Greatness is coming to this world… and it’s coming from the French. The French Fencing Federation officially recognized lightsaber dueling as a competitive sport just a couple of days ago–and the future for it cannot look brighter. They’ve adapted it as a substitute to the swords used in regular fencing, and has been given the same status as them in competitions. To be quite frank, it’s about god damn time. George Lucus has set this world up with one of the greatest series of all time and imbedded lots of things into our culture, and I believe a sport like this should’ve been recognized a long, long time ago.

With an already globally established knowledge of lightsabers, the potential for this sport (I keep calling it its own sport but just know that it’s still just a part of fencing) is grand–grander than the Grand Army of the Republic. With the insane fan base that star wars has, literally people in every single country would jump at the chance to actually be a part of a competitive lightsaber duel as a sport. Personally, I’m a huge fan of the star wars movies and after looking at the picture I included above, I’m all for it– it actually looks awesome. I hope that all battles are in the dark like that and with those suits (looks to be armored almost) on. I’ve never fenced before but I’ve always been interested in it, and this would send its popularity up like crazy.

To start off the rules, I’ll just give a quick rundown on the rules of fencing and how to play. Fencing is a one-on-one competition between two sword wielding individuals who are trying to touch their opponent with the tip of their sword to score points. There is three different types of fencing: epee, sabre, and foil fencing. In epee you can touch the opponent anywhere on the body for a point, in sabre you can only touch above the waist, and in foil you can only touch the opponents trunk. You must wear a face mask, a special fencing jacket, special fencing pants and fencing gloves every time you compete. A fencing bout can either last five touches with a time limit of three minutes or 15 touches with a time limit of nine minutes. Lightsaber fencing can be used in all three types of fencing, but typically is given its own new point system and fighting arena for its adaption. Usually its used more in epee style with five points given for touching the head or body, three points for the limbs, and one point for the hands. After 15 points is reached or 3 minutes are up the bout is over. A “Sudden death” is also given for ties where the first to hit their opponent wins.

I remember when I was a kid and my friends and I would all have lightsaber battles together. Those were the days. I had a purple lightsaber like Mace Windu and I’ll tell you, I ran shit in those battles. I loved doing them and would definitely be interested in doing a real competitive lightsaber battle for its sentiment and straight up fun.