The Fencing Girl
Item
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Title
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en
The Fencing Girl
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Date
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March 16, 1902
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pages
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9, 12
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content
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en
The Fencing Girl
Fencing for women is now the recognized physical road to perfection. As both a medicine and an exercise it reduces unnecessary fat and waste tissue, strengthens the chest, back and leg muscles, increases the chest expansion and blood supply; brings about good complexion and vigorous appetite; induces healthy sleep, and active brain and perceptive faculties; improves the eyesight; makes the whole body strong, agile and graceful; the wrist filexible and the fencer more self-confident; wards off wrinkles, decay and disease.
Physicians are beginning to prescribe it as a substitute for the more strenuous athletic feminine pastimes. As strength is not only unnecessary in fencing but somewhat of a drawback. It seems to be especially adapt to women. It leads the possessor of the science grace, fullness and a vigorous, clear head.
Of all the arts and exercises that women have practiced to make them graceful none has won such golden opinions from physicians and beauty culturists, as well as from its followers, as has fencing. It is the one sport which does not develop one part of the body at the expense of the other, and it does not ignore mind while strengthening matter.
Self-control, a quick eye and a steady head are absolutely essential to the fencer. Grace, agility and skill come together. There is nothing impromptu or unstudied about the parries and thrusts and multifarious maneuvers that delight the eye of the onlooker when a maître d’armes and one of his pretty pupils give an exhibition with the foils. Every movement is necessary or important, and ever second’s work counts for or against the fencer.
The best fencers are Frenchmen, and whatever faults, physical, mental or moral, French women and men have been accused of, no one has yet called them awkward. Verve, agility, animation, all harmonized and controlled by the watchful eye and the cool brain that takes in at a glance the present and anticipates – these are the qualities of mind and body that make fencing a tonic as well as a picturesque play to the onlooker. The American woman has many qualities that go to make good swordswomen. She is keenly alive, she is sensitive, wide awake, energetic and fearless; she has a receptive mind and she hates fat. This fast qualification for a good fencer may seem irrelevant, but it isn’t. To become skilled in any art or sport an incentive is necessary. No incentive is more inspiring to the average woman than the desire to be beautiful It is no longer the thing to be fragile and delicate to look upon, but one’s health must show in glowing lips, in bright eyes and in perfect proportions. Fencing makes it disciples beautiful, first by improving their circulation and digestion – and there is probably no such thing as an ugly woman with a perfect digestion and circulation. Then the figure has its innings. Supertiuous (?) flesh disappears; hollows fill up; muscles become hard and fill the akin where it ought to be filled out.
The big woman abhors hips and chins, but if she gains an extra pound it invariably means an extra chin or an increased skirt measure. The thin woman hates “lantern jaws” and collar bones, but when she does, by much drinking of cream, gain a pound or two it goes to fill out her arms or make her waist big. When the muscles are developed symmetrically all this impartial distribution of flesh is corrected. Waists become small compared with shoulders; the upper arm becomes larger than the lower arm; the throat firm and round, but slender; the shoulders droop or square themselves according to the anatomy of the owner, but in any case they are neither fat nor scrawny. The bones do not show. The limbs show the same moderation in their proportions. The feet and ankles should be slim, and the quickness and suppleness necessary for good fencing give the feet a light, sure poise which is at once suggestive of strength and grace and is a very striking feature of the skilled swordswoman’s physical good points.
Perhaps the greatest point in favor of fencing for women is the aplomb and repose it gives. Actresses look upon fencing as the greatest of all roads to, grace and repose of manner. Julia Arthur, who is singularly graceful, was an ardent disciple of the mask and foil, and an excellent swordswoman. Virginia Herned (?) and Mary Mannering are naturally fond of fencing, as their husbands fence almost as well as they act. Lillian Russell believes in fencing. Being light and acre upon one’s feet is a special privilege of youth. Fencing helps one to be light and sure of foot, even into the shady “forty-odds.”
A fencing costume is an affair like the average gymnasium suit. Bloomers or short skirts are donned and the shoes are flat and low. The regulation suit wore by the pupils of the fashionable salle-d’armes is a full shirtwaist of black velour, a short skirt over knickerbuckers or a divided skirt of black silk, black stockings and low ties without heels. Some of the short skirts are accordion plaited and extremely ornamental, although light and comfortable. A small heart, cut out of red cloth, is sewed on the left side of the bodies over the heart.
A course of lessons in fencing is as much a part of the debutante’s education nowadays as dancing lessons of (?) French. The girl who fences well will not stumble and stammer when she makes her initial bow in a ballroom. Her head and nerves – not to mention her hands and feet – are too well trained for that.
There has never been a more fascinating story written than that which tells the beginning, the rise and the decadence of sword play. Only in Europe have the sword and foil never quite lost the honorable position they held for so many centuries, and it is due chiefly to the enthusiastic followers of the art in those countries that the past few years have seen such a genuine revival in this graceful pastime.
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depicts
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Illustration : "Going on guard"
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Illustration : "Position of hand on guard"
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Illustration : "A ? parry"
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Illustration : "A Salute"
