Swordmaster Is A Cut Or Two Above The Rest

The thrust. The parry. The fancy footwork …

Ah, does anything throb more with romance and danger than the exploits of an accomplished swordsman?

No, not another Clinton story.

I’m talking about real men of steel. Women, too. People who can tell a foil from a rapier, a dirk from a dagger.

People like F. Braun McAsh.

Sorry. I didn’t ask the Canadian swordmaster what the “F” stands for. After he demonstrated how he could slay me 12 different ways in under three minutes, I figured it was best not to pry.

“And with this cut here,” he said in a professorial tone while drawing the edge of his saber softly against my ample midsection, “in a second or two you’ll be staring at your intestines on the floor.”

Nothing ruins romance like the prospect of tumbling entrails.

With all the literary amour attached to these weapons, we tend to forget that these acutely honed instruments were designed to butcher an enemy quicker than a hog in a Spam factory.

“Those stories of people being cut in half during medieval wars,” declared McAsh, who has examined the actual remains of battle victims, “they’re not apocryphal.”

Fortunately for McAsh, legends such as Zorro, Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers outshine the gore.

McAsh, 46, was in Spokane over the weekend. Sponsored by EuroAmerican Martial Arts, he taught 14 local actors and fencing aficionados how to perform realistic sword fights on the stage.

An actor and fight choreographer since 1976, McAsh has tutored movie stars like Robin Williams in the fine art of dueling. Fans of the “Highlander” TV series know McAsh as the show’s swordmaster, the guy who orchestrates all the clinking combat.

For those of you who have missed this epic show, “Highlander” is about a group of immortals who spend the centuries fighting each other until one immortal survives.

I have no idea why people who can live forever just don’t move to a tropical island and spend eternity drinking rum and partying on.

But here’s the cool part: The only way to kill an immortal is to lop his head off. That explains why swords are such an important part of the plot.

“Sword fighting is referred to historically as `The Dance,”’ said McAsh, who added that traditional steps in flamenco and ballet were incorporated in swordplay. “It’s probably the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see. Unless you’re killed, of course.”

There was no danger of that. All the blades being used in McAsh’s seminar were duller than Forrest Gump.

“It’s chess at 200 miles an hour,” says Amelia Phillips, 40, of her love of fencing. She became interested in swords at 18, while attending an East Coast college. Now she participates in tournaments.

In days of old, when knights were bold, sword duels were a thing of the rich. Dueling was a way to avenge an insult leveled against your name or your household.

Of the 10 major insults, said McAsh, only the top two (slandering your family or your honesty) called for a duel to the death.

Some duels were over at first blood. In others, just showing up was enough to satisfy a foe.

Swordplay has fascinated me ever since Zorro hit the TV Disneywaves back in the fab ‘50s.

I can’t tell you how many hours I spent in my back yard hacking my neighbor Rob Ronald with a trusty stick. I always got to be Zorro because I had a mask and my mother made me a cape. Rob was the evil Dartagnan.

“En garde, ye filthy varlet,” I would yell at him.

To this day I have no idea what a varlet is, although The Varlets would make a pretty good name for a rock band.

Good thing for McAsh that I didn’t have my stick sword when he was disemboweling me. That varlet would have been vivisected.