[Fencer] En garde!

[gentle piano music]

[metal swords clanging]

Hey there, my name's Christina Traister.

[bell dinging]

[Host] Christina is a fight master,

fight director, and certified teacher

with the Society of American Fight Directors.

She's also an associate professor of Acting and Stage Combat

at the University of Michigan.

Today, I'll be breaking down clips from movies

and T.V. about swordfighting.

Tactical advantage, Game of Thrones.

I always drink before a fight.

It could get you killed.

It could get me killed.

Y'know, drinking before you're gonna go in and try to

fight to the death would be a really, really bad idea.

[metal clanging] [warriors grunting]

So we see two very different body types

and styles of fighting in here.

We see what is a whirling dervish kind of form

with a lot of spinning that's happening,

a lot of changing of levels,

going from full height down to a knee,

spinning away from your opponent.

He's also using what is almost a spear, a long quarter staff

with a spear point on the end and that is good

for his body type because he's keeping distance

between himself and the Mountain.

[men grunting]

You raped her!

You murdered her!

You killed her children!

So his use of movement is brilliant,

because he is a moving target at all times.

But what he's doing is a lot of deflecting parries

that are happening, so as an attack's coming in

he's moving out of the way and deflecting the energy of it

so that's how he's able to go up against steel.

[Mountain yelling]

I feel like Martell is more fit so that cardio advantage,

if the fight went on longer, I think would have been

to his advantage versus the Mountain.

Where he messes up is he lets his guard down.

And yet you haven't confessed!

Say it, say her name!

And the Mountain is genius, he just lays there

and plays possum, right?

Until...

Then it's all over, because he is literally

twice his body weight.

[crowd screaming]

Fighting when injured, Monty Python.

Move your stupid [beep], you've got no arms left!

[Black Knight] Yes, I have, look!

Just a flesh wound.

If it's just a flesh wound, as they say,

or a scratch, you could keep going.

What are you gonna do, bleed on me?

It also depends upon the adrenaline dump that happens,

right, the endorphins that start to kick in.

I'm invincible! But in terms of organs

being pierced or losing arms and legs, no.

[Black Knight] Have at you!

Come on, then!

It's not very realistic, but is hysterical.

[Black Knight] All right, we'll call it a draw.

Fencing techniques, The Princess Bride.

[metal clanging]

You are using Bonetti's Defense against me, ah?

Naturally! You must expect me

to attack with Capa Ferro!

But I find the temple cancels out Capa Ferro!

Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa!

So these terms, Agrippa, Bonetti, Capa Ferro,

they're all actually people who were fencing masters

in Italy during the 16th century.

Although there is one Dutch dude that's in there.

No one of consequence.

They're referring to these men

who were coming up for the first time with manuals

that could be studied during that time.

You are wonderful! Thank you.

I've worked hard to become so.

So what's really interesting about the storytelling

of this clip is that neither one of these characters

has ever met their match before.

Why are you smiling?

Because I know something you don't know.

So they start out with quick little moves.

And what is that? I am not left-handed!

[dramatic string music]

Then, once they realize they finally have someone

that they could compete with them,

they switched to their dominant hand.

I'm not left-handed either.

[triumphant brass music]

What we try to do a lot of times is train with our

non-dominant hand to strengthen our dominant hand.

It also helps to balance out our fighting styles.

[dramatic orchestral music] [swords clanging]

So the one critique I would have about this scene

is that the swords they're using are almost rubbery.

They're going so fast that they're bending in frame

and if you're a nerd who's watched this clip

like, seven kazillion times,

you start noticing things like that.

You seem a decent fellow.

I hate to kill you.

You seem a decent fellow, I hate to die.

One of the things that's great about swashbuckling

is a lotta times, there's a lot of humor in it.

You're amazing. I outta be after 20 years!

And you see that in their cheeky expressions

and the delivery of their lines

that are also in time with the choreography,

so they're rockin' it. Thank you.

Type of sword: Kill Bill.

This is Hattori Hanzo steel. [speaking foreign language]

[metal whooshing]

So, Hattori Hanzo was a 16th-century

Japanese samurai warrior who was amazing,

like, he was the best of the best,

and he had a nickname of Demon Hanzo because he,

quote-unquote, fought like hell

so he really was a historical character.

[trilling flute music]

There is an insignia on the sword

that lets you know the type that it is

and this was actually a common tradition

with many armorers, not just for a katana

but also in European martial arts as well.

