Instruc­tor: Andrew Telesca
Thurs­days from 8:00pm to 9:00pm

The sabre was stud­ied and worn by offi­cers in most West­ern mil­i­taries dur­ing the 18^th and 19^th cen­turies.  It was a sym­bol of rank and sta­tus as well as a valu­able tool in com­bat.  Dur­ing this time period numer­ous dif­fer­ent schools and types of sabre devel­oped through­out Europe, both for encoun­ters of honor and for use on the battlefield.

This class looks at a gen­eral sys­tem of mil­i­tary sabre shar­ing core char­ac­ter­is­tics with many sys­tems taught through­out West­ern Europe.  It is a com­par­a­tively sim­ple sys­tem of fence as would have been taught to sol­diers at the time, whose train­ing was often restricted to a few weeks rather than the years of study given to many other sys­tems of fence.

The class cov­ers all basic ele­ments of sabre use includ­ing cor­rect grip and manip­u­la­tion, the mechan­ics of a good cut, proper stance and guard, foot­work both lin­ear and angu­lar, basic attacks and defenses, coun­ters, actions on the blade, moulinets, feints, the extended phrase and basic con­sid­er­a­tions for address­ing mul­ti­ple opponents.

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