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Pare, Riposte, Touché: Fencing Moves Forward
| Article
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15993 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1989 |
1,955 Words |
| Author
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Jill Barnes
Jill Barnes is a free-lance sportswriter living in Fair Lawn,
New Jersey. |
Swords flash as Zorro carves his trademark Z on the chest of a corrupt Federal. A few more clashes of steel, then the mysterious hero charges off on his black stallion, weapon held high. This, or the glinting steel of Don Quixote, is the image many people have of fencing. Although the scenario has nothing to do with the sport as it is practiced today, even modern fencers can appreciate the romantic notion of swashbuckling.
"When I'm out there competing, it's exhilarating," says Peter Westbrook, winner of the bronze medal in the sabre (a slashing weapon) for the United States at the 1984 Olympic Games. "In the sabre especially, you're not as controlled as to where you can hit, like with the epee and foil (thrusting swords). There's a lot of slashing, and just about every part of the body is a target. You feel like Zorro and Robin Hood all rolled into one."
Watching the likes of Errol Flynn dueling up stone stairways is how others became interested in fencing. "I always enjoyed those movies with the guys fighting with swords, the swashbuckler types," says George Gonzalez-Rivas, another U.S. sabre fencer. "When I was a youngster, I pictured myself doing that. But I didn't get into the sport until I attended college at MIT. I've loved every minute of it since."
Though the movies give an overly glitzy version of fencing in the olden days, still, they provide a link to modern fencing. Today's sport has its roots in historical tradition--all the way from the English broadsword of the mythical sixth-century days of King Arthur to today's high-tech, electronic dueling weapons. Fencing as a sport became popular in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was refined in the late eighteenth century in France. Europeans have kept up the tradition of fencing excellence, with most modern champions coming from those countries.
France, especially, has left its imprint on fencing. During the reign of Louis XIII in the early 1600s, many duels were fought with the rapier, originally a slender, two-edged sword. Because it could inflict severe injuries and death, the French swordsmen became expert in its use. Its size and style were later altered for better handling, and it developed into a sharply pointed sword for thrusting, a forerunner of the modern epee.
French has also become the official language of fencing. Henri Saint-Didier, who taught the sport in Paris in the late 1500s, was the first person to give names to the different
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