Everyone knew if you had a sword from a high-quality armorer

you pretty much knew what you were doing

and had trained a lot, or you had money.

[katana whooshing]

So The Bride fights all of these people

to get to this moment.

[gentle acoustic guitar music]

Her sword would absolutely be dull if she had taken down

that many opponents.

[blood splattering]

[dense thudding]

Now, it could still be feasible that this move could happen

because it is like, the ultimate of the ultimate

of all samurai swords.

Hattori Hanzo.

[speaking foreign language]

But yeah, you would need to sharpen your sword.

Shields, Troy.

[intense string music]

It's actually one of my biggest pet peeves

is when fighters start too close.

This is awesome because you need those first opening moments

to kind of size your opponent up,

see where they are physically,

see where they are psychologically, emotionally,

all of those things, you're trying to find the advantage

that you can get.

So it absolutely makes sense that you would start

out of distance and then slowly work your way in.

[metal clanging]

Shields are awesome because they're not

just defensive weapons,

they can also be used offensively as well.

There are things called shield bashes,

where you get your body behind the shield

and essentially turn yourself into a battering ram.

[man grunting]

You can see their armor, their legs are exposed,

their arms are exposed,

in this fight their head is exposed,

so you could slice with the end of that.

I mean, we all know that thinner metal,

you can cut yourself on it, so if you're using that

with some force behind it,

it could turn into an offensive weapon as well.

[metal clanging and whooshing]

So we do see two different shields in this clip

and they're completely historically accurate,

there were all kinds of shapes and sizes.

So we see in Brad Pitt's shield that he uses the notches

on the side to rest his weapon at one point.

It's kind of like picking different kinds of swords,

different kinds of shields, after training with them

for many years, you would find out

kind of what your favorite was and what kind of played

to your strengths as a warrior.

So shields, like anything else, are, they're heavy, right?

It's a big piece of metal, so you're having to work

from your core a lot.

[metal clanging]

Even though these men are both very fit

there's only so much that your rotator cuff can take

in terms of torque, right?

So it makes sense towards the end

that they are becoming more fatigued.

[warrior grunting]

Rolling stone, take my glory.

They're ditching their shields

and just going for the weapons

that are gonna impact the other opponent

and inflict some damage to them.

[man grunting]

Fencing terminology, I Love You, Man.

Bro, really sorry I lost my shit out there.

I just did not see that incordata coming.

Oh, hey man, don't worry.

You know, you came in with a pretty glissade.

So what's cracking me up about this clip

and why it just, I'm sorry, seems so bad

is that they're mispronouncing the first two terms,

which could easily have been looked up.

Incortada, glissade.

These are all French terms, and not that you have to be

hoity-toity French when you say them

but it is definitely not glaze odd.

Glaze odd. It's glissade.

Incortada he almost gets right Incortada.

But it's just,

everything is so Anglicized with American pronunciation

that it takes away any value that these guys

have been studying this stuff for years.

Wow. Way to go, buddy.

Incortada and glissade are actually moves in fencing.

Anybody seen my manchette?

Did you look under your plastron, [beep]?

The last two terms are items of equipment.

Manchette. Plastron.

The first being gloves, the second being

the protective quilted vest, in a sense,

that protects your organs.

It's like they have no sense of what they're saying.

Classic. What's also funny

is this locker room is set up like it's a sport

like basketball or football, and they just have their foils

hanging there in the locker room,

which would not be the case.

They're metal, they will rust.

You need to oil them down, you need to store them properly

it's not just having like racks of basketballs on the side.

Sportsmanship, Hook.

[playful string music]

Bad form! Yes, it was very

unsportsmanlike for Hook to use his hook

to slice Peter's wrist. Bad form!

He's absolutely right that they are engaged in this combat

and Hook is essentially cheating.

Bad form would be kind of an archaic way to show

that you were not pleased

with the way that Hook was performing.

But then you kind of have to go, well, he's a pirate.

So is there any code of conduct with pirates, no.

He's just a mean old man without a mommy.

[children gasping]

[metal clanging]

The maneuver that Peter is using to disarm Hook

is an envelopment with an expulsion.

He effectively parries Hook's attack

and then with a really quick revolution of his wrist

he swings that around close and takes it, removes it

from Hook's hand and then uses another flick of his wrist

to send it soaring onto the ground.

[triumphant orchestral music] [weapons clanging]

You see Peter trying to be sportsmanlike,

and Hook coming in and playing dirty

but in the end it still doesn't matter

because Peter's technique is better than Hook's.

