Ota's attack at 3:15 is fantastic; feint to draw the parry, then a funky disengage to score. Then at 4:03 he has that lightning fast parry-riposte. These guys are moving so quickly and so cleanly, it's really a thing of beauty when those one-light touches hit.

Kudos to the polish guy He managed to get it back on the last seconds and that last hit was really really nice. Great way to finish the games

Thx this was great refferance for my presentation.

YOU GUYS KIDDING ME!!!! THIS IS EPIC!!!!!

I really like this sport , I'm in an inter school competition tomorrow, I get an adrenaline rush every competition it's amazing :)

there uniforms for the sport is so awesome. Slow mo this action with a driving soundtrack and you got yourself an advertisement for corporate ethics and policy. the uniforms are what makes this sport WORK. They look so futuristic. The sport itself is very precise which is anothermain reason i like it.

this makes me wanna take fencing now

@TheSuperbug10 Not so, i am practicing fencing over 2 years and we train very much and very hard every day. It's hard but it is the most noble sport, and i love it.

fencing is the coolest sport ever created

That was a nice video!

Thank You!

Love the footwork. I remember Bruce Lee said he studied fencing footwork as part of his overall training.

Great I love fencing

Awesome song in the beginning

Wow. What a match.

God Bless you guys.

I don't why everyone's hating those guys move so fast I wish I could keep up when the action is hot. Reaction skills of a fly dude it's insane.

wish you could see the 2012 olympics that's on right now. love to watch it.Go US!!!!

Revolutionary Girl Utena!

Best sport ever ^^^^

But still, they tried that really made me happy.Who knew they could make it this far :D

@StringQuartetFan thank you

this looks so much fun :( i wanna do this

Watch the SUPER FENCING ATHENS 2004 in the related videos. That clip shows what fencing really is.

i love watching ota fence :)

The Japanese guy's hit for 35 points was sick!

There are other forms of fencing that are more interesting for the eye than this. But personally I think this is very exciting. Just in a few milliseconds they are able to cause deadly wounds with precision. This is european art. Seen how fast a match in kendo is? This is basically the same.

that was really cool

@peutch thanks for making that clear and easy-to-understand explanation, because I was wondering the same thing as KraZKaiL. How come the head/face is not valid? Is this for safety of the fencers?

lmao im watching this while listening to epic movie soundtracks xD so much more awesome!

the polish guy really seems to be in control of this whole bout... the japanese guy didn't keep enough distance for this guy

@tubermann1 The commands are in French because fencing originated in France and the entire sport is taught with the original French names of the actions. That is why even though a Japanese Fencer is bouting against a Polish fencer French is still used.

anyone who doesn't see how the concepts of fencing can be applied to other martial arts (bruce lee even studied it and derived at least some knowledge/technique from it) why does it always have to be about one 'art' or 'style' but just taking the concepts that WORK for you Champion footwork/timing on both sides here in this video

@peutch Thanks ! Finally I understand what is going on!

Damn those fellows are fast with those swords. And that crouch looked like extra-cool =D

Coz you really have to play the sport to truly learn it. I suggest you watch epee fencing.. which is much simpler :)

the sword things are so wobbly, it looks like they are trying to tickle eachother

@PissedFechtmeister although it does look like this, it is a attack-> mal-parry > riposte, mal parry means the parry was performed after the blade had hit. it often happens and is often miscalled, much to my personnal annoyance as an aggressive fencer. :P

@KytoNova What about Michael Phelps?

In a Fencing duel between Poland, and Japan, it may come quite naturally that Poland would come out on top; now, let's try Kendo.

Glonek at 7:17 looks like attack-no, parry-riposte-no, remise of the attack-yes. I can't tell if Ota ever hits his blade a second time, but one light doesn't lie.

that means that you should start your own uni club. See if you can gather people to join (do you have like sports fairs or something), talk to your university gym and before you realize you'll have something solid for sure ;)

@stopcicles actually the swords are a thin very flexible steel that bends when contact is made and those suits are a thick cotton so not really

lucky people i find this sport interesting but they don't do it in my country

i trained in singapore for a while and they encourage a similar low engarde where you don't engage the opponent. TroyRiot314 is correct - it draws the opponent into an attack; but my coach in singapore told me that having your weapon low also allows you to take prime, 4th and 6th parries at your discrection... if you come engarde with your weapon upwards, your choice of parry is limited by where your opponent initially attacks (unless you take a counter parry).

intense match

One more time

Hi, does anyone know where to find summer fencing classes in St. Louis? I'd like to leaarn but I'm having trouble finding classes.

@fanmanabc Sounds complicated. I am still lost, but thanks for taking the time to explain.

if you slow the entire video down to 1/100 of a sec and then watch you will find its the exact same video....only slower!

Fencer on the right has great form.

@WeRideTonite You don't need a straightened arm, just a straightening arm (plus lunge/step-lunge/fleche/step-fleche), for an attack - the only time Glonek's arm needs to be straightening is just before Ota's lunge starts, and it does imo. The difference between a counter-attack and an attack on preparation can be quite small - some older fencers don't like foil being refereed this way, but that's how it's refereed these days. Also, Ota parries 4 after his c-attack lands, not before.

@DM05 You bend them when you get them to make sure they always bend the same way and the stuff to make it electric makes it look like that

@KraZKaiL At foil, you have to hit the trunk of the opponent. Each fencer has a coloured light and a white one. If a fencer hits the opponent on the trunk, the coloured light will go. If he hits on a non-valid area (e.g. leg or arm), the white light will go. So lights helps the referee see if the hit was valid or not. On top of that, there is a priority system in foil: if both fencers hit each other on the valid area (both coloured lights green and red), only the attacker will score a point.

