally, a person may say that the last touch hurt a bit, but no one gets any serious injuries or is even remotely bloodied during a bout due to all the protective gear a fencer wears.

Another thing I learned was that older swords were basically like modern swords, except they were not as blunt and they could potentially maim or even kill. Nowadays a sword has a bit of rubber or a flat push button(only for electrical fencing)at the end of the blade.

This book also answered my question about woman fencers. Historically, some women were allowed to fight with swords in Rome as gladiators. This didn't start until just before the fall of the Roman Empire. This practice didn't continue after that, so it did not last long.

I also learned that fencing was always used as a duel for honor or for battle. Every country had a different way of fencing. Some, like the Greeks and Persians, referred to it as instinct and felt it did not need to be practiced. Other countries believed differently and thought it should be perfected,like the Romans.

In my last blog post I talked about the basic fundamentals of fencing and what a person could become if they become very skilled. To illustrate what advanced dueling looks like, here is a link to a video of two fencers in the 2008 Olympics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpo7O8SVRVQ

Fencing by Jo Shaff continued ;)

I have learned more about fencing as I've read this book. The topics I have read about include: basic footwork, basic attacks, defense, parries(blocks)for each line, and the basic fouls.(to see a diagram for different weapons and their target areas click the following link: http://http://www.grandvalleyfencing.com/fencing_diagram.gif)





The basic footwork of fencing is comprised of about three steps. The first is the basic fencing step. In the engarde position a fencer moves the front foot forward, followed by the back foot. Once a fencer perfects this they should form a habit of going as fast as if they were walking normally. The next step is the retreat, which is a fencing step but in reverse. So the back foot takes a step backwards followed closely by the front foot. The last step is the jump. Now this is not your regular jumping up and down, but is more controlled. When jumping, a fencer does a small hop forward with their legs still at a ninety degree angle. Here is a picture of some fencers from the Athens Olympics. They are quite advanced and their jumps are much bigger and exaggerated than those that beginning fencers can do.http://http://www.fencingphotos.com/FencingPicts/040821_timacheff_AthensOlympicFencing_4686.jpg






The only two attacks are the lunge (which I've already talked about in another entry) and the fleche(pronounced "flesh"). To perform a fleche a fencer extends the arm and runs full on at the opponent to gain a touch to earn a point. These are the only attacks in all of fencing, but they can have moves added to them to trick the other person. These moves may include: a parry, beating the blade, ducking, adding a step,adding a jump, and others.






A fencer must always be able to defend him or herself. The body is split into four lines of defense, which are: the upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right. Each line of defense has its own parry or parries. They are represented in the picture in the upper left hand corner of this entry. The upper left line of defense is numbered six so a player aiming for this spot could use a parry six. The same goes to the upper right, which is four, and corresponds with parry four. The lower right has the number seven and parry seven. The lower left is a special case because it has two numbers and two parries, eight and six.




Now its time for the fun part. FENCING FOULS!! As most people know, a foul is given in a sport when someone does something bad or disrespectful and is subsequently punished for it. Now every foul applies to every player and coach, but coaches get a harsher punishment. Every time a fencer gets a foul they receive a card in this order: yellow(just a warning), red (more serious,awards one point to the opponent), and black (the most serious, resulting in immediate disqualification). Now when a person is fencing or in the area of a duel if they turn their back, walk off the strip(fencing area), drop their blade, disagree with the referee, talk to a person while fencing, break eqipment, touch their opponent with their ungloved hand, take off equipment early, not shake the hand or saluting their opponent, or cheat that is a foul.

Fencing by Jo Shaff ;)

I am going to cut out of my topic the England classification due to the fact that it will limit my research and I will not find as much. I got a book from the library at Lincoln High School. It's filled with the fundamentals for beginners, such as the three basic sword types and touch areas for each, uniform, and basic techniques.

The three basic sword types are: foil, epee, and saber. Someone fencing with an epee is allowed to hit anywhere in the body. A person fencing with a foil, however, is restricted to the torso, and while fencing with a saber a person is allowed to hit only from the waist up.

The fencing uniform is comprised of many things including a fencing jacket, glove, mask, sword, and a plastron (a plastron is a half-shirt designed to protect your underarm). The plastron gives extra protection to one side of the body. This is needed because the hand a person fences with is always the most targeted. Also, the jacket often breaks under the arm, which may harm a fencer. The plastron therefore gives extra protection as needed.

The beginner must first learn the basic moves: engarde, thrust, and lunge. The engarde is the ready position. The feet are at a ninety degree angle with your torso facing to the side. The fencing arm is in front, bent at the elbow with the wrist pointing forward. The other arm is bent upwards behind the head. A thrust happens when a fencer in an engarde position and straightens the fencing arm, pushing the blade forward. For a lunge, a fencer pushes the frontward leg as far as possible while extending the arm for more distance. Great lungers are really flexible.

The next time I go to the Lincoln Public Library I will see if they have any more books available on my topic.

First Sources;)

Today on 3/4/2011 we started looking for sources of information. My first was an article on World Book.http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/article?id=ar194300&st=fencing
The second is also from worldbook http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/article?id=ar542620
The third is again from worldbook.http://www.worldbookonline.com/digitallibraries/inventions/article?id=ar838392&st=%22sword%22
Now that I've got a few sources that are all great time for the weekend!