Saber fencing, sport and martial art: Practial curriculum from the beginner to master level

By Gergely Hidasi

The saber was the weapon of the soldiers and dueling heroes here in the Carpathian Basin for more than a thousand years. During this time it became more than a simple tool of fighting. It became a loyal companion and a symbol of valor of the wielder. This weapon and the valiant spirit of its wielders became known in Western Europe and North American via Hungarians. At the time of our settlement Western Europe feared the sight of the saber, it became a worthy opponent of the Turkish and later, after the civil war of Rákóczi it brought us honor in the wars fought at the side of foreign countries. Maybe there is no other sword type like this which reserved its significance for so long time.

 The saber is not only an antique weapon of a past era, but much like a sports tool as a foil which is used at the Olympic Games.

 This book contains an elaborated practical curriculum. With the help of it, the saber fencing can be learned from the basics to master level. The book guides the reader through hundreds of exercises with the help of more than a hundred photographic illustrations. These can help anyone to learn the basic moves, the more complex exercises and even the trick-cuts or disarmament.

 We prove with this book that the saber fencing is a living sport and martial art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Szablya Iskolája Egyesület (Associaton of the School of the Saber)
• Release date: Dec 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9786150010120

Book preview

Saber fencing

Sport and martial art

Practical curriculum

From beginner to master level

Gergely Hidasi

Those who took part in creating this book:

Judit Burány

Balázs Gergely

Lehel Makrai

Zoltán Nyilasi

András Farkas

Photos: Zoltán Hering

English translation: Gergely Hidasi

Layout and digital edition: Zsolt Jakab

Original title: Szablyavívás, sport és harcművészet

Copyright © Gergely Hidasi, 2015

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the Publisher and the Author

Publisher: A Szablya Iskolája Egyesület

1123 Budapest, Nagyenyed u. 9.

ISBN 978-615-00-1012-0

I thank firstly to András László,

because I’ve learned almost everything from him.

Secondly I thank to Ildikó Vidó,

who helped a lot in finalizing the book

Gergely Hidasi

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Recommended protection

Respect and giving respect in fencing

The gripping of the saber

PART I – CURRICULUM LEVEL I–VIII

Level I

Basic stance, basic posture

Basic steps

Pivots

Basic cuts

Basic parries

Distances in fencing

Bare hands

Techniques

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Flexibility

Physical condition

Additional Theory

Level II.

Basic steps

Cross cuts

Pivots

Sliding parries

Evasion

Bare hands

Ground fight

Techniques

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Flexibility

Physical condition

Additional Theory

Level III.

Basic steps

Group fight

Whip cuts

Pour down parries

Evasions

Thrusts

Bare hands

Ground fight

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Flexibility

Physical condition

Additional theory

Level IV.

Basic steps

Group fight

Pivots

Back-edge cuts

Timing in fencing

Parries

Evasions

Thrusts

Bare hands

Ground fight

Techniques

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Physical condition

Additional Theory

Level V.

Pivots

Complementary cuts

Parries

Evasions

Thrusts

Bare hands

Ground fight

Technique

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Physical condition

Additional Theory

Level VI.

Basic steps

Parries

Thrusts

Ground fight

Technique

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Physical condition

Additional Theory

Level VII.

Parries

Bare hands

Technique

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Physical condition

Additional Theory

Level VIII.

Technique

Endurance

Coordination

Mental skills

Other exercises in the training

Warming up

Basics

Collective exercises

Playful exercises

Building up the trainings

Example of a training session

PART II – APPENDIXES

Appendix I

Technical exam questions

Appendix II

Theoretical exam questions

Appendix III

Competition rules (uncovered weapon)

Appendix IV

Famous Hungarian heroes and leaders

Appendix V

Saber history

Appendix VI

Tilt and duel

Epilogue

Bibliography

Table of figures

Foreword

Putting down the bases of this book started with the founding of the Association of the School of the Saber. From this point there was a need to organize and write down the knowledge we had gathered about saber fencing during the last more than ten years. Firstly, it was important because our students can learn this sport in a predefined system which gives them continuous knowledge for many years with steps built on each other. Secondly, it is a great help in education because it gives a leading line for us in day to day training.

