History and Developing of Fencing Free Essay Example

Sword Fights were once a matter of life or death. This sport started changing from military training to a sport in the 14th or 15th century. Italy and Germany claimed it’s origins. German fencing masters were the first guilds in the 15th century. Guilds are various medieval associations, as of merchants, artisans organized to maintain standards and to protect the interest of its members, and that sometimes creates a local governing body. Fencing is one of the four sports to be included in every modern Olympic Games since the first in 1896.

Fencing was also a sport in the original Olympic Games in ancient Greece. The sport has been described as “chess with muscles”, suggesting that complicated strategy lies in the thrust and parries a duel.

Fencers today employ a strange combination of archaic and modern customs; combatants that still salute before a match and wear the traditional white uniforms and masks. Fencing Swords Are fencing swords metal or are they just plastic? There are three weapons in fencing: foil, epee, and sabre.

These swords are broken up into three parts: the grip, the guard, and the blade. The foil is a light thrusting weapon with a maximum height of 500 grams. The foil targets the torso, but not the arms and legs. The foil blade is no more than 90 cm in length with a blunted tip. The maximum length of an epeé is 110cm. Epee is the only sword that can target the whole body. The epee is the heaviest sword out of the three.

The maximum length of a sabre is 105cm. The sabre is a type of sword that has a curved blade. The sabre weapon is for thrusting and cutting with both the cutting edge and the back of the blade. Fencing swords are a long piece of thin metal. Moves There are ten moves that fencers mostly use, lunge, flunge, passata satto, parry, counterattack, riposte, remise, beat, feint, and second intention.

The lunge is a highly effective movement. From the fencing position, they extend their right foot forward as far as possible. While lunging towards the opponent, they extend their sword arm and stab their opponent. The flunge is a move that is mostly use in sabre fencing. It’s the same movement of the lunge just faster. The passata sotto is a movement with a twist. Attack by dropping beneath the fencers opponent. The parry is a defensive move that blocks the attack. The fencer straightens their sword to attack. The counter – attack is an attack made to open up the opponent’s attack. A riposte follows a successful parry of the attack. A remise is a series of attacks. The beat is similar to a jab in boxing. Fencers can use the feint to trick or deceive their opponent. Lastly, second intention. The second intention is a move to open up an opponents defense.