Reclaiming the Blade Page #3

and you take his intestines out.

You hope.

The reason I don't hit him

is because as I cut him,

my elbow is pulling

the sword back into me.

The skill that that

needs is just as great

as the skill of killing

him is, of course,

sometimes the difference

of about 2 inches.

The point of choreography

in a play or a movie

is to forward the story.

If it does that

it is successful.

It's not designed to

actually show a real fight,

it's designed to show

something exciting with swords.

There's an undeniable

romanticism attached to it all.

And there's even

the grittier films, I think,

tend to steer clear

of much of the mechanics

of what a sword does

to a human body.

And it has to look

good on the screen.

I think, you know, I honestly

believe that a real fight

would be very short, sharp.

It's not just

a piece of art,

though it can be

appreciated that way.

It's not just

a piece of history

because they were used

for a purpose.

It is an ancient weapon that was

used to gain or lose kingdoms.

There's always been fighting.

There's never been a time

when there hasn't been

personal combat.

People are interested in combat

and cared about combat

from the highest

to the lowest in the land;

kings, and princes, emperors.

A sword as a weapon

is something that pretty much

everyone would have owned

it in the Anglian Period,

anyone being an adult male.

So, from top to bottom

of society

personal combat

was important.

Few subjects have received

such unfortunate neglect by

historians than the

martial arts of western Europe

although ancient kings

and nobles gave the blade

great credence

during their time,

often modern academics

fail to clearly write about

the reality of the blade,

defining its practice

as something apart from

its actual use.

It's quite a popular subject,

the history of dueling.

And you look at these books

and one thing they

never mentioned is the fighting.

You know, you'd think that this

was the raison d'etre of a duel.

But the one thing

they never mentioned

was techniques of combat.

It's a subject that

has been ignored

for the most part

for centuries.

Probably the world's foremost

scholar on historical fencing,

Dr. Sidney Anglo,

broke open the subject.

He said, "Hey historians,

you've missed the boat."

I'm sure that

a lot of historians

still find it kind of

not a proper subject.

That it isn't something

that historians

should be writing about.

Which, of course is foolish.

Think it's perhaps

not a very nice thing,

you know, these people

cutting each other to pieces

and running each other

through and so forth,

and often killing

each other, and

if they didn't kill each other

they often maimed each other.

Originally fencing meant

simply the art of defense;

the noble science of defense.

We have lots of records of

there being fencing schools

all over the place and we also

have records of people

complaining about

fencing schools and

the noise and the violence

that they engendered.

This changed bit by bit into the

late 16th and 17th century when

they became more fashionable for

nobles to go to these schools

and to learn how to fence.

Yet today, there are too few

historians that fully understand

the significant role

of medieval masters.

And so to a large extent much

of their history is lost to us.

The sobering death toll of the

First World War spoke plainly

the truth that the romance of

war was officially lost in time.

The one-on-one dueling spirit

of the sword could not prevail

under the shadow of automatic

machine gunfire with its

gruesome wake of millions who

were all too soon forgotten.

With the increased use

of firearms

during the turn of

the century

the slow erasure of

classical sword fighting

from public consciousness

seemed almost inevitable.

Fortunately the romance of

swordplay remained in the hearts

of early filmmakers

who kept it alive

through imagination

and fantasy.

But would the lost art of sword

defense every truly be reborn?

It was a change from battlefield

techniques and fighting skills

for judicial combat

and for private duel

and for street level

self-defense to essentially

gentlemen having private affairs

of honor, identical swords;

single sword against

single sword.

Most duels back in the day

were not to the death;

they were just to first blood.

During the 1700s you had guns

beginning to supplant

the sword as the choice

weapon for dueling

and in the mid-1800s fencing

became more and more a sport.

People started, you know,

playing the game

instead of training

to actually duel.

The term fencing today is

primarily synonymous with

the collegiate and Olympic sport

of epee, foil, and saber.

Now it's based on

hooking yourself up

into an electric circuit

and depressing tips.

You can just slip it in

anywhere, as long as you

slip it in on target,

then it's a good touch for you.

Fencing became

more and more a sport

and there's a lot of aspects

of fencing that are fun.

Anybody who wants to learn how

to use a sword should go into

fencing because it teaches you

the handling of the weapon.

I like the honor aspect

and the dueling history

that goes along with it.

Modern fencing has retained

a lot of the values

of Renaissance fencing

in the way we always salute

before and after our bouts.

The thing that I like about

fencing is that it allows me

to do a physical

but also a mental sport.

It's much more a thinking game

than it is a physical game

despite the fact that it's a

tremendously athletic endeavor.

Tips of fencing blades

go as fast as 135 miles an hour.

Fencers have very quick

reflexes, a lot of leg strength.

You have to deal with someone

attacking you before you can go.

And fencing is straight

forward and back.

They're used to people

reacting to their moves

in a particular sort of ways.

There's a whole language of

this very highly refined sport.

It's not real, though.

And it's been 200 or 300 years

of evolution away from

people nicking one another

or cutting one another

or killing one another

with swords.

There are very specific

penalties for brutality and

hitting a little bit too hard

and if the referee in control

of the bout, if they thought it

was with malicious intent

or too hard or anything like

that you can get penalized,

docked points,

thrown out of the tournament.

You will see coups, flicks,

where the electric connection

on the end will score but if

you had a point you're making

a little bitty nick where as the

classical fencer will stick you.

I can get my rapier

and leverage him there

and come in here

and put it into him.

I was sparring with some friends

who were fencers and as

he lunged I slapped the blade

aside with my left hand

and extended my right

and stabbed him.

And he said,

"You can't do that."

And I said,

"But I just did."

I can engage it and

take it out this way.

Then he said,

"But that's illegal."

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