Japan and Fencing
No, this is not some post talking about the relationship between the East Asian nation and my sport of choice. It’s just a link to some photos from my recent trip to Japan, and a notice that there’s a relatively long stretch of Sabre fencing in a recent commercial for the GMC Denali. As I recall, they talk about grace and performance, which I suppose fencing and SUVs have in common, or something. In recent years it seems that there’s been more fencing in commercials, though I could just be ignorant of prior incidents. I can remember off the top of my head fencing in commercials for Target, Silk soy milk, some financial company, Food Network…and at least a couple of others. The Denali commercial features Sabre fencing, the flavor closest in appearance to stage fencing, with lots of slashes and dramatic cuts. Interestingly, the next-to-last shot shows the fencer on the right doing a sort of jumping lunge (perhaps with the help of a cable, I didn’t catch it with enough attention to see how realistic it looked) while the other fencer ducks and presents the tip of his (or her) blade: the final shot shows that tip contacting the right side of the lunging fencer’s upper torso. However, if I have my sabre rules correct (and I might not), if the lunging fencer manages a successful cut to the mask, then they should have priority, and thus the point.
Oh, you wanted something linguistic? Well, it seems that denali is the (west-central) Athabaskan name for Mt. McKinley, translating (according to most web sources) as `the high one.’ Don’t know anything about the morphology of the language, so at the moment I’m assuming it’s an adjective with person/number/etc morphology on it.
The Wife called me in the other day to watch that very commercial because she knew I’d be interested. It was a hard to be sure because the commercial was in black and white, but it looked like the fencers were inexplicably wearing foil lames while fencing (dry) saber.
Howdy! I happened apon your post here… I haven’t seen this commercial yet!! (but I got a 3 year old and one on the way, so the only TV I get is Anpanman)… I hope I get to see it before it ends… Gotta check out if they’re really wearin foil lames.
Do you come to Japan often? If you get a chance, drop by at my club next time… http://www.IwataFencing.com
We’re south of Tokyo in Shizuoka Prefecture. The club just started in Nov of 2005 but we’re doin pretty good with about 15 members…
Tchau,
Robb -)——-
Robb: thanks for the message! I don’t go to Japan all that often, though I haven’t been to Shizuoka yet, so I might be in town at some point. When I was studying in Osaka for a year, I actually took up Kendo rather than continue fencing, since the nearest clubs were inconveniently far away from where I was living (either in the main city or at a far-off Osaka Univeristy campus), and I found the the clubs rather not welcoming of outsiders/newcomers.