Most of our knowledge comes from previous teachers, but we expanded it with personal experiences and survived source materials.

The shape of the saber as a weapon has been formed a lot during the centuries. For this reason the fencing style, in connection with it, has also changed with it. According our research very little written source survived about saber fencing and most of them are from later eras. The sources from this later era have been greatly affected by the so-called Italian fencing school (spreading from the end of 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century), which formed a transition to modern foil fencing in our country.

The knowledge of saber fencing might have been kept up through oral tradition. Without the written records most of them lost with the expansion of modern fencing.

In our association we work with sabers mostly from the late 19th century. This type of saber generally has wider and heavier blades than the later ones, the so-called dueling sabers, which are used by the writers of the survived fencing school books. The weight of the prior sabers could be double or in rare cases triple of the dueling sabers, and the big differences have great effect on fencing style.

In addition, the writers of the fencing codexes use the so-called chivalrous fencing as their base, which were used in later duels. This sounds noble and gallant but shows the fact that great changes have happened in thinking since the battlefield usage of the saber. We try to revive that battlefield-fencing, where the rules bound us only to protect the integrity of our body. With these rules we can only approach the technical knowledge and valor our ancestors owned. But we must admit that we live in a different era and our lives do not depend on our fencing skills. So these days what is left for us is martial art which makes demands on our body and spirit too.

We can see from the above that saber fencing as a martial art does not have a laid down training system yet in Hungary, although this is a knowledge at which our ancestors were excellent for more than a thousand years here in the Carpathian Basin and it made us known all over the world. We want to help this process with this book. We hope this book can be also used by those who just want to try this art. We have firm belief that saber fencing as a sport and martial art can stand on its ground these days, too.

To support this, I conjure up the words of Sir Gusztáv Arlow from 1901, who is the writer of one of the remained fencing books in Hungarian language.

He writes the following:

Fencing is not only the dexterity of the body, not only a knowledge, but both of them in an action which uses fully the body and the spirit, too. Fencing is a type of sport, but it is different from others significantly. None of them uses the spirit, the wit and the knowledge at the same time. In none of them is the mental working with the agility of the body linked so tight. This property raises it to art. Its past and profession make it noble; it is a noble fight for noble ideas, for humanity. Since fencing is noble and beautiful.

Introduction

The following chapters contain the whole theoretic and technical curriculum of the Association of the School of the Saber. This is divided into eight levels with the corresponding exam questions (Appendix I–II.). In appendix III, you can read about the competition rules made by the Association, which is used at the training, too. The appendixes IV to VI have documentary nature, themes which are connected to saber fencing, in my opinion. In these appendixes we can read the summary of the work of other writers who are much more skilled in the specific topics. I’ve done it because I think this knowledge should spread in wider area, since some of these books are really rare.

All levels of the curriculum discuss the exercises and the theoretical description of the given level with the use of the following thematic.

The chapters always start with the basics, which contain the current basic steps, attacks, defenses, evade and bare hand parts. After that the various techniques, the endurance and coordination exercises come. A separate part deals with the senses and perception which can be improved while fencing. Then it is followed by the exercises to improve the physical condition and stretching.

The curriculum has the following levels:

Recommended protection

Since the saber is a weapon, beside the control and caution you need a minimal protection. It is true that more protection leads to less control. Considering these I recommend the following protection for fencing.

The hand and the wrist are the areas which are closest to the opponent, and most of the hits happen here. Because of this you need a cushioned and reinforced gauntlet.

Another critical area is the protection of the eyes because a little hit here can cause serious and irreversible injury. The protection of the eyes is very simple. Fully transparent protecting goggles, that can be bought in tinker shops, give perfect protection and don’t hinder the vision at all. Naturally you don’t attack directly this area, but a hit can snap accidentally here.

If you want more serious protection to the head, I recommend the fencing mask, used in the modern fencing. This protects the whole head and hinders the vision only a little. Another advantage of the fencing mask is that we can make the full movement of the head attacks and we do not have to stop the cuts and thrusts before the hit. In this way it will not raise a question that the attack would have hit if we didn’t stop it. This also helps the learning process of the techniques if we do the whole movements and the attack can hit the target.

