Lightsaber is an official sport in France! (and it’s inspired by TPLA!)

Thats right! Lightsaber fencing is now an official sport in France! And it is the brain child of TPLA Knight instructor, Darth Cervall (aka Cedric Giroux)! Cedric has based his system of Lightsaber Sport on the TPLA system of training and safety. We are excited to see more of this system in action!

First of all, I should point out something that some readers in the US may not understand. France has a system of government regulation in matters of sport. Each sport has its own associations, boards and regulators. This helps keep the quality of instruction at professional levels or at least up to standards set by a governing body. What this means is that when we say something is an official sport in France, it’s a pretty big deal.

Cedric has been on this project since before he came to us. In fact, one of the reasons he joined TPLA was because of our system incorporating skill level, safety, and the Star Wars aesthetic. He very quickly moved through our material and together we steered him in the right direction for gear to use and different ways of organizing material. He had put on his first tournament in 2017 and has been working closely with the French Fencing Federation (Fédération Française d’Escrime or FFE) for the past year or more. We have been watching with great interest and pride as he has tested and worked with other professionals in France to finally come to this goal. (We will be doing l show on this topic very soon were I will allow Cedric to explain himself. I am sure my account is lacking.)

So what has happened is that the FFE has listed the LED lightsaber as a fourth weapon event in Fencing. Just like epee, foil and conventional saber, the fictional weapon is now an event in the national sporting arena. They have set up safety standards, weapon and gear requirements, Training methodologies for the training of other instructors in the sport. I think we all owe the FFE a debt of gratitude for believing in and pursuing the sporting potential of Sabering.

We recently did a live show all about rule sets used in Sabering. Cedric was on and gave us a little bit of an explanation of the system they are using there. Check it out if you missed it:

Again, we are going to be doing a sow and many videos on the topic in coming weeks. I will let Cedric take the lead and show us the ropes for the main event, so I don’t want to get ahead of things. I wold like to close by congratulating Cedric on such monumental achievement! This is solidly HIS baby and we were hopefully a positive influence on his work. The long hours, travel, negotiations, and keeping up with his own classes and training, it was a herculean task to get this done. We are proud to have you among us!

Bon travail! Toutes nos félicitations! Heureux Sabering!

Pour nos lecteurs français,

Je m’excuse de ne pas avoir écrit cela en français. Je suis encore en train d’apprendre et de m’améliorer. Je ne fais pas assez confiance à Google Translate.