@Amagieke it's One more time by Daft Punk

Whoa fencing is FAST. three fights in six secondS?!??!?

what? You are not explaining the priority in the attack and the counterattack?? ;)

Sabre is cool because it's like swashbuckling But the matches are almost too abrupt for my tastes Foil is more refined and more fun to watch for me

Japan's technique seems to be to keep the saber low - why is that? what advantage?

it seems like the guy with the longest reach would have a pretty significant advantage.

ONE MORE TIME ! :D

In foil, only the front and back torso are scoring areas. There is also right of way which is complicated and a Google search will explain it better than I can...but it basically determines who can score at a given moment. A red/green light means the corresponding person landed an on-target hit. A yellow/white light means their attack was off target.

supper

@fleetfingers77 this kind of reminds me of Taekwondo olympics. they kind of act the same the way they bounce then attack.

For those unfamiliar, anywhere on the chest and back is basicly on target. Head, arms, and legs are off target. If you notice they have a grey vest on which is the on target area, there's a little electricity running through it and their blade, so when they hit the other person's vest, it forms a circuit, lighting up their green or red point signals.

I do fencing and the people who don't think this is epic, you DO NOT appreciate the art of fencing! :(

It would probably be better to look at if they did not stop it every 2 seconds (every touch with the "side" of the foil). It would also make it a much more challenging sport...

Good match, I was kind of hoping Japan would win though ^_^

i dont think ive ever been this dissapointed

Fencing strategies are difficult since you only get to use 1 arm.

@pluralZZ9 They were bendy back when they were pointy too lol. Its just the type of sword it is.

I have my first fencing lesson today, I hope I don't get too many bruises!

@jondthan1 They're using a sort of very thin sword, called a foil, similar to what the spanish used in duals. Effectively, it's just a bendy piece of metal with a protective nib on the end. Basically, if you hit the other person with the tip of the sword, like a stab, you score one point. You have to hit them on the torso, however, otherwise it's a "foul" and you re-start from the same positions. too many fouls in a row, and you concede a point. Other types of swords have other rules, though.

In foil, the only valid target area is the torso. the green and red lights are on-target points. the white lights are off target hits.

"Let us gingerly touch our tips!" -Role Models

at about 6:47 the guy on the left gets the green light meaning he's scored but the other guy got him first or that is what it looks like to me

@bloganity fencing for a year and a half, and im a relatively fit guy, but fencing is tiring. to keep up the intensity like olympians is hard. though it might not look like much, but moving that fast with 4 layers (undershirt, sous plastron, plastron, and lamé) for that long at that intensity is hard work.

There is no doubt it's skilled but there is also no doubt that this is a rediculous looking sport.

it would be more exiciting if they weren't pausing every 5 seconds..

for foil specifically, the purpose is to depress the tip of the blade on your opponent's lame (the metal vest they are wearing). the white lights in this case mean off target - the point was depressed on something other than the vest. fencing is a sport. if you still do not understand, the blunt description is, you are pretending to stab each other with swords.

i absolutely love the finesse that is so evident in this sport.

can anyone tell me what the colors mean?

ONE MORE TIME

@absol8god I don't know what kind of fencing you practise, but you DO need to move a lot, especially in foil and even more so in saber. (A little less in épée.) So I get tell you that it is a complete sports, requiring a lot of movement, and flexibility, but also endurance (especially in competition.)

The poland fencer just kept getting japan in oreperation almost every point.

That was an exciting match. I usually find fencing boring.

guys dont get mad at me cuz i just found out about fencing, but are the swords supposed to look so flimsy?

Omg this is insane. I thought i could get good quick becuz i was learning from one of the old champions but this is impossible. I now realize my teachers been messing with me the whole time

lol its a bit hard to explain online - if you have a fencing club near where you live (most universities have one), or you know someone who fences, they could show you the rules.

@InvestmentBankr The 4:14-4:18 action looked to me like Ota's countertime. Glonek attacked into his preperation and Ota parried and and made the touch. Could be wrong but that's what I see...

i wonder do the japanese do japanese kendo techniques on the sly to defeat their opponents........guess i wont figure that out until i face em in the olympic games.

it you took skills in improved poisons, only takes 1 cut to kill hamlet.

the music before is hilarious

Glonek performs beautifully! His thrusts are always so precise!

@SWCeagles2007 I suppose you could... but you would lose every time. Long swords are meant for slashing not piercing. In my stage combat class we actually had a discussion around a similar question. It wasn't whether you could use a long sword for fencing but rather which one would dominate. We ended up agreeing that it really depends on the wielder... but I still think I would put my bet on the rapier. I think I'd rather have speed over power.

@danpascooch I was reading and I agree with you on a few points but I do have to point something out. Katana's are extremely light, easy to swing and maneuver by trained hands, and slice through the air much easier than a broad sword. I've never seen a foil (saber would be a better comparsion) compared to a katana so one can't really say which is better. A katana preforms a slicing action rather than stabbing, so covering the face is not completely necessary if you are trained to defend it.

@TheBProVo good luck with that

Anyone get the impression that if the swords were sharp, nearly every fencing match would result in a double fatality?

Darn, i was rooting for Ota thinking he'd win

@TheMcsnails Have you ever fenced before? Try it and report back.