Fencing and Training

Since our advanced fencing camp I’ve stepped up both my training and my fencing. I’ve also started reading James well regarded “Strength Training for Fencers” which, so far is illuminating. Example: connective tissue develops one seventh as fast as muscle tissue which is one of the reasons that strength training needs to proceed at a proper pace and why injuries are such a real danger as you seek to increase strength.

All of which alludes to an interesting point. Literature is rife with fencing and sword fighting of all kinds. Archetypical heroes with little or no experience or training regularly trounce evil villains presumably hampered by their years of practice. Rarely, if ever, is the necessity of training given it’s due or even any attention. The two obvious reasons are that most writers aren’t fencers and, more importantly, training is singularly undramatic. A story about Ralph who trains harder and more effectively than Fred then triumphs over him in the grand Pris de Fer tournament in Wiley, Oklahoma isn’t particularly interesting.

But training, for all kinds of reasons, is fundamental to the sport and it must have always been so. Further it isn’t enough to have trained once. It’s a continuing essential. Fencing isn’t riding a bicycle.

There are a few counter examples of course. When Horatio expresses his concern after Hamlet accepts the king’s request that he fence Laertes, Hamlet replies, “…since he went into France I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds.” Shakespeare knew a bit about fencing it seems.

I’d love to read something fictional about fencing in which training, in all its complexity, with all its nuances, is given its proper role.