BELGRADE

"ST. GEORGE `S SCHOOL OF FENCING "

The first and only school of combat fencing (sword fighting) with the two handed sword in the Balkans and the only school of fencing with the rapier and the small sword in Southeastern Europe.

St. George’s School of Fencing was founded in 1998 by Maestro Aleksandar Stankovic, a fencing master from Belgrade, together with a group of fencers who outgrew the concept of modern sport fencing as a "rush forward - rush backward - crush game," finding it too narrow and lacking in perspective. The school consists of four sections: the two-handed sword fighting section, the Spanish rapier fighting section, the small sword fighting section, and the foil fencing section for children and beginners. Lessons are held for ladies and gentlemen of all ages in group or individual classes - in the recognizable St. George’s "elevated hand" style, founded in the elements of the Spanish and German schools, as well as Angelo Domenico’s “L`Ecole des Armes,” (London 1763).

Step I. Left attack, Right defence.
Step II. Left new attack, Right defence.	Step III. Right attack, Left defence

The school has published 6 books on the subject of fencing, of which the latest one, "The Manifest of Combat Fencing" has been translated into English. The school is equipped with complete fencing equipment for all its members, with classes held between September and June, two hours twice a week. More than 60% of the members are ladies, the majority of whom practice the small sword and the foil.

The motto of the school is: “Fencing where one does not feel joyful in the skill, whatever the outcome - is worthless; the battle in which one has not managed to draw a smile on the opponent’s face - is lost.” (Aleksandar Stankovic, "The Fencing Master`s Diary ")

Aleksandar Stanković

The school is run, together with 9 assistants, by its founder and president, Maestro Aleksandar Stankovic, who is also the president of the National Center for European Fencing (NCEM), the fencing Master of the Belgrade Military Academy; the personal fencing teacher of HRH Prince Mihail Karadjordjevic of Serbia; Master of fence to the Renaissance organisation "RAGVUSEVM" from Dubrovnik, Croatia; the teacher of stage fencing with a long experrience in both stage and the screen projects and the acting Academy "BK" in Belgrade and shief inctructor and selector for the sport fencing team of the SCG army fencers participating in the Army World Tournaments organised by CISM (International federation of Army sports) and AFU. He has written and published 7 books on the fencing history, technique and theory.

Started going in for sport fencing in 1977, and professionaly as an instructor in 1987. Until 1999. had worked as fencing master, after that outgrew active interest in sports fencing. Since then has been mostly dedicated to the research and practice in the field of genuine - combat fencing and restoration, reaffirmation and reformation of classical European fencing. Opened fencing school "St. George" in Belgrade in 2000 - the first and only combat fencing school on the territory of Southeastern Europe.

The co-president of St George’s is HRH Prince Andrey Aleksandrovich Gardenin - a cousin of Count Leo Ilich Tolstoy and the adopted son of the late Konstantin Konstantinovich Eger, who was educated in the Leningrad`s Theatrical Institute and became the first teacher of stage fencing at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.

School guide prof. Aleksandar Stanković (spanish rapier, Longsword, Small sword) and instructors: Darko Raic (Spanish rapier, Small sword), Ljubica Tinska (Small sword), Vuk Obradovic (Longsword), Milos Nesovic (Longsword), Jovan Kovacevic (Small sword), Lav Gersman (Longsword), Igor Petrusic, Dragan Andjelkovic, Sasa Stevanovic, Aca Bozic, Nenad Beric, Milos Ristic, Bozidar Mijailovic (French foil - floret)

Partners

National Center For European Fencing – Beograd, Serbia; Renaissance Association »RAGVSEVM« - Dubrovnik , Croatia; The Swordsmens’ Society Of The Two-Handed Sword "Despot Stefan" – Beograd; The Society of Medievalists - Beograd , Fencing School Of The Military Academy - Beograd, National Center For Stage Fencing - Beograd, Expert Center For Museum Arms - Beograd.

The St. George’s School of Fencing website is one of the four largest fencing web presentations in the world, presenting the activities of the School and its affiliate organizations.

The spiritual aristocracy fence not for prestige, but purely for pleasure experienced through
practicing the art.
In fencing, they care not for victories and trophys, but to reach the end with smiling with pleasure, toasting with glasses of champagne.

