Tips on Types of Swords

Video Transcript

"In standard fencing, you have three types of swords. You have the foil, your epee, your saber. Each serves a little bit different, and each style has its own set of rules. What I'm holding here is a saber. It has the basic parts of a sword, of any sword are the same. The hilt, which I'm holding right here, consists of the pummel, of the grip, and the guard; which protects the fencer's hand. I'll show you how to hold the grip in just a moment. As we move up, the parts of the blade have names as well. This part at the bottom is called the fort. It's the strongest part of the blade. It's what you're using when you pary because if you try to pary with the tip of your blade, or even toward the middle, your blade runs the risk of breaking. It's also not a very strong pary. So, if it hits coming toward me and I try to pary here, it can get through. So, this is a really strong part of my blade. Moving up, little bit less strong, is the foible, the middle of the blade. And, once you go up a little farther, it's actually called the tip; otherwise known as the pointy end. And here on the edge, you have the button; which with a lot of fencers, you actually have a little plastic or rubber nip here at the end. The grip can be covered in different soft materials, but what I'm holding here is a French Grip; which is slightly angled in at the side, so that your hand fits nicely around it, and it tilts in toward your palm. When you hold the grip of the French Grip, you want to cradle it with your thumb and your forefinger so that you have a lot of control just here under the guard. And then, wrap the rest of your fingers around it so that it's very comfortable, you have a good grip, and if you can actually hold on to the tip with your forefinger and your thumb, you run much less of a chance of losing your sword should you take a hard hit or should you be in the midst of fencing in the heat of battle. Another kind of grip is the pistol grip, so named because it looks a little bit like a pistol. And your hand fits around it like this. It looks a little bit intricate, but it's very intuitive because it fits your hand perfectly. You take the top two fingers around the top, your thumb wraps around this part here, and the other two fingers wrap just around. But just like before, you want to make sure you have a good, solid grip with your thumb and your forefinger right here, up against the guard so that you've got control of your weapon with just the flick of your wrist. Okay, the proper way to hold a grip on a French Grip is to grab it tightly up here by the guard with your thumb and forefinger and you'll notice that there's a little bit of a curvature here, that's for your palm, and wrap the fingers nicely around it. So I'm actually controlling the movements with these top two fingers so that I am in complete control of the weapon. And my entire hand is protected solidly from the grip. Also my thumb is always facing towards this part of the guard; whether I'm parying or attacking, so that I have control, I always know where the control of my weapon is, and if this were a weapon with a single edge, the edge would be out here. My edge is always facing away from my pary, facing towards my attack. "