As per Shygetz's suggestion, here's an excerpt I was particularly fond of, describing the problem behind the idea unbroken lines of teachers passing down the One True Fencing Technique:
For some reason it never occurs to people that at some point in recent history all these Western fencing masters stopped actually teaching how to fight and kill with real weapons and instead started teaching how to score points with light, flexible, rubber-tip practice ones. Not only that, but even earlier than this occurred, they had all ceased fighting and dueling as they had in earlier generations and stopped learning those methods of swordplay. Now, there may be continual transmission of underlying ideas, principles, and concepts, for sure, but it’s a big difference between fighting with a back-sword or a long rapier in a dark alley, and playing touch-touch with your colleague down at the Y.
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