Sorry if this has been posted before folks, I don't really look in here very often, but I came across it on another site and thought it might be interesting to our WMA folk [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uvxXgm2TWs"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uvxXgm2TWs[/ame] Mitch
Cool to watch theese old videos. Not much protection there! Nice to see that controlling the centre was as important then as now
Thanks for posting that! I've seen other videos of old epee first-blood duels, but this is a particularly good one for several reasons. (1) The film is in remarkably good quality, particularly given that it is 98 years old. You can actually see the movements involved. (2) There's some FOOTWORK! No, it's not as dynamic as you'd see in a modern sport competition, but there's nevertheless some movement. In many of the old duels, the two duelists would basically stand in place and mill their blade at the other's forearm to see who would break the skin first. Maybe a good conservative way to ensure that nobody ends up in the morgue, but it's boring as hell to watch. (3) At least one of the guys (the guy on the right) seems to know what he's doing. The guy on the left appears to be just moving his tip as much as possible praying to meet some skin in the process, but the guy on the right moves with intention and grace. This is more rare than you'd think. Nowadays, when you watch videos of sport competition, chances are you're seeing the best of the best competing (unless it's a for-beginners-only local tournament). When you watch videos of old duels, that's not necessarily true; you're just watching people who were angry enough to challenge each other to a duel, and many of those people are casual or inexperienced fencers.
