Swordshop Gymnasium Sabre - Full Review

Hi, I'm Nick Thomas and welcome back to the Academy of Historical Fencing. And in this video I'm going to take you through the Swordshop.ca Gymnasium Sabre. So this is a relatively new product. I had this about five or six months. So what is a Gymnasium Sabre or Gymnasia Sabre? Well, the idea came about in the mid-19th century. The British patent in 1864 was the first of the British training sabres, dedicated training swords. Before that it was common to blunt old service swords or use wooden training swords. So from 1864 onwards the British started using purpose-built blunt training swords. In 1864 was the first version. This Swordshop Gymnasium Sabre is intended to be based off of the original British 1864. And therefore you've got the kind of the absolute typical Victorian era British training sabre. Now this isn't the first time that a company has attempted something like the 1864. So also the Caviton Easton, the Red Dragon Easton and the Regheny, which was also called the Easton and eventually became the Tournament, were all based upon the 1864. But in many ways this is actually the closest I think anybody's come to kind of matching not just the spec but the look of the original. So if we look at Matt Easton's article on his website, which looks at a load of antique original 1864s, and it gives you a full breakdown, images, specification, weights and balances and everything else, you can see that aside from that sort of weird outlier with the very narrow blade, they're all pretty consistent with their size, weight and balance. They're all around 800 grams, they're all about the same size and their balance is around, you know, 11, 12 centimetres, something like that. Now this Swordshop model, it is marketed as 800 grams. My personal one came out at 790, but of course that's completely natural variation that you'd expect. The balance is 10 centimetres on the website and that is how my one came out. So that's just a whisker below the average but still within the range of the original 1864s. The blade length is the typical sort of HEMA length that we see of the 85-86 centimetre. That's kind of quite typical. You'll see that the blade has a dumbbell section like the original 1864s and what that means is that you get a lot of blade presence and a lot of edge durability which is really, really nice. If we look down at the hilt, you'll see that the guard is a close match to the original as is the grip and even the nut to a degree. I mean the nut on the original is even larger. And I know that not everybody's a fan of big nuts but they were typical for these original examples. The 1864 had a very large nut. In fact the one on this Swordshop sabre is actually quite a bit smaller than a lot of the originals were. They were absolutely huge like this Frigini for example. So that is a typical historical method for a training sabre and it's very, very functional and it doesn't really affect the fight to be honest. So I'm happy with that. It's representative of the original training sword. Going on to the grip, you can see that the grip is also a close match to the originals where it's got this kind of ribbed effect which gives nice grip retention because if you have very smooth grips they can be a little bit slippery or they can turn in the hand. So that is matched in kind of shape and rib texture if you like to the original and then the nut on the top is again pretty representative of the originals. And so what you have here with this Swordshop sabre, gymnasium sabre, is a very close facsimile of the original British 1864 gymnasium training sabre and the only sort of significant difference is the rolled tip which of course in HEMA today we do typically go for rolled or spatulated tips for a bit of thrust protection or thrust safety if you like. Aside from that it's extremely close to how the originals were. Now this trend for sort of roughly 800 gram training sabres kind of continued in Britain. So for example here I have an original antique 1907 pattern so this is when they started to take on Italian influence with their training swords. It in fact is 840 grams, it's even heavier than the 1864 it replaced although that weight is down at the hilt so the blade actually has even less mass at the tip and more flexibility although you'll also notice it has a button or a rolled type tip much like this Swordshop sabre. So yeah the general trend in Britain was to go for roughly 800 gram training sabres that were reasonably flexible, not too hard hitting and that's it. So the Swordshop.ca sabre is made in China but it is sold under the Swordshop.ca brand and it is their exclusive design. So in comparison to the originals we can see that it's a very very close match to the original training sabre that was developed in Britain, the 1864 which is really cool to see because that's a part of heme or fence in history so to have quite a close rendition of it, very close, is really quite cool. Now these ball-hilt sabres of course some people use them because they practice mid-19th century sabre systems or late-19th century sabre systems and some people just use them as the generic training sabre because this kind of sabre, it offers a good amount of hand protection it doesn't hit too hard, it has good flexibility it's kind of the generic training sabre and in that regards it does a really good job because if you want to practice, you know, official British military systems of Angelo or you could go on to Hutton, things like that you've got the typical training sabre of the time or if you just want the generic training sabre for doing a load of different sabre systems it'll work for you as well and within HEMA there has been a bit of a trend more recently with these kind of sabres so roughly 800 gram military sabres is pretty typical in the UK and parts of Europe I know of course there is a scene in parts of the world that uses the 600 to 700 gram sabres because they do, you know, the later Italian methods or they like those light sabres but that's not what this is this is the roughly 800 