Bedford Highlanders singlestick play 1915...

Thought this pic might be of interest.... Both participants are wearing masks and at least one appears to have an apron over his kilt!




Single Stick" (fencing) competition – looking towards Pemberley Avenue and the School chapel

"The Divisional Highland Games

The second major event organised by the Recreation Committee for the Troops was the Highland Games which were held on Easter Monday 1915 on Bedford School's (then Bedford Grammar School) playing field.

The full range of Highland Games activities were on offer from tossing the caber to piping and dancing competitions. Over 1,400 entries were received and more than 9,000 soldiers and 5,000 civilians were spectators."

http://bedfordhighlanders.blogspot.com/

Louie

 

Some regiment did have an apron over their kilt as part of their uniform.

 

Yes, and a leather apron was sometimes worn by singlestickers' during matches!

Louie

 

Cool pic.

Yeah, masks were actually becoming more common, though not 100% saturation. The McCarthy quarterstaff manual, 30 years earlier, shows participants with masks. Conversely, Teddy Roosevelt says that he injured his left eye singlesticking without a mask.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

Guess we will never know which it is.

 

I'm finding all sorts of different stuff when I search for singlestick videos online. Is it basically similar to saber fencing, only with a thicker, heavier, wood blade instead of a thin, light, flexible metal blade? (And some tactical changes that come with that). If that's the right "singlestick," it looks like the en garde position is the same, the length of the blade is similar, and I'm imagining that the basic parries would be the same.

 

Hi Mitlov
Yes pretty much sabre/broadsword with a same sized wooden stick and hand guard of either leather or whicker. Different styles/guards, methods and rules over different periods. My favourite is a 1790 Scottish Broadsword-singlestick manual entitled 'Antipugilism'.

Louie

 

Don't forget you get to leather the crap out of each other with it.

The Bear.

 

ever seen Braveheart?



freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom.....!.....

....
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What Louie said.

In addition, it might help to think of it this way.

Singlestick Fencing is to Military/Heavy Saber & Broadsword as Sport Saber Fencing is (originally intended to be) to Dueling Saber.

It's a vast over-simplification but that gives you the idea.

The parries are, in fact, similar. Depending on the manual, they are very basic and you can have as few as 5 parries (blocks). Due to the weight of the Military Saber (or Broadsword), Moulinets are an important part of performing effective cuts.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

This actually is a PERFECT explanation and helps me out a lot. I am generally the first to argue that modern Olympic saber fencing is derived from korbschlager (spelling?) duels of German universities (and the techniques and rules should be thought of in that context), not from cavalry sabers like a lot of fencers seem to believe.

 

I take my singlestick basis from George Silver and Zachary Wylde backsword.

The Bear.

 

A lot of people just don't seem to grok that.

Yes, Olympic Saber is an evolution of a Sport which, itself, was an evolution from a training method for Dueling Saber.

I think what confuses some people re Sport Saber is that it did, in fact, have a military history and background. Dueling and Dueling Saber was popular with Officers. They learned, taught, and dueled, yes. But it wasn't with the same sword that they strapped on when they went off to battle.

I think this may be one of the reasons that the term "Broadsword" was so popular for Military Sabers. Maybe not. Just my speculation.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

+1

All current styles of Olympic fencing is derived from dueling, not battlefield combat. Foil is derived from to-the-death duels with smallswords; epee is derived from first-blood duels with rapiers; and saber is derived from first-blood duels with Korbschlägers. A lot of people who criticize Olympic fencing's rules as being totally unrealistic from a warfare perspective don't realize the context from which the rules were derived.

In 1904, singlestick was one of the Olympic fencing weapons. I think it would be really neat if it returned to university, USFA, FIE, Olympic, etc competition as a fourth weapon. It'd bring something very different than the three weapons that currently exist.

EDIT: I'm guessing that the classical fencers here might think of that as diluting/corrupting the art though