George Heintz, Sr. served as Master of the Sword at the United States Naval Academy as an assistant to Antoine Corbesier. In 1890 Heintz wrote Theory of Fencing With the Foil in Form of a Catechism, originally published in the journal of physical culture Mind and Body and subsequently in the Freidenker Publishing Company National Library of Physical Culture series. Heintz's monograph is available in reprint and is interesting for a number of reason, not the least of which is his use of the catechism approach to teaching core fencing knowledge and an extensive list of drill actions.
In the text Heintz uses a unique term, the "Chassey." When you first read the description, this appears to be one of the names for Froissement, also termed a "Graze," "Expulsion," "Scrape," or "Traverse," depending on the source. The Froissement itself is not unique. It appears in a number of texts before 1900, including the French Ministry of War Fencing Manual (1877, Slee's translation) and Rondelle's Foil and Sabre: A Grammar of Fencing (1892). What is different is the description of the technique in detail.
Heintz describes a Chassey as an action with a preparation and a final attack. In preparation the fencer detaches from the opponent's blade by one to two inches, followed by a strong beat. Two points in this deserve consideration. First, the fencer detaches his blade from the engagement. At a period where fencing was still taught as starting from the engagement, detaching the blade is required in order to execute a beat. In modern fencing cocking the blade is an undesireable cue to the opponent that a beat is coming; in the classical period it was a necessity.
Secondly, the preparation of the Chassey is described as a beat. Both the French Ministry of War and Rondelle describe the froissement as being executed with prolonged continuous pressure. If we look at texts by classical trained Maitres at the end of the classical period, this interpretation of the Froissement remains as the standard (see, for example, Deladrier 1948 and Crosnier 1967). This makes the Chassey a distinctive action, not otherwise widely reported.
The final attack is consistent with the approach of the Froissement. It is described as a graze, with the blade leveling, followed by a strong opposition with the extended arm as the blade moves from foible to forte. The fencer's blade should not contact the opponent's guard. Although the graze is described as maintaining contact when executed alone, it seems more likely that the opposition fills the void left when the opponent's blade is beaten.
The Chassey has a three tempo variant, the Counter-Chassey. This is described as being similar in execution to the Counter-Beat. The Counter-Beat is described as being executed by passing the point under the opponent's blade to the opposite lateral line, followed by the beat and straight thrust. The Counter-Chassey is executed in the same manner, except that the thrust is done with strong opposition as the blade slides from the opponent's forte to foible.
The question that we have to answer is whether the Chassey is an unusual description of the Froissement or a distinct technique. It is certainly unusual when compared with other readily available manuals from the period. However, we distinguish other actions as separate techniques when they use different forms of preparation or of execution of the final attack. For example, a beat disengage and a press disengage are clearly different techniques. In addition, the Chassey has a more complex derivative, the Counter-Chassey, a distinction not found in the readily available descriptions of the Froissement. These factors suggest that the Chassey and Counter-Chassey represent a different evolution line than the Froissement and deserve some study in their own right.
Copyright 2018 by Walter G. Green III
Heintz's Chassey by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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