SCHOOL PRINCIPLES

There is no victory in a competition unless the combat is taken seriously. The more important is to win the bigger is the flames of seriousness competitors get into. This is the rule of any sport, almost the axiom of professionalism.

But, once the competitive combat and sport become serious, the devil has got his due. The animal –like faces of the competitors are getting distorted, the eyes are getting red, the souls are overcome with fanaticism, hatred and anger, and reason vanishes in the abundance of stress and instincts.

The modern competitive sport – stirring up ambitious people against each other in order to “prove” who is “better” in the adrenaline anger of the sweat bodies clash together with the cheering of the audience is an old story from the Roman arenas. Everything is here: the Coliseum, the crowd, the Caesar, those who make the decisions, those who earn, betting, the slaves fighting on life and death for their career, their drivers and instructors…Only blood cannot be seen very often or it does not show immediately because injuries are mostly hidden and internal. In accordance with the progress people suffer in a more modern way, i.e. more perfidiously.

All of that is opposite something we “old-fashioned” tend to.

Even without contests, competitions and struggle for victories there is lots of barbarity all round us. It has become tedious, tiring, gloomy and unworthy for that noble and aristocratic in a man living in such a neo - barbarian jungle of an endless fight about everything and anything to the nonsense and back. Ad absurdum!

We want something leading somewhere, demanding more strength, spirit, soul, skill, nobility, culture and style. To let our skill connect us instead of separating us, to improve, not to deteriorate us, to let us make friends instead of hating each other, to build, not to destroy a man.

The fencing school ”St. George” particularly emphasizes the concept of recreation freed from the competitive spirit of fencing as a self – centered skill, the form which only aim is body, spirit and mental self-improvement of those who go in for fencing. That is why the school is against the competitive sport (even fencing) and its mania for leagues, medals and other competitive nonsense that necessarily lead to competitive hysteria, hatred, aggression, primitivism and barbarism of all kinds not suitable for noble people.

The founder of the school “St. George” thinks that all people, particularly children and youths should be encouraged to go in for physical activities. But they should be protected from the contemporary eugenics of making the race of professional aces, future gladiators, recorders and winners at the cost of different physical, intellectual, emotional and social deviations.

The reason is clear: the competitive form of sport (which is aggressively and practically IMPOSED and solely offered to everybody who wants to go in for certain physical activities in the healthy, modest and organized way only for pleasure, without any competitive, professional or ambitious claims) is proved to be extremely HARMFUL due to its form, contents, intensity and stressfulness both for health and normal physical and social development for people of all age, especially young ones.

Taking into consideration everything mentioned the fencing school “St. George” organizes two fencing tournaments a year, on which the only aim is free fencing for fun, not prestige and victory of certain competitors. Therefore, the most important thing is joint pleasure of all the fencers in the combat itself regardless of the result.

On these tournaments everyone fences against whoever he wants and as much he wants regardless of age, sex, and it is forbidden to align members into “the winners”, “the losers”, “the humiliated”, “the sublime”. Furthermore the race of ambitious vanities for prestige winning I, II.II.IV, V…places, medals, cups, certificates, scholarships, trips, working positions etc. is not allowed. Any stressful loading of the members, particularly children, with winning projects, blackmailing with competitive results, obsessions with leagues, medals, cheering, sports fanaticism and other so-called sports deviations are forbidden.

Tournaments are organized and performed under the slogan: ”Spiritual aristocrats never fence because of prestige, but because the enjoyment in the skill’s art. In a friendly fencing combat they are not interested in winning and medals, but to drink a toast at the end with pleasure and smile.” (A.S.“The fencing teacher diary”)

ON TEACHING

The introduction into fencing

“A thousand-day practice is a discipline. A ten thousand-day practice is polishing up.”

Musashi

Each beginner has an obligation of “sports preparedness” i.e. to get to know and learn, as the introduction into the skill of real fencing, the simplest, so-called linear or rectilinear fencing of the nineteenth and twentieth century-sports fencing. Firstly, the steps without arms are taught then the steps with arms, then the actions of attack and defense with sports arms and eventually the tactic of sports fencing.

