Fencing

On Silver's Brief Instructions (1/?)

The Duel After the Masquerade by Gérôme Jean Leon

Everything written in this article is done using George Silver’s Brief Instructions as the single source, with Greg Lindahl’s transcription used for understandable quotes, but you can view a copy of the text that’s nearer to the original on the Internet Archive if you enjoy squinting and headaches.

I’m deliberately ignoring the original Paradoxes of Defense here, it’s a bit of chore to read, and somewhat an angry embarrassing mess. Like Marcion rejecting the Old Testament, followers of Silver should be lauding the clear, rules-based methodology of the later Brief Instructions and shunning of the polemic Paradoxes of Defense. Brief Instructions existing at all hints that even Silver understood his original work was pretty cryptic and his later adoption of manualistic style hints that he knew also the original was a bit rubbish for teaching anything.

More…

Supposed Notation/Shorthand for Fencing Plays

There is not as far as I’m aware a common, system agnostic, simple textual notation for fencing; moves that can be written without advanced ligatures or illustrations. There’s a pretty extensive history of written notation for dance, which in terms of motion is fairly close to fencing, but none besides Labanotation (which is used by the US for the copyright of dance) have significantly caught on and endured in history. Dance/Movement notation is a relatively niche field and jam-packed with advanced symbols and flexible geometry. Without resorting to clunky spoken language, it’s tough to describe a sequence of bodily movements quickly, casually and succinctly in non-graphical form.

More…

Fencing Masks for U.S. Infantry & Cavalry, circa 1919

Sometime shortly before January 24, 1919, the A.G. Spalding Brothers Company developed fencing masks for the U.S. Government. Two masks are recorded in the National Archives, one for infantry and one cavalry, a front and side view is presented for each.

Curiously it is the cavalry mask which bears the best resemblance to the modern fencing masks we’re familiar with nowadays. It also offers the best protection, while contrastingly the infantry mask offers better visual fidelity – at expense of eye cover.

More…