Why I Hate Fencing

[dennis grace]

Ryght hartely welbiloved cosyns, I recoumande me unto yow:

Lyonel here, and I think my subject line demands some pretty fast
mitigation.  No, I don't hate fencing.  I don't even hate shinai.  I fenced
a bit in High School and even studied Kendo for a few years whilst in the
Navy.  I simply choose not to participate in either activity within Society
contexts.  

No, the subject line of this letter addresses an attitude I wish to examine,
not one I wish to promulgate, justify, or claim.

We in the SCA have long maintained a bizarre tension between fencing and
heavy fighting.  That tension has kept fencing in the back room, so to
speak, for many a Societal Anno.  Only about half the SCA Kingdoms currently
recognize the White Scarf (the rest just roll their collective eyes), a
factor which I blame for the result that fencers with peerages are about as
common as three-headed sheep (okay, now, someone ignore the rest of this
posting and address this one claim--I dare you).  Moreover, as a number of
recent postings have noted, two kingdoms have now banned period fencing for
unclear or simply questionable reasons.

Why?

In a recent missive, Viscount Galen of Bristol suggested:

>If I understand the traditional arguments against fencing, they boil
>down to these:
>
>1.  Fencing is unmanly, for wimps.
>
>2.  Fencing should be banned because it is so dangerous.
>

I do not doubt for a second that His Excellency recognizes the irony of this
juxtaposition of claims.  Nonetheless, this pairing accurately addresses two
of the objections I have most frequently heard leveled against fencers.

Now, I know it's been a while, and I mostly played with sabre, but what I
remember of fencing doesn't fit the "unmanly, for wimps" category at all
well.  The stances are unnatural and uncomfortable, the stretches long and
painful, the matches long and arduous.  I remember being quite sore and
sweat-soaked after fencing sessions, rather like I am after heavy fighting.
So how does this particular martial art earn the title "unmanly, for wimps"?

I can suggest two probable sources for this misperception (both of them
rather silly), and I would love to hear any alternate theories.

First, fencing has an appearance that readily lends itself to claims of
effeminacy.  Please, don't attack me for calling fencing effeminate; that's
not what I'm saying.  The art, however, uses lighter and
more-delicate-looking weapons than the heavy lumber SCA knights wield.
Moreover, fencers naturally tend to garb themselves appropriately for their
period: Italian fifteenth century slashes and puffs, English renaissance
slops and peasecods and frill collars, cavalier ribbons and lace and lawn.
Since--in the Twentieth Century--such frills are more commonly associated
with women's clothing, the garb offers additional justification to the claim
of effeminacy (Of course, I've always thought their was something immensely
funny about a bunch of guys in dresses calling cavalier garb effeminate
;^>).  Finally, efficacy in fencing necessitates grace and fluidity of
movement, physical attributes not usually attributed to powerful masculine
warriors.  In the Aristotelian view (and, yes, I do believe Aristotle was
the original Bubba), if it ain't masculine, it's feminine.

Second, the primary martial art of the SCA is this noisy thing we call
"heavy fighting" (bleaahh--you'd think, after thirty years, we could come up
with a name for the art that didn't sound like something on par with
"mud-wrestling"). More specifically, the primary form of our art is sword
and shield.  The fencers, in choosing not to partake of heavy fighting, seem
to incur the same sort of attitude experienced by those of us who have
elected to forego sword-and-shield as a primary form.  The (specious)
reasoning behind this (narrow) attitude seems to go something like this:
"We fight sword-and-shield. Some guys just can't hack it with s&s, so they
decide to take up a *trick* weapon, hoping to find a magic bullet.  They're
wimps."

Note, I'm not saying this attitude extends to all warriors who fight
primarily with non-standard weapons.  If you start out with s&s, and learn
the other styles as alternates, that's considered appropriate.  If you take
up an alternate as a principal weapon, however, or fail to first prove
yourself with the Most Chosen Form, your choice is considered
questionable--especially if you try to take on s&s fighters with your odd
weapons.  I know of a few exceptions: Duke Irel of the Outlands and Count
Brion Thornbird of Caid (florentine fighters), Duke Morgan of the East
Kingdom (polearmsman), Viscount Aveloc of An Tir (great sword, glaive), Duke
Hector of Ansteorra (bastard sword).  Of course, the road these gentles
found to acceptance is not open to fencers.

Many heavy fighters seem to attribute the same negative motives to fencers
that they attribute to non-s&s fighters.  In other words, the thinking goes
something like, "Well, they want to impress everyone with their fighting,
but they can't handle being pounded with rattan.  That's why they're poking
each other with those whippy little antenna things."

So, if the warriors who hate fencing really feel this way ("fencing is
wimpy"), why do they periodically raise the second point of contention
listed by Viscount Galen, that period fencing is unsafe?  Well, I suppose
you *could* argue that a practice can be both wimpy AND dangerous.  To do
so, you have to assume a degree of stupidity on the part of the
practitioners (i.e.--"They think they've found a way to fight without all
the hard work and pain, but they're ignorantly doing something that has far
greater potential for hurting someone."), an attitude which strikes me as
most discourteous.

Personally, I suspect both concerns--wimpiness and inadequate safety--are
blinds for a phobia akin to privincialism.  If the concerns were honest,
however, would they be enough, in and of themselves, to warrant banning
fencing from SCA events?  The first concern?  No, certainly not.  Blackwork
and bransles ain't exactly brawny, and no one has suggested banning THEM
from SCA events.  As for the second concern, Llewellyn's and Tivar's recent
postings have more than adequately debunked the safety concern.  I would
like to add that in my years in the SCA, I've seen smashed and bloodied
knuckles, broken hands, broken wrists, heat exhaustion, broken ankles,
broken toes, split-open foreheads, whiplash, dislocated shoulders, and
unconscious fighters.  Aside from a few sting marks, this recent pectoral
tear is the only serious fencing injury in my ken.  Some of these incidents
have resulted in modifications to extant armor regulations, but somehow, I
doubt TRM Meridies will ban heavy fighting.

Viscount Galen further notes: 

>TRM Meridies have added a new one:  Fencing isn't popular enough, as
>only fifty people are authorized in six months.  If I'm the Baron of
>a fifty-member barony, I'd tend to worry about the Crown willingness
>to blow off the opinions and desires of fifty of their subjects, and
>take unilateral actions without regard to their interests.

I tried to see how this lack of popularity might be a reasonable reason to
ban the practice.  They DO, after all, have to maintain a Light Weapons
Marshallate it they want Light Weapons.  If the Kingdom Light Weapons
Marshall considers the job too great an imposition, TRM could simply replace
the Marshall.  Other than that, I can't see how lack of popularity could
possibly be an imposition on the kingdom.  This objection, then, seems
(OmiBoD, I feel an uncontrolable urge to flame--no, no, no) somewhat
specious (*whew*).  Steel plate armor isn't too popular in Ansteorra.  Gosh,
maybe we should consider banning it. :^>

Hoping to hear more on this matter, I remain

Yours in e-Service

Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace
_______________________
Dennis G. Grace
Postmodern Medievalist
Division of Rhetoric and Composition
Department of English
University of Texas at Austin
amazing at mail.utexas.edu
___________________

Baro, metetz en guatge                    |  Lords, pawn your castles,
Chastels e vilas e ciutatz                |  your towns and cities.
Enanz qu'usquecs no'us guerreiatz         |  Before you're beat to the draw,
                                                    draw your swords.

                   -- Bertran de Born (a really fun Viscount)