During that first phase as well as during all other phases, the modern conception of creating “instant” fencers according to the super fast “blitz” method is not applied at school. Among our members you cannot see a beginner who started learning the basic fencing steps three months ago getting prepared eagerly for the important international tournaments. On those tournaments he will be just one in the endless series of similar unsuccessful doers who will show his skill by getting out from the first or with some sports luck the second round.

We are familiar with the classical fencing principle that fencing is the skill for which one life is not enough. In that sense is the Spanish fencing school saying told by its teacher Karance in1560 which goes: ”To be an excellent fencer you need two lives, one spiritual and one physical. When the man is mature enough in the first one, he is too old and mature for the second one.”

That is why the fencing school “St. George” rejects with scorn any kind of “fast food”. Speed, impatience, and shallowness – the basic features and goals of the contemporary global age are not characteristic for the genuine fencing skill. The essence of fencing is its non-contemporarynature, slowing down, thoroughness, persistence, determination and patience. That is why in the fencing school ”St. George” a student has to overcome all the pains of slow climbing the ladder of the skill. He has to be put in front of serious steps and temptations:

The first step means feet exercises, to let the head think free about the arm actions and it has to last at least two months. The second step which means arm exercises, lasts at least triple as much, to let the head get rid of the shaking hands technique. The third step, the exercises of the head and their application last at least six months more, to enable a fencer to apply acquired tactic skill creatively. Still, even then he has passed just the basic steps and is a beginner in that skill. He has just learnt to walk and he is far away from the competition in running. He needs years to improve his acquired knowledge and in such a way open the door for the deeper and more important phases in the skill.

Fencing

The only important thing for the beginner is a hit, for the master the way he hits. The beginner leads the combat, while the master is lead by the combat. The beginner fences captured between the victory and defeat, while the master fences freely outside of them. The beginner thinks where, what in and what with he will fight the master how he will fight. The beginner likes himself in fencing, the master likes fencing inside of him

A. S. “The fencing teacher diary”

After had learnt the first, introductory part into the skill – sports fencing, students start learning classical combat fencing which was used with its specific and different technique for centuries in the genuine combat with real swords.

The steps of combat fencing without arms are learnt firstly: the movement in all directions and ways; actual, real or so-called “topographical” movement. Then follows the work with the arms of the eighteenth century – the small sword, then the work with the arms from 17 th, 16 th and 15 th century-the rapier i.e. the Spanish rapier. After that fencing with the heavy two-handed sword and the heavy single-handed (knight) sword is learnt. The top of fencing technique and the last phase in learning is the fight with the rapier and dagger simultaneously or the combat with the two rapiers (“ Crete fencing”).

In learning the skill of fencing a fencer gets as far as he travels and advances with his most important traveling companions: persistence, patience, obedience, initiative and ambition. There are no shortcuts, shorter and faster ways. Each skipped step will always be the one waiting for you on another place and on which a student must return again. Each relief at one spot becomes an obstacle at the other.

The phases in learning

A student should be exposed to all pressures and temptations: body, spirit and mental. Everything should be put once on temptation, even the dearest thing - the importance of his own skill. A real teacher will always find something his student cares about most and attack it longest. One of the pillars of each skill, fencing and the skill of life as well, is steadiness and persistence. Who fails there cannot go further, either in fencing or life.

A.S. "The fencing teacher diary”

Each beginner goes through the apprentice phase in which he copes with the skill itself and discovers the beauty of learning, finding out, gaining new and unknown. These fencers are completely occupied with the enjoyment of work with the teacher and solving the tasks set before them through learning. They are not interested to try their skill on rivals not only because school is for learning not for competing, but more because they are thoroughly fulfilled with the fight against themselves. For these fencers fencing is the key of self –knowledge and self- improvement, not the practical combat with rivals.

On the second level most students get to the agonistic phase in which they start enjoying the simple application of the acquired skill – basic and the lowest fencing level: utilitarian, competitive or combat duel. For fencers on this level the fight with themselves is not important any more, but the battle and victory against each other or on other words –the beauty of victory.

