Evergreen Historical Fencing
Evergreen Historical Fencing
My rant on "why do tournaments not look like the treatises"
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My rant on "why do tournaments not look like the treatises"

Is fencing "by the book" in opposition to "modern tournament" fencing?

This is a slightly longer rant than normal. Sorry! I’ll try to keep in <12 min in the future, but this is a doozy and I got a little wild with it.

“Why is no one in the tournament doing things from Lichtenauer/Fiore/Meyer, etc” is a common refrain and question you see across the HEMAsphere — this idea that modern competitive fencing is divorced from the sources. All too often this is shorthand for “why is everyone dominant foot forward in longpoint handsniping and doing fleches like the dreaded MOF” or “this no look like how me like SWORDS look.”

But is modern tournament fencing really separate from the sources, or is it just a distillate, pressed and molded by different pressures? Or is there a way we could make tournament fencing be more like the treatises? Lemme know in the comments!

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