Sword Skills

 

I began teaching boffer combat as a inexpensive way to get kids fencing. As such, most of the skills I teach come from the disciplines of modern western fencing. Recruits start out with an arming sword, learning the basics of footwork, keeping proper distance, and the various parries. We put great focus on properly executed attacks to help our recruits learn weapon control -- a critical component of safe fencing.

 

Once the recruits develop competence with the arming sword, we begin introducing the other basic weapons: dirk, short sword, bastard sword, great sword, axe, war axe, mace, war hammer, and spear. All of these weapons utilize parries and attacks based on the standard arming sword techniques, but have individual strengths -- particularly when being used against armored opponents.

 

Advanced recruits who have learned all the weapons sometimes use two at once -- a practice we refer to as dual-wielding. The techniques utilized by these recruits are similar to eskrima, or to traditional poniard-rapier fencing.