THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE TEACHING ME!

That’s Not What You’re Teaching Me!

By Nick Evangelista

It never fails.

When one of my students watches the fencing during the Olympics, or they scan YouTube to watch some fencing videos for some pointers, someone inevitably comes to me the next time they have a lesson, describe what they saw, and they say, “That’s not what you are teaching me!” And I always reply, “No, I’m teaching you to fence.” And here they look like they are lost. I shrug, “We live in a post-modern world where things that aren’t are.”

They don’t understand, being denizens of the Twenty-First Century, that the world hasn’t always been what they see on their cellphone screens, and maybe never was, even with the words “certified” and “consensus” attached to them.  “Official” can be purchased, and conventional thought may wither with age. I am from another planet called the Twentieth Century, which, although having many faults, it still had a straightforward underpinning epitomized by tradition and a sense of mastery, a work ethic that demanded an old-fashioned, Old World sense of quality and honesty that transcended the superficial. That is the world I grew up in.

I explain to students:

Fencing was once another game that had its roots in something called, The Logic of the Sharp Point. The idea was to hit and not be hit. This was a hard and fast concept embedded in rules and honored by masters of the Old School--French, Italian, Spanish mostly--for whom fencing wasn’t a game but a way of life founded in principles of survival that weren’t to be trifled with. This was the fencing world I inherited from my teacher, and which I will follow, as an unbroken thread, to the end of my days. To my way of thinking, this link to the past gives real meaning to what I pass on to others.

Fighting with swords, as a martial art, was the impetus for fencing for centuries, the things one learned to stay alive in antagonistic encounters. Besides potentially extending one’s longevity, these behavior modifications had a positive effect on both the psyche and the body, even if it didn’t turn one into a killing machine. When fencing shed its lethal its lethal origins, it was still a problem-solving device, an engaging exercise, a confidence builder, a map to the past and future, ennobling the spirit and making the body and mind a more durable whole.

But then, one by one, the old fencing masters died of old age, and there was no one left to hold back the tide of change. New “masters” filled the void. There was talk of speeding up the game, simplifying it, making it relevant to modern times. I heard it said a million times, “That’s the way they do it in Europe now. Fencing is changing. Get used to it.”  The powers-that-be announced that fencing was evolving; but to me, as the process, refitted to athleticism over mastery, it was fast being lobotomized into a one-note scramble, sans defence, to simply hit first.

Today, official fencing, called “sport” or “Olympic” fencing, is built around the ubiquitous electric scoring machine. I like to describe it as modern fencing’s “life support” system, because modern fencers couldn’t operate effectively without it’s flashing lights and buzzing buzzers. Without it, fencing would die in a deafening din of physical gibberish. In this incarnation of fencing, we see the one note Logic of the Scoring Box, which presents the simple premise of hitting your opponent before he/she hits you, a modern equivalent of Old West quick draw shootout. Most exchanges, if you could call them that, are over in seconds. It’s boring. And that is all we are left with. Well, that and childish displays of imagined brilliance by fencers trying to convince the officials, through their over played exuberance, that they deserve the touch over their opponent’s equally over played exuberance. A question: should performance art truly be part of fencing? Remove the innards from the game, and all you have left is a stuffed animal that looks like something it isn’t.

This incarnation of fencing, fermenting over the last forty years, reflects the modern demand for instant gratification which can only be arrived at by cutting loose five thousand years of striving for mastery. It’s a video game on steroids. Yes, a different game. Once upon a time, fencing was a life skill, a way of thinking and doing that transcended the fencing strip. When I see modern fencing, with its bellowing, running, leaping pokers, I say to myself, “Well, it is a sport. And it certainly is an athletic sport. But what’s the point of it?” I have been fencing for over fifty-one years, and I still find newness and challenges hidden within my fencing’s boundaries. That’s because there is so much to discover in the traditional game of fencing.

This is what I tell students who ask me that godawful question. And, by the time I finish, there is a long moment of silence before we go back to the lesson proper, and I say, “Let’s get you on guard.”

No one ever asks me for clarification on this issue.