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Fencing encompasses any system of sword-based offense and defense but is most commonly used to denote styles of European origin. Today it can be considered to refer to the European martial art of swordplay, Olympic sport-fencing, stage-fencing or academic fencing.1 The emergence of modern fencing
Though the Greeks and Romans had systems of martial arts and military training that included swordsmanship, and fencing-schools and professional champions were known throughout medieval Europe, the earliest surviving record of Western techniques of fencing is the manuscript known as MS I.33, which was created in southern Germany c. 1300 and today resides at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Throughout the Middle Ages, masters continued to teach systems for using the sword (together with other weapons and grappling) to noble and non-noble alike. The wearing of the sword with civilian dress (a custom that had begun in late fifteenth-century Spain) gradually gave rise to a new system of civilian swordsmanship based more on the thrust than on the cut, with the aim being to keep the adversary at a distance with the point, and slay him there. This gave rise to systems of using the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century rapier and the seventeenth-and-eighteenth century smallsword. Though swords ceased to be an article of everyday dress after the French Revolution, they continued to be used in warfare and to resolve disputes of honor in formal duels through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.
Though agonistic competition in fencing is as old as the art itself, the modern sport of fencing originated in the first Olympic games in 1896. The first few years of fencing as a sport were chaotic, with important rule disagreements among schools of fencing from different countries, notably the French and Italian schools. This state of affairs ended in 1913, with the foundation of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime ( F.I.E.) in Paris. The stated purpose of the FIE is to codify and regulate the practice of the sport of fencing, particularly for the purpose of international competition. The foundation of the FIE is a convenient breaking point between the classical and the modern traditions of fencing.
2 Modern and classical fencing
As a sport, the emphasis of the modern sporting tradition is on training athletes to win at competitions with often arbitrarily defined rules, as opposed to the older, "classical" tradition of fencing, seeking to preserve training with the sword as a means of self-defense and for the formal duel.
The effects of this split, however, have manifested only slowly since initially all training was done by fencing masters of the classical tradition. After over one hundred years of practice, though, the differences may be considerable.
3 The weapons
In both its modern and its classical guise, fencing consists of three different weapons: foil, épée and sabreFor other uses, see Sabre (disambiguation). The sabre (or saber is a European backsword with a distinct curvature and a rather large hand guard, covering the knuckles of the hand as well as the thumb and forefinger. The length of sabres varied, but they w. These three weapons had become standard by the late nineteenth century and all are represented at Olympic-level competition. Additionally, in classical academies, one will often find historical fencingHistorical fencing is any European system of use for the sword that predates the three classical fencing weapons. These systems may be traditional, or they may be historical martial arts reconstructions. See Historical European Martial Arts, German school weapons, such as grand canneFrench for "large stick," grand canne is a European fencing system that uses an approximately 4-foot-long staff. Grand canne shares many mechanics with longsword and quarterstaff. Fencing. and rapier and daggerA dagger is essentially a special form of knife, where the tang is placed along the center line of the blade. The word 'dagger' may have come from Vulgar Latin word 'daca' a Dacian knife. A dagger is more a weapon made for thrusting than a tool for slicin, being taught.
Foil used to be the first weapon taught to beginners, because the techniques of foil teach, in abstract form, the fundamentals of fencing. Additionally, in the past, women were only allowed to fence foil, and the lightness of the weapon made it easier to handle for children. Today, while it is advisable to gain at least a fundamental grasp of foil, fencers often begin with any of the three weapons.
