Reclaiming the Blade Page #4

And I said, "I'm not

interested in legalities,

I'm trying to kill you."

They have no problem

grabbing you by the waist

and knocking you

to the ground

and beating you over

the head with their sword.

He does a lunge at me, I would

kick that leg out from him

and I'm gonna

half sword my rapier.

This wouldn't occur

to a fencer.

Fencing masters,

my fencing coaches would say,

"Well yeah,

you can't do that;

"You can't grab his leg,

you can't kick him,

you can't trip him,

you can't push him."

People weren't dumb

in the 1100s.

They had their own styles

or whatever

but they were

much more all encompassing

in terms of combat than

this kind of fencing is.

We don't think of

this as fighting.

There's a lot of aspects

of fencing that are fun,

but you can't take their rules

and things too seriously

because they just don't work

in a straight fight.

The evolution of fencing

is rather simple.

Historical swordplay

transitioned to

classical fencing upon

the advent of the gun.

Over the past century,

sport, or Olympic fencing

was developed from

classical fencing.

Modern sport fencing is not

necessarily an advancement of

historical European martial arts

but rather a pruning down

from older more inclusive

fighting systems.

In time, proper decorum

and stylized posture

came to replace

combat utility.

By the 19th century, fighting

men no longer needed to learn

and use diverse arms and armor

and had fewer occasions

to employ such skills.

Not surprisingly, what was

not modified and adapted

from the wider craft

consequently withered and died.

As they pursued

a far more specialized form

of gentlemanly fencing,

directed towards duels of honor

with single identical swords,

they came to dismiss

and sometimes even ridicule

older fencing skills.

At the same time, fencing

became more sport-focused

and in the 19th century it

increasingly lost its military

or self-defense value.

Those who continued to duel

did so under less and less

lethal terms.

The popular myth of crude

and clumsy medieval swords

slowly evolving into more

superior thrusting swords

began to surface

at this time.

Ancient European

martial arts

were now officially

lost in time.

If you look at our society

there are a large number

of subcultures from reenactment,

from Revolutionary War

to even reenactment

of World War ll.

It's interesting in that

it puts the human being

back in to where he should be;

into the middle of it.

It's an interesting way

to study history

and it's a lot more fun than

sitting there with a book.

This is an epee blade.

This is what we originally

started using for fencing

in the SCA.

It's the same type of blade

that's used in strip fencing

that you would see

at the colleges.

The strip fencing

is more of a sport.

It's not really dedicated to

the medieval martial arts

of the sword.

What I have here looks

more like a real sword.

It's heavier but it is

still designed to be safe,

to bend without breaking.

It has more of the weight of

a real medieval sword, so we can

start to use the techniques

as they would have been used

in the Middle Ages with

a proper weighted weapon.

Well, it's

a wide spectrum of things;

it goes from people

dressed as Orchs

to very serious people

who weave their own cloth.

There is an individual

fulfillment that

the individual becomes somebody

more than just a small cog

in a large plastic machine.

Historical reenactment folks

have got their own culture

and it's an amazing thing.

It's a great to be in but

it's a whole gestalt for them.

It's a whole lifestyle

for them.

What we do is to create

a persona, each of us who joins.

My name is Greg Prevost

in the real world.

In the SCA, I'm known as

Janos of Kitmendown,

which is Welsh

and it's hard to spell.

You create the clothing,

the equipment for that person

and you become that

person at the events.

I take the name

Achbar Ivanalli.

That name actually derives

from Andalusian Spain

so it's Moorish.

And my title in the SCA

is King currently.

But I'm also a knight

in the SCA.

Once you get knighted

you are knighted for life

so it's like a lifetime

achievement award.

This is a very

family-oriented society.

Everyone's welcome.

I have 4 children and

all of them have been to

their first event when they

were weeks or months old.

My oldest son is 11 now

and I'm starting to

teach him how to fence.

We don't chop each

other in this sport.

There's a thrust and

there's a draw cut.

Every kingdom is ruled

by a king and queen.

They are chosen by combat.

When all the fighters come

forward and they have

a best 2-out-of-3

elimination tournament.

You call the wound as accurately

as you can what it would have

done to you if it had

been a real sword.

For instance, if you get hit

a legal blow to your leg,

you then have to drop your knees

and fight from the ground

which compromises your

mobility quite a bit.

Your opponent has the option of

being chivalrous and also taking

the same handicap so that

the match continues to be equal

but he doesn't have to.

It's on his honor.

If he does agree,

takes up that handicap,

then he is lauded by the

audience for his chivalry.

If I get hit with a solid blow

that would have been killing

with a real sword,

I will act out that death.

We don't say that

we are dead,

we say we are

disinclined to continue.

People see us fight

from a distance

at first they think of

Medieval Times,

strictly for the entertainment

of people watching.

The SCA's completely different.

It's an actual sport.

We're competing.

Every blow thrown out there

is thrown with real force.

We don't know who, when we

step on the field, will win

and we don't know

who will be the next king

until the last blow

is thrown in the tournament.

It's just a different spin off

of the same basic history.

The creative part is we take the

best parts of the Middle Ages

and we try to recreate them;

the beauty, the pageantry.

We leave behind

the plague and the death.

I think that reenactment

is an interesting and valid,

I feel like, approach to--

approach to history,

it can be a very rich, rich,

rich source of information.

It's also a little

bit dangerous,

because reenactment is

now becoming a part of

history itself which

troubles me quite a bit.

When you take a pipe and you

wrap it with some padding and

you whack on one another that's

no different from reality than

we who fence with electronic

gear that lets us know

whether or not a touch

would have happened.

If the swords were

actually sharp,

most of these guys really

wouldn't be doing this.

And I wouldn't be either.

There are many martial arts

within the Asian culture.

Out of China you have

manta style, tiger style,

eagle style, wing tsun.

From Korea, you have taekwondo,

kongsoodo, soobahkdo,

kwonbup, taekyun, hapkido,

yudo, gumdo, gumsool.

Out of Japan you have the very

familiar karate, judo, kendo.

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