Fencing with Sabers

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by ariel

My only hesitation is that the functional "uselessness" of the blade segment from the point of persussion to the very tip of the sword shortens its working span. I tried to wield some highly curved shamshirs and, just like with Black Sea Yataghans, it was quite difficult to judge the distance.
Surely, a well-placed slash with a shamshir would be highly efficacious, but to place it well while pretending to fight on foot presented a problem, at least for me. Must have required a different system of fencing.

Let's not forget that Mr. Z. was a professional fencer and valued speed, economy of movements and precision very highly. I guess the ability to stop the blade, to turn it on a dime and to precisely assess the distance must have been highly valuable for him. I am unaware of any written contemporary manuals of shamshir fighting. Or Yataghan, in the same vein. In general, it was mainly Westerners who had the compulsion to classify, systematize and put on paper everyting. But, as they say " If you do not write it down, it does not exist"....

I don't necessarily disagree. As I said, it's a design that's far from optimal for the thrust, thus significantly limiting options for technique. I still wouldn't want to defend against someone on foot with one.

Were shamshir used exclusively by horseman? Were they primary weapons? I suspect they probably weren't a rank-and-file weapon in any event. I'm also not so sure we should expect every sword to be a good fencing weapon.