Quote Originally Posted by mcv View Post
They could be pretty successful. Some people just have a natural talent for it. I've seen someone without any sparring experience (though he did have some training) beat much more experienced fighters in a tournament.
I've seen naturally athletic people with a few months of training from very good instructors do well in tournaments, but in ten years I've yet to see anyone with zero training do well in international longsword tournaments or even informal sparring.

I think you can do ok right out the gate (i.e. no training) with Dusssack. I've seen people get 'up to speed' (basic competency) in saber in a few weeks, same with staff or spear. You can get up to speed in about 3-6 months with longsword if you have a very good instructor and training several times a week. More like a year or more if you are training on your own or with less skilled teachers. For some people it takes 2 or 3 years. With rapier I would generally double that in most cases, but I have seen some people who take to it much more quickly, again depending on the instructor and the individual student. Some people seem naturally more suited to one weapon than another, longsword and rapier are distinct personality types.

I learned longsword up to a basic level of competency in about a year, but it took me almost 4 years to get halfway decent at rapier and I'm still not that good.

There are also different plateaus you reach. I think a guy with 3 months of training in a longsword has a major edge against someone with no training, just from knowing the guards, false-edge cutting, Mastercuts and so on. Enough to ensure like a 3-1 victory margin. But it probably takes at least a year to get to the point where you have a similar advantage over almost any naturally athletic guy with 3 months of training, and something like 3 years before you have a major advantage over a strong guy with 1 years experience.... and that is if you have talent and drive sufficient to learn those advanced, counter-intuitive techniques.

The interesting thing is that training in the historical techniques can and does trump youth and strength, but it takes a lot of training. At Fechtschule America this March I saw a handful of fencers in their 40's and 50's who could still dominate aggressive young fighters in their mid 20's. But there aren't very many who can still hold their own at that age.

G