Sabre sparring - Michael (AHF instructor) vs Jordan (AOS Instructor)

[@blacktail522]

Sabre brings out the best exchanges

[@a.m928]

Indeed

[@kierankennedy4765]

Nice stuff guys, can I ask, which jacket that is in red? . 👍

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Spes AP Lite

[@heirihunziker]

What's the best way to get someone interested in sabre? I can find training partners for most other weapons but had no success with getting any of my mates into sabre (I'd like to practice Napoleonic era military sabre). Any particular movies / TV series you recommend that one could use to inspire HEMA folks who think of sabre as too modern / uncool of a weapon?

[@theamericancristero7390]

I've found it remarkably easy to get people functionally defending themselves with a saber, so I tend to market it as a low barrier to entry but high skill ceiling discipline; Having a couple gymnasium sabers on hand helps in this. My friends who are into HEMA are generally not interested in anything classical or early modern, real DnD Tolkien readers, but pulling out an antique briquette and explaining the foot use of hangers and then producing a repro 1796 light cav for a cut from the scabbard and a demonstration on how a saber is used from the saddle peaked people's interest immediately.

[@heirihunziker]

@@theamericancristero7390 The 1796 looks very attractive, that might indeed do the trick for advertising sabre. I've been thinking about getting the 1796 from the Blackfencer steel generation blunt bladed series. It looks a lot cooler than my puny Hutton training sabre which has all the weight in the hand guard and a very unimpressive blade width. The 1796 sabre looks like proper weapon, even the training version. I'm getting my mates into Langes Messer first, as an 'entry level drug', then hopefully some will want to branch out into dussack & sabre later on.

[@theamericancristero7390]

@@heirihunziker the steel banana really looks quite the buisness.

[@theamericancristero7390]

@@heirihunziker an interesting "sell" is that while the Turkish kilich (or however you spell it) most directly influenced Hungarian & Polish saber, the Messer, Falchion, Dussack, and even backsword, are all rooted in a single edged European sword tradition that begins in the early miedeval with the seax, then on to the high period with the falchion, then to the late with Messer and messer like falchion which already have remarkably saber like knuckle bows by the Mary Rose. If anything the cavalry saber in that iconic Szabla 1796 light cav style is a late rennasaince/ very early modern adoption from Turkish arms, but the Infantry hanger/ cutlass despite stylistically mimicking sabers, really comes out of the Messer/ falchion / dussack tradition, with the backsword being what the European saber would be in the absence of contact with scimitar cultures, and in the form of the palache and basket hilted broadsword (latter is technically not a backsword,) was used right up through waterloo. I'd sell them on the continuity, show them how a highland broadsword developed out of the arming sword, and how the backsword was effectively the falchion and arming sword combining, and then show them how those weapons were at Calloughdon (I know that's not the spelling) and Waterloo. I think the disinterest in one period over another comes from an artificial and arbitrary hueristic we get from historiography and cinematic depiction of material culture, where the rennasaince is entirely not miedeval, and the early modern is entirely not in any way like the rennasaince, when the truth is that history is more subtle; I mean, viking age fighting kit is basically late Roman army equipment, but we have this visual of the viking jumping out of the boat and the Legionary in lorica segmentata, and it's psychologically messy to realize that history doesnt just take a 500 year pause for the next iconic stereotype to enter stage left.

[@BS-bd5uq]

Buy a black fencer 1796 infantry sabre and show them. Buy an armour class broadsword with manitoba blade and show them. If they can be impressed by your swords then they will accept sabre. Plus tell them sabre is the easiest system to learn and also to benefit from growing arm muscles.

[@esgrimaxativa5175]

solid arse whooping here. Fencer in red is able to dictate pace of exchanges and lodge himself into fencer in black's space provoking a cut to which red always seems to have the answer. That, and fencer in red's cuts always land with more authority. This got me thinking about your space for training. It's quite narrow isn't it? Seems like with 4 retreats you'd have you back to the wall. This could be good or bad, no?

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

There's a fair bit of space to be honest. More than enough to move about in if we choose. Finger's crossed we'll have a new location soon.

[@markmarksson6361]

Idk, for someone dishing out a solid arse whooping, red takes a lot of potentially fight-ending thrusts to the chest/torso/throat. Not doubting your description of the character of a lot of the exchanges, but I think red paid a price for staying close. Then again, as you note, the space is constricted. I feel black would have benefitted considerably from more space to move around in, here.

[@alfatazer_8991]

Did your Sparring glove thumb fly off at 5.30? 😅 Had an awesome exchance with longswords once during sparring, there were no hits so me and my partner separated; I then went into ochs guard only for both my thumbs to fall off anticlimatically. We had a good laugh at that.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Yup, the elastic snapped and the thumb piece flew off towards the camera! Both came off? Oops!

[@yankeeman690]

You want to know a man, put a saber in his hand.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

True story.

[@esgrimaxativa5175]

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing Just read something the other day in Spanish something like, "In fencing, one puts a mask on and also takes it off."

[@randombydefault7193]

Where can I find the plastic Sabre? Not sure what there made of 😅

[@jordanreeseyre]

We use blackfencers blackfencer.com/en/

[@theamericancristero7390]

Nick, from what system are you drawing the elevated bent elbow sword over right shoulder position? It reminds me of some positions in Messer. I'm studying Hutton and starting to delve into Roworth and Waite, but I haven't seen that. Is it something from a an intermediary system between miedeval & early modern swordsmanship? Ie something Polish or Hungarian?

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

That position isn't from our sabre system, but Mike is into his Meyer and so throws some of that in. There are no withdrawn guards like that in BMS.

[@theamericancristero7390]

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing it certainly seemed foreign to BMS, thanks for confirming that. Do you know of anything of the sort in late rennasaince/ very early modern systems from eastern europe? Perhaps Ottoman swordsmanship? Or is that exclusively German messer being applied to saber?

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

Just Meyer. I like the messer/dussack style of close quarter brawling. - Michael

[@theamericancristero7390]

@@AcademyofHistoricalFencing understood, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions guys.

[@AcademyofHistoricalFencing]

No problem. Any time.