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Fightcabulary: En Garde

4/16/2020

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The term en garde is French in origin and means, as you might guess, “on your guard” or “get ready because vigorous attempts at stabbing are about to occur.” 

In the sport of fencing, the phrase en garde is called by the director of a match as a signal for the fencers to assume the prescribed position for the beginning of the match. At LANCE Training or during our shows, you’re much more likely to hear one fight partner saying en garde directly to another as a verbal cue that they are ready for the fight to begin, like a quarterback shouting “hut” at the start of a play in football as opposed to the umpire calling “batter up” during a baseball game. It’s more informal, more peer-to-peer, but no less necessary between fight partners. 

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When it comes to characterization, LANCE performers treat the phrase en garde almost as performative dialogue rather than as an official term. It is a kind of trope-ish shorthand that can signal to the audience a few things about a character all at once: 
  • They’ve had some formal instruction in combat
  • They are a principled person, a person with honor, a person who values fairness
  • They are dignified, possibly aristocratic. 
To put it in today’s terms, en garde is like virtue signaling. After all, it takes a certain kind of character to say “En garde!” at the beginning of a fight. We all know the type. We’ve seen that character repeated over and over in the books, movies, and TV shows we’ve consumed all our lives. When you’ve only got a 30-minute show to tell your story, you’ll understandably want to use all the tropes you can to help the audience understand the plot and its characters. En garde is one of those useful, trope-y phrases on top of its other purpose as communication between fight partners. 

One last use of the phrase en garde is as a state of being. You’ll often hear LANCE Trainers telling students to “get en garde”, meaning that they want the student to assume a ready stance. Granted there are lots of guards a person can take at the beginning of a fight. En garde is simply choosing one of these stances and doing it. 

And that’s en garde in a nutshell! Which word should we do next in our Fightcabulary series? Let us know in the comments below!
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