[[Back to Jeff's Page]]I've started fencing again after a long break to let life intrude on hobbies. Mostly I fencing Olympic style epee (Three Rivers Fencing Club)-- also I fence various forms of rapier in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). If you fence epee in Pittsburgh and I don't know you, please send me email...
Philosopher Rene Descartes and Explorer Sir Richard Burton were fencing masters.
Other fencers famous for non-fencing accomplishments: Winston Churchill (English PM was "public" schools foil champ), General George Patton (Olympian), President Theodore Roosevelt (single-stick) musicians Neil Diamond (NYU sabreur) and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson (foilist), poet Ezra Pound (taught Yeats how to fence -- interesting to imagine), writers T.H. White (Once and Future King) and of course Alexandre Dumas (Three Musketeers), who was regarded as the world's expert on all matters related to fencing and the duel.
Although the electricity used to score fencing bouts is very safe (about 500 milliamps, barely enough for a tingle), a Hungarian fencer is reported to have electrocuted himself by stepping barefoot onto a copper fencing strip that was accidentally grounded to the wall socket.
Although fencing is not regarded as a particularly strenuous sport, fencers showed the greatest leg strength for a given muscle size of any Olympic athletes; and even very ordinary fencers score very highly on hand-eye reflex tests given to elite athletes. These achievements are built by fencing, not genetically programmed.
A French proverbial expression for a sneaky, dirty trick is a "coup de Jarnac," after a stroke which Jarnac used to defeat a better swordsman (and the king's favorite) in the 16th century. Actually, there was nothing dirty about it.
Many of the ballet positions are derived from fencing -- they were used in 17th century dances at the French court, partly because they could be readily taught to the men and partly because of their combination of grace and strength.
Jean Louis, from Haiti, of French and African descent, is reputed the finest fencer who ever lived. A French officer, he won one duel fighting with a foil against his opponent's sharp-pointed weapon: first he humiliated his opponent by calling which button he was going to pick off -- one at a time -- then winning the duel by slashing him across the face. On another occasion, he defeated all the officers of a rival regiment in succession.
The plot of the film "The Duellists" by Ridley Scott, based on a story by Conrad, is in turn based very closely on a real rivalry during the Napoleonic wars.