By The Sword

The Darwin travels have finally ended, but it's a busy catch-up day here at the office, so here's a quick set of lunch-time links for your enjoyment. John Clements of the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts has a piece at io9 entitled, "Swordfighting: Not What You Think It Is". The article style is a little blustery, but it is nonetheless interesting. You can also drop by the ARMA website and check out their web documentary on historical sword fighting techniques and check out some of their training and practice video clips.

Being of the geeky brand of athlete, my high school sport was fencing, and although I enjoyed it a lot, I would certainly agree with Clement's contention that modern competitive fencing (in part due to the arbitrary nature of some of its rules) is very little like real sword combat, even dueling combat.