In the broadest possible sense, fencing is the art of armed combat involving cutting, stabbing, or bludgeoning weapons directly manipulated by hand, rather than shot or thrown. Example weapons include swords, knives, pikes, bayonets, batons, clubs, and similar. In contemporary common usage, fencing tends to refer specifically to European schools of swordsmanship and to the modern Olympic sport that has evolved out of them. Fencing is one of the four sports that has been featured at every modern Olympic Games. The modern weapons for sport fencing are the foil, épée, and sabre. Foils and épées are very similar. They both involve the use of the point, stabbing the opponent, while in sabre, one can use the sides of the weapon, and cut or stab. The term 'Fencing' derives from the expression, "The Art of Defense", meaning the art of defending oneself in combat. This article is predominantly about Olympic fencing.
Three weapons survive in modern competitive fencing: foil, épée, and sabre. The spadroon and the heavy cavalry-style sabre, both of which saw widespread competitive use in the 19th century, fell into disfavour in the early 20th century with the rising popularity of the lighter and faster weapon used today, based on the Italian duelling sabre. The singlestick was featured in the 1904 Olympic Games, but it was already declining in popularity at that time. Bayonet fencing experienced a somewhat slower decline, with competitions organized by some armed forces as late as the 1940s and 1950s. At one time, combat with staves of various lengths, spears, halberds, axes, daggers, wrestling, shields and flails were all considered fencing. Today these weapons are the preserve of historical fencing.
While the weapons fencers use differ in size and purpose, their basic construction remains similar across the disciplines. Every weapon has a blade and a hilt. The tip of the blade is generally referred to as the point. The hilt consists of a guard and a grip. The guard (also known as the coquille, or the bellguard) is a metal shell designed to protect the fingers. The grip is the weapon's actual handle. There are a number of commonly used variants. The more traditional kind tend to terminate with a pommel, a heavy nut intended to act as a counterweight for the blade. The more popular grip style used is the Visconti, more commonly referred to as a "pistol grip." It is more ergonomical, contouring to the fencer's hand.
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