Is fencing a martial art?

[pk.]

Title says it all :D I realsise this wont be a long thread!

[YODA]

It depends on what you mean by the term "Fencing".

The way modern sport fencing is practiced by the vast majority - no it is not.

CAN Fencing be a martial art? Yes - very much so. You just need to pretend you have a sword instead of a whippy length of wire :D

[teacher]

There's a book called the secret history of the sword by
J Christoph Amberger the discusses this issue. It is a great book and shows that the argument between " real" fighting and " sport" fighting is not new.
What you train is often best defined by how you train.
In this book I leaned that sabre fighters in sport who cannot strike below the waist has sod all to do with not wanting to hit the opponent's horse.

[pk.]

Right thanks, but obviously the movements and techniques vary with different styles of sword?

[teacher]

Yes the movements and techniques vary depending on the type of sword and depending on the preferences of the different schools, the time period and the puposes of their practice.
And also the armour the opponent might have and the prevalent defensive techniques.
several thousnds of years of swordfighting it does get a bit complicated.

[Andrew Green]

Originally posted by YODA

The way modern sport fencing is practiced by the vast majority - no it is not.


It is practiced more realistically then most "martial arts", even foil with its goofy right of way rules :D


So I say Yes!

[Knight_Errant]

Are there any good resources on learning fencing etc.? I found a tutorial somewhere on the web, but it's not honestly that good.

[teacher]

What kind of fencing?

[Knight_Errant]

um, hitting things with swords...

[teacher]

You could have a look at this
www.thehaca.com/
It's the same old same old Knight-E best results come from mixing it with people. Western sports fencing has so many rules it is not very realistic, on the other hand you go face to face with an opponent very early.
I like Filipino martial arts as a generic weapons discipline. Most people focus nowadays on it as a stick art but is is easily adapted to short sword.
Kendo again seems very rules oriented from the little I've seen, but again you stand up against a real person.
There are also historical re-enactors out there who usually have a few MAs amongst them.

[Knight_Errant]

cool! Do you think historical renactment stuff would be a good way to practice?

[teacher]

Depends totally on the people you find to practice with and how much training they did. I think there are other people here who have done historical re-enactment you could try and flush them out. Maybe a thread in weapons?
I'd suggest go philipino if there's a club in your area and buy yourself a machete. There's a lot of kung-fu and tai-chi sword form books available but most of them are pretty pisspoor for learning from. If there is a university near you they will have a fencing club. They are usually open to non-students but you might have to phone them first.

[Louie]

There are a number of individuals NOT RE-ENACTORS who are going back to older forms of 'fencing' that also contain disarms, trips, kicks and punching... such as Terry Brown, founder of English Martial Arts.

I have an Asian MA background but recently took up the study of a form of fencing called 'Single-Stick' (which uses an ash stick with a wicker basket guard and has possibly been in continuous practice in the UK since the 1700's) along with the armlocks, kicks, trips & throws of European Martial Arts.

Louie (Greenock, Scotland)

[Cudgel]

single stick is nasty. I shudder at teh thoght of doing it. :)
HIstorical reenactment CAN be a good way to learn but it depends on the group and teh people. But the really good people in a reenactment group tend to be really good. and they are good places to learn how to fight enmass.

[the crow]

the jkd in winnipeg needs work but I need some more training to be like bruce lee

[LilBunnyRabbit]

Is fencing a martial art?

Technically by royal decree its actually a martial science.


cool! Do you think historical renactment stuff would be a good way to practice?

Its not a bad way, but I prefer LRP.

[Cudgel]

yeah larpers arent the bvest way they are worse than reenactment groups.
Why because they use giant foaom weapons that dont weigh anything like what what areal one does.

[oldcelt]

The "art to fence" is very old....the term "martial arts" is actually english.

So......in a very real sense, yes, fencing is a martial art....a "western" martial art.

Modern sport fencing is an offshoot of what developed in the late 1600's/early 1700's.

[LilBunnyRabbit]

Why because they use giant foaom weapons that dont weigh anything like what what areal one does.

Apparently you've never had the weight of some of the weapons. Admittedly its not quite equivalent, but only the tippy tappers use ridiculously light weapons. You'll also find that they do actually pick up the techniques, after all, you don't punch full-power in class all the time, particularly when you're learning, so why use live blades all the time?

[Cudgel]

I've seen boofers I've made boffers and I know people who use boffers.
If you play with toy sword you only become toy swords(wo)men
Admittedly you cant always hit fullpower nor do you need to but if you never use steel then your veiw of teh weapon ids skewed. Dangerously so.

Maybe you use more realistic boofers I dont know. For all I know you actually have realistically weighted foam weapons, if you do then tell me so.

[SliqueRICK]

i learned some fenceing in school i was the only one who liked it so they stoped it they also stoped self defence when my teacher wanted to spar and i used beng quan on him and fractured his rib