Lightsaber Dueling Registered as Official Sport in France (theguardian.com) 109
It's now easier than ever in France to act out Star Wars fantasies. The country's fencing federation has officially recognized lightsaber dueling as a competitive sport, granting the weapon from George Lucas's space saga the same status as the foil, epee and sabre, the traditional blades used at the Olympics. From a report: Of course, the LED-lit, rigid polycarbonate replicas can't slice an opponent in half. But they look and sound remarkably like the blades that Yoda and other characters wield in the blockbuster movies. The physicality of lightsaber combat is part of the reason why the French Fencing Federation is now equipping fencing clubs with lightsabers and training would-be lightsaber instructors. Like virtuous Jedi knights, the federation sees itself as combatting a Dark Side: the sedentary habits of 21st-century life.
"With young people today, it's a real public health issue. They don't do any sport and only exercise with their thumbs," says Serge Aubailly, the federation's secretary general. "That is why we are trying to create a bond between our discipline and modern technologies, so participating in a sport feels natural." In the past, Zorro, Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers helped lure new practitioners to fencing. Now, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader are joining them. "Cape-and-sword movies have always had a big impact on our federation and its growth," Aubailly says. "Lightsaber films have the same impact. Young people want to give it a try."
"With young people today, it's a real public health issue. They don't do any sport and only exercise with their thumbs," says Serge Aubailly, the federation's secretary general. "That is why we are trying to create a bond between our discipline and modern technologies, so participating in a sport feels natural." In the past, Zorro, Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers helped lure new practitioners to fencing. Now, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader are joining them. "Cape-and-sword movies have always had a big impact on our federation and its growth," Aubailly says. "Lightsaber films have the same impact. Young people want to give it a try."
I wonder... (Score:4, Informative)
Who knows. But here's a list [topendsports.com] of other odd sports that exist.
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Traditional Fencing is an expensive sport to learn. There is a lot of safety equipment that needs to be tailored to you, and a well balanced and crafted saber or foil isn't cheap too. Especially compared to a $20 football (choose your brand of foot ball) and an other $100 worth of safety equipment
Light Saber with these toy Sabers, are actually much safer, and you don't need such a high barrier to entry to the sport.
With all the thing in the world, Sports with a well regulated and organized way to beating th
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I made "lightsabers" for my boys for $1 each. Get some inexpensive pool noodles, shiny silver duct tape, and black tape (electrical tape works well). Cut the pool noodle in half. Wrap silver duct tape around one end to make a "handle." Add the black tape to make decorative fixtures like "buttons." Now, you can battle and whack each other with your lightsabers without hurting each other. Depending on the length of the pool noodle, each one might make two sabers - or only one with some bits left over. These s
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Do you seriously think that's confusing to children?
Either children sometimes get hit with shit regardless of whether they beat each other with sticks, in which case they learn anyway.
Or they don't sometimes get hit, in which case it doesn't matter whether they learn it because it never happens.
A Grave Situation (Score:2)
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Yeah, no. Fenced my whole life. Foil and mask - around $70. 'Light Saber' on Amazon - around $20 for cheapest, $200 for expensive (no current masks or use the same ones). As you can "poke your eye out" with either, there's protective gear for both (I would fucking hope) and *both* are 'tailored' as long as you define tailored as getting a jacket your size.
Toys will deteriorate with use much faster, so replacements will be more often. Foil blade breaks (happens, not frequently) - install another (3 f
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Traditional Fencing is an expensive sport to learn. There is a lot of safety equipment that needs to be tailored to you
I usually buy my fencing supplies from Home Depot. Safety glasses are about $10 and seem to fit well off the shelf.
Disney Lawyers (Score:2)
Lawsuit incoming in 3....2....1.....
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That would be kinda stupid, no? If Lightsaber dueling becomes an official sport, they can make a fortune selling actual "Official Licensed Gear" of the sport.
They could become the next Wilson of Lightsabers, and only sue the people selling knockoff products.
wedgie (Score:4, Funny)
The longer I live, the more I understand why nerds get bullied.
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The more generic form is "the longer I live, the more I think most people are idiots".
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No longer (Score:2)
The longer I live, the more I understand why nerds get bullied.
Going to slow down substantially when the bullies find themselves beaten with glowing, sound emitting staffs.
Re:wedgie (Score:5, Insightful)
It's no more nerdy than foil fencing, just less old. It's also about as abstracted from reality as foil fencing.
Any exercise program that you actually do is a good one. If light sabers motivate people, more power to them.
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If light sabers motivate people, more power
I see what you did.
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The modern foil fencing saber is a bastardized form of the original saber,
The sport fencing technique has no relation at all to acual historical saber technique (YouTube is full of HEMA videos that explain this - there's a whole different martial art for historical accuracy). BTW, many cavalry sabers were straight, designed primarily for thrusting as one rode by one's target.
