Fencer's Start-Up: A Beginners Guide to Fencing

A very interesting book, I will be exploring this sport further and this was a great starting point.

Fencer's Start-up is an excellent intro and informative source for the beginning fencer- In all three weapons that it goes over, it covers the parries,footwork, basic defence, attacks, and some strategy. Also, the text is very interesting and easy to understand; you wont feel like youre being dragged tediously throughout the book. I highly recommend this- However, fencers BEYOND their first 6 months would NOT find this book as helpful since by then, they would have mastered the things shown.

I checked this book out at a local library in Kansas City when I was looking for a book to help learn the basic skills of fencing. When I first read "Fencer's Start-Up: A Beginner's Guide To Traditional And Sport Fencing" I thought I had discovered at least a primer for the on-guard position, parries and basic attacks. Unfortunatly the descriptions of the body mechanics involved for the moves were to shallow for me to make use of them. I started reading the second half of the book and that is when the book redeemed itself. The author included a short journal of his learning experiences as a fencer. He did manage to be honest throughout the entire journal and that's what makes the second half so good. Not a lot of author's can be totally honest with their readers when they sit down to write even a simple treatise on fencing. The manage to write themselves into a good light as with most short autobiographies but this author didn't.You all came to this book expecting a serious manual on the art of fencing and I think that is the wrong attitude to approach this book with. Try to think of this book as a tool to get a young person passionate about the sport by showing them how simple a game it is to play. Most of the books on fencing I have read have a stern classical view of fencing, one that keeps it's full people potential chained back by tradition. What I mean is that most of the books I have read do not make fencing look like something that can be done by just anyone. They confine the sport to the rich, the elite or those who already have friends or family fencing. This books was a small attempt to change that by showing people the game without a great deal of tradition. For that it is a book I would want in my library. For those of you who don't agree with what I have said I say, "Tough."

Fencer's Start-Up is the best introduction book, you can buy, for someone if they have no idea, of what fencing is, or how it is played. It doesn't have the history of traditions of fencing lurking around every page either. Children or teenagers interested in fencing would especially benefit from this book.

FENCER'S START-UP is a light, energetic, easy to read book, full of enthusiasm for fencing. It is well suited to the needs of the beginning fencer whose goal is simply to have a good time. As a fencing master, I recommend this book