On the third level, reachable only for the experienced, it is taken into consideration that each skill at the highest point of its mastery turns into art and spiritualizes in that way. This spirit is particularly characteristic for fencing in the period from 15 th till 19 th century. The proof lies in the foreign languages in which besides of the names of schools and academies is always the prefix “art” (“L’ ART D’ ESCRIME”, “FECHTKUNST”).

The fencers in that phase do not feel their skill as something usable, but freed from each pragmatics, not as the means of victory, prestige, journey or scholarship, but as its own aim. They are not interested in medals, cups, ribbons and their names in the informative columns on the last pages of the old sports magazines. Fencers of that kind are interested in a different and for a man most important and fruitful sort of fencing-fencing as art and pure skill for love, in the spirit of “art for art’s sake”. To reach this artistic phase, i.e. the enjoyment in beautiful victory a fencer needs artistic talent and years of experience on the way which end is not the mere skill among skills, but the beautiful skill – fencing as art. The fencers aim is not only a hit itself, but also the way it is applied, the fencing style. These fencers do not compete against each other, but one next to another, for the beauty of joint duel, working together in creating something creative and beautiful for their mutual satisfaction regardless of the result.

The highest level of fencing, reachable only for the rare, is vital (from Latin vita-life). For this phase a fencer needs decades of fencing in which the most important things are above all: the fencer himself, the noble soul and sublime spirit. The fencer gets into it when he finds out that he is an eternallearner who fences because of the last and most important victory-the victory against himself. Such a fencer begins watching, finding out, taking and living the whole life himself with all its abundance. In such a way fencing becomes vital, and the fencing skill becomes the skill of living. The enjoyment in the vitality of the skill and the victory of beauty is the greatest pleasure for all fencers.

On that level fencing has united with all other skills, and the fencer has gained a part of the expert spirit in everything. Fencing has become for him just a way and a ladder among other ways and ladders of different skills, to reach to the highest skill, the one that unites all skills at their highest point-the skill of the skills –the art of living.

These masters wear their arms only as the means of self-improvement and battle against themselves-as the means of peace and overcoming the battle and dispute with the others.

The skill progress check

There are people who have the strange passion of choosing the only one, winning flower from the abundance of other flowers in the garden of competition, to enjoy in it as the “most beautiful”.

But there are also different people, more subtle ones, who have reached the knowledge that the beauty is in the eyes of a beholder, so they cannot choose which flower is the winning one from the plenty of beautiful flowers.

They always enjoy in the variety and abundance of the whole garden, putting aside the competition itself.

I think that the latter ones give life and get from it much more.

A.S. “The fencing teacher diary”

How does a fencer “check ” if he advances in the skill subduing? The naïve and children think that the victory and defeat (the success in the competition) are the true measure of the advance and that is possible to check everything through a competition which ”shows the best one and the worst one”. The recommendation: competitions should be organized everywhere and in everything. The result: everywhere primitive and imposing pushing, fight, force, elbowing and hysteria who will be short listed, the first to emerge on the surface… who will be better or best, who will have more victories, who will gain more important NUMBER or starting position. In a word – LOOTING!

People are directed to “think” from childhood: “Important is only something bringing the winning result. Only something proved to be more efficient is worth living and existing”. In that general sports shaping of the world, everyone is imposed to become a sportsman competing in everything from his childhood. Everything has become a sport: art, music, literature, poetry, theater, film, friendship, feelings, beliefs, ideas, work… Everything has become a sport and everyone competes and elbows in order to win certain championship or medal. Today people do not learn how to dance and sing. Instead of that they “train” dance and singing. They do not play chess, they ”train” it. Everything sounds unnatural! The reverse side of that struggle for ‘rewards” is the struggle for profit!

Why do we reject that kind of consideration, behavior and life in the work of our school? There are a number of reasons.

The first one is intellectual Only a shortsighted, shallow person cannot see the endless number of ways on which the worst are climbing to the winning throne and the best crawling defeated. For something or somebody tending to become victorious it is not necessary to be excellent, proper, of good quality and the best. It is enough to be just CAPABLE or LUCKY. A victory means only one thing – that somebody has won, nothing more. A defeat means only one thing – that someone has lost, nothing more.

The second reason is moral shortsightedness. A man who lives in accordance with the principle of competition will start whispering to himself “You are nothing if you are defeated”. His next step is unavoidable. He will dance according to the music “Everything is allowed in order to win” There is no deeper and more terrifying defeat for a man than this one.