Light sabre fencing also has nothing to do with historical saber technique, but it wouldn't surprise me if they grow closer over time as the historical martial arts actually needed to be effective, and presu
Re:wedgie (Score:4, Insightful)
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I can accept that bullying is sad and bad and at the same time understand its motivation.
I guess nerds don't do nuance.
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You sound like my wife.
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I don't know about bullying a guy that had spent a couple hundred hours learning from a fencing instructor... light saber or other wise he could probably grab a broom stick and do some damage. Worse yet, he could be a Trekkie and go for a sharpened Bat'leth made of stainless steel you wouldn't need any training to do some damage with that.
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Meh ... modern fencing (foil, épée) is 99% pistol grip, which simply doesn't translate into a broom, stick, or 'real' sword. As for the Bat'leth, you're absolutely right, they would do some damage ... to themselves. The thing is fundamentally unbalanced, and nigh on useless in combat (as choreographed in the shows).
HEMA would be a better place to start ... but even there, weapons are changing to take advantage of the rules (e.g. longswords are becoming slightly longer than historical records sug
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I wouldn't think the technique of a lightsabre, if such things existed, would be anything like fencing. I'm thinking something more along the lines of the Chinese jian or longsword.
https://youtu.be/4XTK0ursJkk [youtu.be]
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We have footage of actual lightsaber duellists, and I'm not sure the bullies are worried.
https://youtu.be/H_Z9orDS84c [youtu.be]
Épée (Score:3)
We don't go around calling your cities "Nouveau York" or "Laveington/Laverton".
It's spelled "épée [wikipedia.org]" not "epee".
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Nouveau York is ungrammatical. It's Nouvel-York.
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No such word as "Nouvel". In the masculine form it's "nouveau" and in the feminine form it's "nouvelle".
So it would be either "Nouveau York" or "Nouvelle York", depending on if you define "York" as male or female.
Great (Score:1)
Now we just need to invent light sabers.
Registered? (Score:2)
What's the penalty for participating in an unregistered sport?
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What's the penalty for participating in an unregistered sport?
They take your ball and go home.
Re:Registered? (Score:4, Funny)
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Surrender?
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I guess the penalty of competing in an unrecognized discipline of fencing was ineligibility for recognition of your club's activity by your country's governing body of fencing.
You can't really expect the French to man up... (Score:1)
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Kendo? They invented Kendo? (Score:3)
Seriously .. it looks like Kendo .. https://youtu.be/n7XfOA7Ly6U [youtu.be]
No harm in it (Score:3)
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If people are having fun, why does it have to accomplish anything?
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Kendo The Japanses sport (Score:4, Interesting)
The Japanese sport of Kendo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] using a bamboo sword called a shinai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] is very close to lightsaber fighting.
It's no weirder than real fencing (Score:3)
It's really no weirder than a sport based on obsolete weaponry (used in a way that that nobody gets hurt with).
In today's world, light sabers are not especially more fictional that swords, as far as everyday life goes.
Well... Less likely to get hurt? (Score:3)
It seems like fun unless you get nailed in the wrong place. Thou I wonder if plastic stick dueling (which is more accurate) would take the fun out of it.
Oh, that's nothing... (Score:2)
Among other things, the duelists tended to freely acknowledge when their opponents scored a hit. It was the honorable thing to do.
Buckshot! (Score:3)
You are NOT deflecting all 9 pellets of 00 Buckshot with a lightsaber!.
Fencing has a problem (Score:3)
I've said this before (and promptly got yelled at in the comments), but I'll say it again:
The problem with Western fencing is that it just isn't much fun to watch. This is true even if you've done some fencing yourself, and can sort-of follow what is going on. In recent years, the Olympic bouts haven't even been televised.
The main issue is that the action is over in about two seconds. The other issue is that you usually can't follow what happened in those two seconds. Quite often it appears that both fencers have scored a hit, and the question of who gets a point comes down to the judge's interpretation of arcane "right-of-way" rules.
This is just wrong. Swordfighting is supposed to be fun to watch! How on earth do you take a swordfight and turn it into something duller than a golf tournament? Western fencing rules, that's how.
It's time they developed some variant forms of fencing. To begin with, get rid of the idea that the action should grind to a halt whenever anyone scores a valid touch-- and get rid of the idea that anything which happens a half-second after the touch "doesn't count". Boxing doesn't work that way. MMA doesn't work that way. Neither does real swordfighting, I would imagine.
While you're at it, why does everything have to take place on a fencing strip, where your only options for movement are "forward" and "back"? What is this, a side-scroller video game?
(Of course, on a serious note, I recognize that traditional Western fencing has its devoted followers, and I'm not suggesting that it should be abandoned. But variant forms can, and should, exist along the traditional forms.)
Color me unimpressed (Score:2)