Sentiment Three: The Sabre

The Foil is the teaching sword of fencing.

The Epee is the dueling sword of fencing.

The Sabre is...something different.

There is no doubt that the sabre is the most flamboyant of all three weapons, the most ''like a real'' sword. It is the weapon of choice for such famous swashbucklers as Zorro and Rudolf Rassendyll. The sabre originates with the heavier cavalry sabre, and eventually evolved into the modern gaming weapon. Lightweight, with a curved knuckle guard to protect the hand, the modern sabre can be used either to cut with the entire front edge, the back third of the blade, or for a thrust. For sabre, the target area is limited to the entire body above the hips: head, arms, and torso. This choice of target is fairly recent considering the sabre's long and bloody history.

Original and Descendant

Deriving from the Polish word "szabla", which means to cut, the sabre

has its origins on the steppes of Central Asia. A light scimitar, the szabla is a curved sword meant to be used in lethal arcs from horseback. The curvature of the blade as well as the grip enables the cavalry man to literally slice through his opponent with relative ease. With the dynamic changes in warfare throughout the 16th century, the discarding of heavy body armor in Europe led to a search for the ideal cavalry weapon. The sabre fit the bill, and an entire new system of swordplay was developed for it.

From Szabla to Sabre

As the world rolled into the 19th century, the sabre became the symbol of the military. Even in modern times does the sabre hold high rank as the dress sword of choice for both the United States Marines and the Royal Guard in the UK. The sabre is an officer's weapon. Throughout the 1800's the sabre was still used, though with less and less frequency. Methods for its use were based on powerful circular cuts, though nowhere did the sabre hold more prowess than in the 1860's Milan, where Maestro Giuseppe Radaelli developed a novel system for the use of the dueling sabre--sciabola di terrano--a slimmer version of its military cousin. Radaelli's method based the use of the sabre on molinello, circular cuts executed from the elbow, with "sufficient enough strength to remove the opponent from combat".

Luigi Barbasetti, Mollinelo to the head

Pretty straightforward. At around this time, the accepted target according to

most dueling aficionados was the body above the hips, any cut or thrust delivered below that akin to "hitting below the belt" in boxing. The front thigh was considered target however, until at least the 1920's. By the 1950's, the accepted target was anywhere above the hip line. So it most likely thanks to Italian dueling snobs that we have modern sabre target. Some people believe that the tradition came from cavalrymen not wanting to hurt the other man's horse, which is of course not practical in a battle.

Gyorgy Piller, 1926 Olympics

Later former students of Radaelli took his system to other parts of Europe, notably Luigi Barbasetti in Austria and Italo Santelli in Hungary. Santelli, together with the Hungarian master Laszlo Borsodi, furthered Radaelli's work, adapting the Italian sabre system to the sporting sabre, and evolving it to suit the progressively light weapon. Santelli and Borsodi's Hungarian system of sabre relied on the use of the fingers, using tight, simplified parries and lightning fast stop cuts. The Hungarian system quickly showed its dominance throughout the 20th century. And no one demonstrated the system better than Santelli and Borsodi's prototype fencer, Gyorgy Jekelfalussy-Piller.

Piller took the sabre world by storm. From 1930-33 he took gold at the International Fencing Championships, and in 1956 coached the Hungarian sabre team at the Melbourne Olympics. Due to Hungary being brutally overrun by the Soviet Union, Piller and the entire team defected to the United States, where he took on the title of Fencing Master at UC Berkeley. Some of his students included Daniel Magay, John McDougal, and Charles Selberg. I was taught sabre by Michael Heggen, who in turn was taught sabre by Maestri Jim Ciaramitaro and Charles Selberg, so in effect the tradition of Gyorgy Piller still continues today. Modern sabre fencing has changed, becoming a game of lightning fast attacks, parry-ripostes, and the stop-cut. It is very fast, very exciting, and a constant thrill.

Good Fencing!