The Origin Of Fencing

Series Summary

Fencing is the art of swordsmanship. It has developed into a competitive sport, being one of four sports featured at each of the modern Olympic Games. Protective fencing gear consists of masks, gloves, breeches and plastron. Typically made of tough cotton and nylon and Kevlar, the full-body padding is very protective and cannot easily be punctured. Sabre fencing uses right-of-way like foil fencing, but points can be scored with the edge of the blade. This follows from the original design of sabres as edged swords, whereas the rapiers which led to foil fencing were usually pointed, thrusting blades.

In this free video series, expert fencer Jason Sheridan teaches you beginners' sabre fencing. You will learn the rules of sabre fencing, terms, rhythms, how to step forward and back, safety, and scoring. Jason will also show you how to sabre fleche, or flunge, lunge, cut to the head, and more.

Video Transcript

"JASON SHERIDAN: On behalf of Expert Village, my name is Jason Sheridan for Sheridan Fencing Academy here in New York City. Today, we'll be talking about beginning sabre fencing. When talking about beginning saber fencing, we should first talk about fencing. What is fencing? Where did fencing begin? Fencing is the act of two people trying to fight with a sword, some sort of weapon. In the case of actual saber fencing or any other fencing that you might be talking about here, what it is, is a sport. We're talking about sport fencing which is very different. Regular fencing started a long time ago, hundreds of years of history, thousands of years of history, they even say. All over the world, different countries, people fastening swords and fighting with them. Over time, different techniques evolved to make it more precise. As methods of building weapons change and the methods of protecting oneself changed, the techniques used changed along with it. When we're talking about fencing, we're talking about the sport. However, there's also classical fencing, theatrical fencing, the fencing you see in movies, all of these are different kinds of fencing. The sport fencing has very unique rules and very unique techniques that we're going to be talking about here."