The third reason is our taste. The sports – competitive concept of life is too vulgar for us. It shows complete absence of spiritual aristocracy and cultural elitism. Fighting with someone about something is not only disgusting, the expression of bad character, but also the expression of poverty. Looting, pushing and competition of being the first prevail only there where everything is missing, in the poverty. When a man is forced to take someone else’s place – that is poverty. If there is abundance of wealth people tend to give away and spend. The strongest do not compete – they unite. For them their rivals do not represent COMPETITION but COOPERATION. It was always the same. In old Rome it was strictly distinct: noblemen and free people watch whereas slaves, poor people and gladiators fight and compete for victory and defeat. Do not think it is different nowadays.

Anyway, it is not decent for a person having high opinion of himself to achieve something with somebody else’s help. It is not dignifying for an outstanding man to advance by humiliating his rival in a battle. The excellence does not need approval from other sides, it is the best recommendation itself.

We consider that a different outlook is possible – the existence of something that does not compete and cannot be measured, something that is worth itself not in comparison with others when it becomes something else exposed to the judgement of the public (crowd).

*

How does the school ‘St. George” check if a fencer has advanced in learning? In the same way a painter or any other master “checks” some skills. Is he included in certain competition where he defeats his “rival” by the approval of the audience clapping for the “best” work? Is he more successful according to the number of sold paintings? Or his painting is being bid on certain auction? Or he is more present in media, more popular Fiddlesticks! It is the simplest commercialism. The greatest masters arts and creators of the past were losers on these places during the course of history, and yet their names and deeds are eternal compared with those winners who were “judged best”. While those so-called winners vanished forever with their garbage on the junkyards of commercialism, the real masters became the eternal value-CLASSICS.

The other side of each work, act or teachings, particularly the most valuable one has always been its quantitative NON-MEASURABILITY and qualitative CONTROVERSY. Only a shallow person can think that everything can be measured and estimated and there is no world without measurement and comparison with something else outside it. Everything contains its own infinity. Who is able to measure and estimate that infinity without the discussion about the taste?

Each painter knows thoroughly if he advances or not. He is his own judge without appeal because his own doubts and hopes torment him. He “advances” when he creates a more precious picture for him than the previous one, not “more beautiful, “more expensive” or “better rewarded”.

It is the same with fencers. They become mature when they find out that fencing they go in for love, cannot and should not be measured and estimated outside by competitive figures. By that they overcome the childish games about the victory and defeat entering the genuine skill. They begin fencing for art’s sake – the interest for the fight itself not its result expressed in the victory or defeat. From that moment fencers see their advance only in the fact they enjoy fencing more. The aim is only one: the combats which are more fascinating and enthusiastic causing both winner’s and loser’s admiration, leaving flabbergasted everyone watching their mutual dance of blades and bodies. No figure or result can show if they advanced or stagnated in the learning of the skill, it can be seen only on one place- their faces.

Victories and defeats mean a little to the fencers who have not learnt to dance over them freely. But once they learn that they mean nothing to them.

Maturity sees life wider and richer and does not attach too much importance either to victories or defeats, even less to the struggle about the defeat or victory. All victories are defeats and all defeats are victories. Wise people have learnt not only to win in the same way they lose, and to lose in the same way they win, but to overcome all their victories and defeats – they live beyond victories and defeats.

An educated person does not observe the world as a savage who sees everywhere only the jungle of endless fight and competition. The spirit of competition matured enough turns and fights against itself searching and setting the proper measure, taming, restraining - in a word cultivating. Only when a person reaches something opposite and different from the competition, when he reveals another world without competition, fight, disputes, checking, proving – the world of harmony, unity, peace, tolerance, when those two worlds start competing in him, the man of culture and above all aristocratic spirit is born.

Observing the world, people and everything done and learnt without the estimation of their success, seeing how victorious they are without measurement, judgement, competition, conflicts, proving and comparing, discovering the beauty and value inside of them without the competition with someone or something else, pure and innocent like the relation of a mother and child mean the most - start seeing the life and the existence of everything in it with another, above all noble eyes.