Good form, Peter.

Two on One, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

[intense string music] [lightsabers whooshing]

Whenever you have two against one, in theory,

it should be harder for the one to defend against the two

and the two had a lot of tactical advantages,

so they should have been attacking him at the same time.

They could have started both facing off with him

so that he had to defend two things or, if they are behind,

there's a lot of vulnerable parts

that they could have been attacking.

[lightsabers whooshing]

When Darth Maul runs away, he is using

divide and conquer, right?

He's trying to separate them,

but then you see young Obi-Wan just kind of

sauntering over to him.

I don't understand why that's not a running attack,

and why they're not still pressing him.

[men grunting]

So if you're Darth Maul, you're trying to take one opponent

at a time, you don't wanna fight two at once.

[lightsabers buzzing]

We see that he finally has success when he's able

to separate those opponents between the dividers

and can take them on one at a time.

[Obi-Wan yelling]

Sparks, Blade.

[metal clanging]

So if you hit blades completely edge to edge

you wouldn't have as much spark,

but if you're angling things slightly,

so it has to do with the trajectory and the force combined

that would create it.

[metal clanging]

To have this amount of sparks,

you would obviously have to have some effects

that were being laid in in post-production to create that.

[metal clanging]

Every time that you do that, you are inflicting damage

on the edge of your sword, creating burrs, little divots

that are going to have to be dealt with

to maintain a sharp edge, and over time it would

immeasurably keep deteriorating.

[eerie string music]

[dense thudding]

I mean, they're immortal so they probably don't care

if they're doing damage to their blades.

Some mother[beep]s are always trying to ice skate uphill.

Teaching, Game of Thrones.

Who are you?

Your dancing master, Syrio Forel.

[wood clattering]

Tomorrow you will catch it.

So in this clip, we see a very young Arya, right,

with Syrio, her teacher, who is teaching her

the beginning fundamentals of swordplay.

What is the proper stance, what is the way

you should hold the sword, what is the fluidity

that you should have with the weapon?

That is not the way, boy.

It is not a great sword that is needing two hands

to swing it! It's too heavy.

And we can see right away that when you've never

held anything like this, it's kind of an intricate,

multi-layered concept.

It is heavy as it needs to be to make you strong.

Just so.

One hand is all that is needed.

The grip must be delicate.

There's actually a phrase that says you want to hold

the sword like a bird, not so tight that you crush it

but not so loose that it flies away.

And what you mean by that is that you wanna have control

over the sword but if you strongarm it

and grip it tight, you're gonna lose fluidity

and reaction, all of that.

So they're doing a fencing style

that is all about a piercing weapon.

How it's not something that you would handle roughly

like a battle axe, but it's something that's light

and fluid, that's all pretty good.

[Arya shouting]

So for this particular weapon style, her frame is perfect

because she's quick and light, kind of like a mosquito,

right, just moving fluidly and going fast.

[Arya shouting]

Dead, oh, dead!

Very dead.

There are several times within it

that there are cutting techniques.

Those are attacks that are used with the edge of the weapon

as opposed to thrusts, which are used with the sharp point

of the sword.

We're not looking to cut limbs,

we're literally thinking of it as a needle

that is trying to poke organs: quick and fatal

and you could bleed out easier.

[Syrio laughing]

Just so. Fighting in a parking garage

Highlander.

[explosion clattering]

[electrical buzzing]

[metal clanging]

So they used the environment in an interesting way.

I mean, it's cool to fight on top of car hoods,

I don't know if you really need to run across them.

I don't know if you need to be flipping

off of a car hood when you could just jump.

I would be using these cars as ways to hide

and try to surprise my opponent.

[sprinklers whooshing]

[men yelling]

These swords now, after the sprinkler system is hit

and after the electricity is compromised,

they're basically running around with lightning rods almost

that are going to be conduits for electricity.

The other thing that confuses me

is the round-off back handsprings.

[eerie music]

I'm not sure how you would do those with your sword.

[glass breaking]

There's a lot more tactical things

that you could do with this environment

rather than kind of throwing everything and the kitchen sink

with trying to make things more fantastical

and quote-unquote cool moves of the 80s.

Weapon selection, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

[eerie string music]

[women gasping and grunting]

I love the selection of the first weapon style

because it's in effect double fence.

She's using two swords, one in dominant

and non-dominant hand, and you really,

with the choreography, get to see what it would be like

to have two weapons against one.

