11/10/2025
We recently came back from SabreSlash 2025 in Prague, an annual International event focusing on the practice of Sabre. It was a really well organised event and full of very interesting workshops.
The first day started with a very interesting workshop by French Maître d'armes Jean-François Gilles. The lesson was titled “Introduction to the French Contre-Pointe”. A very challenging class on timing, distance and agile reactions.
In the afternoon our Master at arms Andrei Xuereb gave a workshop titled " The use of the 'pie fermo' during our fight“. A workshop inspired by the teachings of Master Giuseppe Radelli on using the leaning of the body as part of your fencing.
The second day started with Italian FISAS teacher Franco Burberi with his lesson titled “ Sforzo di Cambiamento (changing of the line of engagement)“. The workshops forced on the practical use of certain kinds of beats on the opponent's blade to gain an advantage.
The next workshop was held by instructor Master at arms Leonard Marynowski, from Signum Polonicum Wrocław, Poland, titled “Fighting in the 17th century Polish Winged Hussars Armour“. It was a very interesting and fun class where everybody tried some techniques of how you would fight if you were on horseback with the sabre.
The last workshop of the weekend was held by the newly appointed Master at arms Jim Emmons from Barbasetti Military Sabre. His workshop titled “Barbasetti’s Strategies for Offense”. It was a very academic oriented workshop that focused on certain important foundations of both strategy and reactions.
At the end of the event there was a newly tested kind of tournament called 'Random Slash' designed to fight as many people as you can in rotation with the person getting hit only once. The hits were marked with a red tape so that at the end of the event one can see how many hits they got. The participants seemed to enjoy it as well as hopefully teach them a bit more to defend well, realizing how easy it is to get hit if this was a real sharp sabre.
We would like to thank the organizer Master at arms Michael Knazko from the Barbasetti Military Sabre in Prague for inviting us to take part and for all the hard work to set up this event, as well as all the people who worked behind the scenes.