Do you consider yourself to be a particularly skilled lightsaber dueler? Perhaps you might want to head over to France as the French Fencing Federation has actually recognized lightsaber dueling as an official sport. The federation has made this decision in a bit to make fencing more appealing to the younger generation.
Duelists will be using LED-lit, rigid polycarbonate lightsaber replicas with some expensive options even having a chip in the hilt that can make the lightsabers sound quite like the ones from the Star Wars movies.
Duelists will thus be able to live out their Star Wars fantasies in organized bouts of 3 minutes. It’s the physicality of the lightsaber combat which made the French Fencing Federation decided to support the sport in the first place. It’s now equipping fencing clubs with lightsabers and will also be training new instructors.
Additional rules have also been designed to improve the aesthetic appeal of the sport. The rules dictate that the point of the lightsaber has to reach behind each fighter before they can attempt a hit. This has been done to make fights have lots of large sweeping motions instead of the rapid stabs of the blade seen in conventional fencing.
“It’s becoming difficult to (persuade them to) do a sport that has no connection with getting out of the sofa and playing with one’s thumbs. That is why we are trying to create a bond between our discipline and modern technologies, so participating in a sport feels natural,” explained Serge Aubailly, the secretary generation of the federation.
Filed in . Read more about Lightsaber. Source: apnews