Fencing on Horseback

Roßfechten demo Jeff Sanders and Myself gave in Czech Republic as part of a seminar we taught together. Roßfechten is fencing on horseback described as a discipline from the 15th century onwards and was even a major spectator sport in the 19th century. It is great fun when done with care and gentlemanly carefulness and respect for the animals. As you can see it is mostly jockeying for position and some very short and sharp exchanges with the swords. Note the use of ’passades’ Even though we did not wear fencing masks the targets were the head and thrusts to the body and the fight was entirely free fought, no choreo whatsoever. (in fact it is cut together from about 5-6 fights we did) Note that Jeff is riding my stallion and is not that familiar with him as he only hopped on minutes before. Here we use Rolins wasters but steel blunt swords are used commonly as well. The video quality is not brilliant as it was cut from footage from someones phone, but we wanted to share it with the world anyway