I also love it because it starts off with her strong suit

so she's clearly choosing the weapons

that she feels more comfortable with.

[fighter grunting] [metal clanging]

So what's so great about this clip

is that you see Michelle Yeoh's character

is older, way more experienced.

Her character brings this vast experience

of all these different weapon forms.

[metal clanging]

To have that level of expertise,

you would have had to have been studying your entire life

to be able to work with all those different weapons.

You're gonna keep picking the ones that you feel strongest

until you're down to with what you've got.

[fighters grunting, panting]

Now what is great is that her opponent

would need to know the strengths and weaknesses

of each of the other weapon styles so that she would know

how to wear those weapons down,

either how to disarm them, to destroy them,

or to keep her opponent on the move.

Different types of opponents, Gladiator.

He has two weapons, a sword and an axe.

And then Russell Crowe's character has a Gladius

and a shield.

You're both double-fenced, you're both have your sword

in your dominant hand and your additional weapon

in your other.

So I think Russell Crowe actually is doing a good job,

he's using that shield to deflect blows

as much as possible, particularly with the axe,

and he's also using it as an offensive weapon.

[men grunting]

When the tide turns between the two of them,

it's because he took the edge of his shield

and knocked that helmet.

And then immediately goes for the vulnerable part, right,

the foot?

Even though Maximus Decimus Meridius is like,

an amazing tried-and-true soldier on the battlefield

he's essentially a prisoner of war,

this other guy is still way bigger than he is.

So it could go either way, you could say

that the larger guy could have the upper hand

because it's a smaller playing space.

[Maximus grunting]

But Russell Crowe is just a better fighter in the end.

He's faster, he never stops moving, he changes levels,

he's keeping his eye on all parts of his playing area.

You simply won't die.

It's that whole thing of wearing your opponent down

really comes into play with this,

and taking them by surprise.

Grabbing a blade, Rob Roy.

[swelling string music]

[man grunting]

You would definitely have damage if you grabbed a blade

and we can see that with Rob Roy.

What lends itself for us to believe him a little bit more

are a couple of things,

the first being that he's ginormous,

so you kind of buy that he could grab that.

The second thing is that it's a desperation move,

it's the end of the fight.

[men grunting]

You will always sacrifice this to protect your core.

So even if you did shred your hand,

it's better than being dead.

So there is a bit of willing suspension of disbelief

in this clip because it feels like Tim Roth,

his character is waiting a bit.

If someone had grabbed the end of my blade,

I would just pull that to do more damage,

those are all lost opportunities to essentially finish off

that character.

[sword clattering]

Sharps versus sporting swords, Die Another Day

[metal clattering]

[fighters yelling]

You want to continue?

Of course I want to bloody continue.

But since we're upping the wager,

let's up the weapon, shall we?

So the term sharps versus a sporting sword

or a stage combat sword, the sharps are what we would call

live weapons, right.

Something that is a real sword that is sharpened to a point,

a sporting sword or a theatrical sword,

[machine buzzing]

those have dull edges and dull points.

The ones that we train with, with actors,

are actual real weapons, they're just not sharpened.

But you still have to teach safe technique for them

because they could still do damage.

En garde!

So we're looking at traditional foils,

with all of the protective gear in the sporting version

of the match. [men yelling]

There's a little kind of error that I'm seeing here

in that the protective gauntlet, the glove comes up

purposely to protect the wrist portion

of your swordfighting hand,

but I don't see how that foil tip

with a button could've gotten to skin

to make that happen.

Let's do this the old-fashioned way!

First blood drawn from the torso!

Once they switch to the sharps, they're getting sabers

that have a cutting edge.

Any rules can be set.

Whenever you're dueling in a traditional sense,

you set those rules, those terms, before you have the match.

[swords clanging]

You can see in the beginning, when they switch to sabers,

that there's, they're starting on a line

and they're starting with a little bit of form,

although they have cutting attacks,

[music swells]

but then once the first point of danger

and the injury happens all of that form

goes out the window.

Once it's, the stakes are up and they're using sharps,

they take off all of their protective gear

and the fighting style starts to devolve in a sense

and becomes more flailing.

[bell dinging]

[Host] Conclusion!

Overall, I would say that Hollywood tends to get right

about these clips that swordfighting is exciting,

it's something that is otherworldly

that we understand, but it's, we don't normally see people

in everyday life fighting with swords.

An actual duel, an actual swordfight, a lotta times

would be very quick.

But it also wouldn't be as entertaining to see

on the big screen.