At the same time we get there to the only criterion according to the advance in the skill is checked in the fencing school ”St. George”. We do not have members who suffer from pride, self-contentment, arrogance, irritability, haughtiness, conceitedness, vanity, aggression, barbarism, vulgarity, primitivism…

Old can be more modern than hypermodern.

A.S. “The fencing teacher diary”

Talking about the equipment, which consists of the arms and protective equipment, the school provides its members everything necessary. At the beginning you get the floret. It is the basic arms, the lightest so children can use it. It can be used only according to the sting technique. Our school pays particular attention to the fencing with floret, and it is very popular with ladies who make half of the members in our school giving it the special charm.

Work with the sports saber and sports sword is not included in the program activities of the school. These two “arms”, which try to imitate the genuine saber and sword like surrogates are innovations, typical sports equipment. Their look and technique have nothing to do with fencing with the real saber (which is curved and much heavier) or the sword (the rapier which is much heavier and used both to sting and hit).

In the fencing school ”St. George” all fencers use the classical, flat handle which has had the same form for more than 2000 years, on our insistence because it is the base for regular stance and getting over all actions with arms. In our school the use of modern “pistol’ sports handle (which was made in a Belgian factory for the production of orthopedic appliances for persons with congenital or acquired physical disabilities) is forbidden. That isbecause it leads fencers not only to great crudeness, aggression, vulgarity and primitivism of fencing technique by its design (which is bizarre and clumsy), but also to use their arms as a stick flogging everywhere and in that way crippling the fencing skill, turning it into whipping.

After they had learnt the fencing technique with floret, students start learning the technique of combat fencing. Then they get the swords of other epochs: small swords, rapiers, and two-handed and single- handed heavy swords with their specific characteristics. But they have in common the weight of the lightest GENUINE swords i.e. 1 kilo and more in contrast to sports floret which is a childish toy of 500 grams. This increased weight of the arms means that the fencing technique is completely different not only concerning feet movements but also the arm ones.

As far as protective equipment is concerned, the fencing school “St. George” does not keep up with sports fashionable tendencies. We do not go in for fencing because it is fashionable, fancy or “in”. That is why we think that for successful learning of the skill ultra modern equipment and keeping up with current fashionable trends of modern fencing-consuming industry is not necessary. It is not that important “what with” and “what in” but ‘how”. Fencers have been successfully, safely and contently fencing for hundred of years without numerous fashionable contemporary fencing accessories offered and recommended by the producers and merchants lobbies worldwide pretending to be concerned for the present fencers “safety”. As far as these things are concerned everything is clear: the respect of the elementary protection rules and the possession of the classical equipment made of natural materials proved for hundreds of years. Such equipment satisfies completely all necessary demands for going in for fencing.

Electronic fencing equipment necessary for modern sports fencing is FORBIDDEN in the school “St. George”. We reject with disgust and scorn the hybrid monster, which tries to link the spirit of the past with the merciless present. “Electronic fencing”-the very name looks monstrously ugly! Only a man with the barbaric sense of culture cannot feel that the skill of the past must not be deprived of the spirit of the past.

That is why our members practice classical fencing with pure steel as our ancestors have practiced for centuries without any cords, signal lights and plugs. The beauty of fencing lies in the fact that by fencing people return, like in a time machine, into the past, fighting in the same way their ancestors had centuries before them. It is wonderful, sublime and admirable to see and recognize your own movements, stances and swords on the old masters schools engravings and thus revive the time and space lost long ago – to feel their unique charm and coating.

We discovered again the beauty of the fight with the classical equipment in the hall interior with parquet or open country exterior. We also discovered the spirit of aristocratic fight in which hits are gentlemanly admitted without any electronic equipment to reveal lies in the competition by colorful signal lights and sirens. Eventually, we discovered again according to the protocol of classic combat duel the attraction of side referees.

The fencing school ”St. George” according to the statistics of the American agency “Traceics Statistics” has one of the four biggest electronic fencing presentations in the world and the biggest one in Europe, while on its domain WWW.Akademija.co.yu and www.rapir.net also presents the activities of the organizations it collaborates with.

ENTRY

"Gold school is the one in which the worst punishment for misbihared children is the dismission."