Why did the brontosaurus die?
Too **** big, I'd guess. The standard notion of the demise of the Spanish school was that it became too theoretical. It was based mainly on arcane patterns of footwork apparently, what became known as mystic circles. Fencers would practice these footwork patterns with arm extended, drilling over and over again. From a CMA perspective, it makes a lot of sense, actually. And it did produce some fantasitc fencers centuries ago. But then, it got weighed down with theory to the point that astrological factors were calculated into duelling - sort of akin to consulting feng shui before battle (what Sun Tzu opposed some 2000+ years ago). Eventually the spanish school became too cumbersome. Most consider it lost. Revivalists are looked on with the same skepticism that we might look on someone who claims to have 'rediscovered' wing chun skirt fighting techniques.
I'd add that the weapon changed in the last century. As steel became stronger and more flexible, they moved to lighter weapons. Contrary to the myth, lighter and faster is better, especially with a sharp. You don't need power with a sharp - the sharp does all the work. You just need speed and accuracy. The Spanish school reigne with people were still using long rapier - and I do mean long, some up to 44+ inches.
FWIW, fencing is an Olympic sport and has been since it's inception. This means that the masters, judges and competitors are strictly certified and regulated on an international level. There are some wayward groups, sort of SCA types, who try to do their own thing like historical fencing, but even though some of them have done some great research, they haven't been able to make the slightest mark on the fencing world. As a weak metaphor, take boxing for example. A century ago, we boxed differently (see the Boxing article in our e-zine). While these ancient schools of boxing are interesting from a historic standpoint, you don't see Lennox Lewis adopt a classical guard position. Now, you can argue that in bare-knuckle days, the classic guard was more useful, just like you can argue in long rapier days, the Sapnish school was more useful. but you can aruge that until you're blue in the face - it won't do crap for you in today's ring (or today's fencing strip).
What's more, today's fencing is electrified, meaning that the weapons are rigged with electronic detectors to reveal unquestionably when a palpable hit has been scored. Now we can register hits that were too fast for the human eye, but would have produced blood on the field of play. That has changed the game significantly. Some argue that we've lost classical form (they do that 'til they're blue in the face too).
Thoughts of the Uninformed . . .
. . . first, great posts.
Second, I wanna do some Spanish fencing. It looks cool, and the Demystification article on it was certainly interesting.
Why do you think those techniques are forbidden?
Here's the point. I'm very familiar with fencing up until about a decade ago, about as familiar as you could be. I had to be, it's where I earned my living. Nobody talked about the Spanish because they weren't even on the map then. The revitalization of the Spanish school is very recent. No, the world may not be limited by my familiarity, but the fencing world is fairly narrow, so it's not hard to be that familiar with it all. Just look at the history of fencing, you won't find much mention of the Spanish school in the last century. Don't make me dust off my Thimm to cite some dates...
Let's look at boxing again. Imagine somebody wanted to use a technique forbidden by modern rules, like say 'elbows'. Of course, the international boxing world would disavow them because it wasn't boxing, so this elbow school did it's own open tournaments and called it elbonian boxing. Let's say be generous and say there are a 1000 people who participate in elbonian boxing. These elbonian boxers never manage to secure any significant wins in any international competition. How do you think the boxing world will react? They'd say "Why should we play this new elbonian boxing game? Why can't you guys play the original game? Is your style to weak to stand up in the normal game?"
The fencing world is much older than the boxing world. We have internationally accepted rules, internationally recognized certification programs for instructors, provosts and masters, and a worldwide following. In short, we are very well established in the world. Can you call your new game something else? SCA or something? Fencing is neatly defined. The whole use of the term "modern fencing' is a bit silly. There's fencing. Then there's people who do stuff with fencing swords. Just like there's boxing and people who do stuff with boxing gloves.
Plus you really lost me here -
Quote:
They hold open tournaments which don't forbid modern techniques and which modern trained fencers can (and do) join. This seems like the modern guys doing the excluding.
- If some 'modern' fencers are joining, who's doing the excluding?