Assumptions and the Exploration of Historical Fencing In the
past, an adolescent would grow up in a community that would have
exposed him to considerable violence. The nature of personal
armed combat would not have been unfamiliar. As he matured a
young man would have acquired a certain intuitive understanding
of it. By contrast, youths today grow up largely ignorant of
anything to do with the physical reality of such fighting.
Instead, they are informed by the imaginary conceptions of video
games, educated in the fantasy assumptions of popular
entertainment, and influenced through countless delusions
commonly fostered by many commercialized Asian fighting arts and
martial sports. Though often overlooked today, in historical
swordplay there was a simple truth at work: When people are
actually trying to kill you, things are evaluated differently.
Trying to make ourselves better aware of these differences is
part of our task... As anyone now involved in the serious study
of extinct European martial arts analyze