sport fencing as a base for classical fencing?

M

monching

Joined
Sep 1, 2002
Messages
4
Hi,

I'm a newbie who wants to learn western classical fencing but I can't find an instructor here in my country. What do you guys think of having sport fencing as a base for studying classical fencing? I'm planning on studying sport fencing for starters, then self-study with books/videos on classical fencing. I'm particularly interested in the use of the rapier.

Thanks,
Monching
 
is quite a bit different. At it heart it has point scoring, not survivability. This is the fundamental diff between the moves.

Keith
 
I have some experience in FMA - and (in the absence of an instructor), I'm thinking that this combined with some experience in sport fencing would help me understand better the books available online. I'd really like to learn the rapier as this presents a different way of swordsmanship from what I know. Any opinions? Thanks.
 
You can start off with sport fencing - but steer clear of epee. Foil fencing has artificial rules that are meant to drill in the attitude of 'defend yourself - then attack'. Epee is just a bit free-for-all - you see a lot of simultaneous hits in epee, and crap parrying.

Don't go near electrical equipment - it teaches bad habits.
 
Hi There,

Go for it! One of the deadliest rapier fencers in our class is an ex sport fencer (one of Australias best actually) and his timing, distance and the lack of any telegraphing in his lunge give him an enormous advantage.

When he first arrived he took us all to the cleaners as we had just never seen anyone that fast and with a lunge that long before.

Once we got used to him we were able to tempt him easily into a parry-riposte which is a very quick way to get killed with a rapier. Now that he has been rapiering for a while he is becoming a handful again as the weaknesses are disappearing.

Having said all that though, sports fencing training would be much better training for smallsword rather than rapier as the foil is supposed to represent a smallsword.

I would love to do smallsword.
Cheers,
Stu.
 
Thanks for the replies everyone! I'll be making a go at it - I've always wanted to try Western swordsmanship and I hope that fencing will help me better understand the manuals on rapier.

Thanks for your reply Mr. Stuart, I've read your various posts on this forum and on others and it has rekindled my interest in learning the rapier. Any recommendations on online manuals? I'm currently muddling through George Silver's "Paradoxes of Defence" - interesting from a point of view of an FMA man.

I have some friends who are into fencing, I hope we can start a group concentrating on the rapier. Thanks again.
 
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