This is more suited for a throw-back Thursday post – a pop-culture sighting of fencing on Happy Days as the Fonz takes on a French fencer in a high school gym for a fencing demonstration. The Fonz, of course, dons his leather jacket but his opponent insists that they do not wear masks for their duel.
Check out the video here:
Of course you should always wear a fencing mask when performing a demonstration, taking or giving a fencing lesson, or fencing a bout. To not do so is ill-advised unless you like the idea of seeing out of only one eye.
We’ll give Happy Days license here for what they did. It was a theatrical performance and there was dialogue going on between the Fonz and his nemesis. Plus, we even got the swinging from a rope move in there.
Back in reality, however, we’ve seen a video come out of a coach giving a between-bout sabre lesson without a mask on – Just don’t do that. Kids do enough dumb things imitating what they see without showing them more dumb stuff that they could do.