Respect and giving respect in fencing

In the lives of our ancestors respect and duty had an important role. Even towards enemies who wanted to take their lives. They could consider them great fighters and honorable people, while their goals and beliefs were very different. So our ancestors had great respect to the worthy opponent, independent from their faith and motivation. If they lost they did it with head erect, since they fell by the hands of someone worthy in a noble fight.

This gives the importance of duty in training. Its meaning is that your opponent is not your enemy, and you neither praise yourself if you win, nor look down on yourself if you lose. Who wins is only better at the given time, aside from age and knowledge. Therefore your motivation must be the worthy fight, not the desire of winning without weighing the chances. You should not forget how much you can learn from a lost fight, too.

For giving this respect, we salute with our weapon in the training. We can do it before the free fights and before the exercises, too. The way of the salute can depend on our personal taste. The simplest way is if we bend our upper body, meanwhile we raise our saber before us.

The gripping of the saber

The saber is held in one hand. To perform the subtler movements it’s important how to grip the saber during fencing. The weight of the saber is primarily held by the little finger and the ring-finger. The grip of the middle finger, the index-finger and the thumb must be looser. This provides a wider sweep to the saber. If you grip it too tight with all of your fingers you can perform only rugged moves with a bigger arc. In this way you lose one of the main elements of saber fencing, the artistic finesse. Although, be careful, your grip shouldn’t be too loose either, because then you can’t provide the proper stability, and the blade can easily fall out of your hand. In addition, the fingers must not release the handle, we should just adjust to the strength of our grip.

Considering all of them there are two types of griping. The only difference between them is the position of the thumb.

At the so-called basic grip the thumb closes to the side of the handle. The point of the thumb touches the index-finger. This grip is simpler and more universal, grants a more stable grip at an ordinary use.

The other type is the pistol grip, where the thumb closes from upward, from the direction of the back-edge to the handle. At this grip you have more space for finesse movements, but the stability is different: at sideway cuts this grip grants stable support and firm control, but it makes a gap between the fingers and in that direction the stability of the grip is less efficient.

Figure 1: Basic grip

Figure 2: Pistol grip

Notations used in the book:

1.) The word then or the => sign refers to a next exercise or next level of difficulty in a given grade

2.) Italics refer to exercises which are at higher level than the current exercise, but ranked in the same type.

PART I

CURRICULUM

LEVEL I–VIII

Level I

(beginner)

Basic stance, basic posture

Theory

Basic stance

It’s approximately one and a half shoulder width in diagonal. The leg on the side of the weapon holding arm is in the front. The foot is positioning straight ahead. The other leg is positioned in 45 degrees maximum to the direction you’re moving. Both knees are bent; the weight of body is divided equally and centered. The upper body and the back is straight, the chest is facing straight ahead. (If you lean forward, your head would be the closest target to your opponent. If you lean backward, you can’t keep your balance).

Basic posture

The basic posture is the position of the body and the sword in the optimal pose, both to defend and attack, and ready to move. In this way the main parameters of the good fencing stand as follows:

• the attack must be carried out easily

• the maximum area of the body must be protected

• the arm and the body parts which are closest to the opponent must be defended

• the point of the blade should block the direct attack of the opponent

The proper position of the weapon holding arm: the shoulder muscles are loose, the elbow is bent a little bit, the arm is positioned between the height of the waist and the chest, the forearm is horizontal. The edge of the blade is positioned downward or 45 degrees downward and out, the arm is in front of us in the line of the shoulder. The point of the blade is aiming to the face or neck of the opponent, and is between 30 to 45 degrees to the horizontal. The hand which does not hold a weapon could be in any position, but not hanging (e.g. in front of the chest or held tight to the hip).

Hub (center of gravity)

The bodyweight center of the fencer.

Exercise

1.) First of all, we show both the proper basic stance and the basic posture. All the students take the basic stance then we fix it.

On an order the students stand up to normal stance, then on an order they take the basic fencing stance again.

2.) We try to unbalance the students separately (by pushing) from the basic stance, from 4 or 8 directions, not just horizontally but downward and upward too, meanwhile the others keep the basic stance to practice and strengthen.

3.) Running in a circle or from wall to wall, at a clap take the basic stance, at the next clap run on => run in pairs behind each other, the front student stops randomly and takes the basic stance, the other follows.