gram sabre category and there is a bit of a trend with these 800 gram sabres to start reducing the mass up here which makes them hit a little bit lighter, a fair bit lighter and flex more as well, which I'm a big fan of I think that's a good plan for this I like heavier sabres for certain things but for your kind of generic, you know, gen pop tournament go-to flexible safe sabre I think this kind of 800 gram sabre is ideal so there we go I think it works well for HEMA it's a really close copy or facsimile of the original antiques which is really cool how does it work otherwise? so I've been using this for, I think it's four or five months roughly and I've given it a really good hammering I've used it a lot myself I've handed it to my students I've handed it to other clubs when I've been at events I've really put it through its paces and so far it's taken no significant edge damage you can see that this blade, this dumbbell blade really holds up well it flexes really well the flex on this is about four kilos it will pass basically any flex test that you'd expect of this kind of sabre it's much more flexible than all the others on the market that are kind of equivalent in many ways I don't think it's excessive it's a very nice flex you can see it's more towards the tip so you've got safe flexibility whilst having still good control in your fort here now the ball guard, it's not rolled edge but like the originals it has a nice curvature to protect those edges and it is heat treated, it's hardened and you can see here it's taken no damage whatsoever this has been used against all manner of sabres and has held up completely fine no dents, no dings it's really nice and also there's some kind of, something added to the steel I think or some coating which has made this a little bit rust preventative which is really nice so this has actually stayed looking smart the grip, it looks like a plastic inside I would imagine it's 3D printed or similar, I'm not sure and then it's got this leather on the top and you can see it's kind of sewn up here this has held together really nice it seems durable and the ribbon definitely helps with the grip, it's quite nice now you'll notice that this sabre does not have this notch or lug whatever you want to call it down here at the base of the sabre now that's something I'm a fan of and with this Regheny for example I was glad to see that they added this as an option where you could have this and that's what I opted for because I like that in my sabres and that's especially because I am a big fan of Napoleonic British sabres and they tend to be a little bit more bulbous here so I like that in my sabres that said, remember this is a copy of the 1864 it's done this way intentionally to match the original so like the nuts, whether you like it or not that is the intentional design to be a replica of the original gymnasium sabre now in terms of my sparring I don't find it that big a deal if you have heavier blades I really don't like this type of grip but in this sort of light to medium type blade it works absolutely fine and that said of course you can dismantle this entire thing this is threaded you could take this apart you could change the grip to whatever you want so if you feel like changing to something else of course you can but I found it to be absolutely fine as is and especially because you know it's intended to be that facsimile of the original so they were built that way for a reason and I'm quite happy to use them as is for that purpose you know I like my training swords to be accurate replicas of the original swords that they're supposed to be representing so in that regard this is exactly what it's supposed to be now in terms of glove space you've got plenty and in fact because you don't have this lug at the base here where the little pinky would sit you actually gain a little bit more glove space so we've been able to fit every kind of heavy five-finger glove of every size into this guard and you can even fit to a degree some mittens but I would never recommend using mittens for a saber especially a ball-hilt saber but realistically every five-finger glove has fit this grip perfectly well so a lot of positive things to be said about this there's no doubt about it in terms of positive factors it is an accurate representation of the originals it flexes really well it does hit light for an 800 gram saber it's been very durable in terms of the straightness of the blades the edge and the grip and everything else durability is excellent so are there any negatives? well I would say that lug here personally I would normally opt for having it but again because this is the way it's supposed to be I can't complain about that the reinforcement plate here has been cut so that it goes around the blade and I'd like to see that sit under it because that reinforcement plate the intention is that as you take energy through a blade it provides additional strength to the bowl so you want the plate this reinforcement plate to go underneath the shoulder and rest on around the tang rather than on top of the blade so that's a minor thing although this guard is so strong and hardened that it's never been an issue but I'd like to see that tiny change and aside from that just not really, no you know on the originals the balance was you know usually 11 to 12 centimeters and this is 10 would I have opted necessarily for the 11 to 12 rather than 10? it's a tiny tiny difference in balance it's really not that big a deal the beauty of 10 centimeters balance on a sword like this is that you maintain some blade presence and realism in the handling characteristics whilst also keeping nice gentle hitting power on the cut so 10 centimeters is really good for this kind of sword now in terms of price and availability they're 420 Canadian which is around 305 US dollars and around about 230 pounds British so that's a very good price it makes it pretty damn competitive I think that's a very good price for what it is it's a very good product it looks good it handles well it's so cool to have you know a nice realistic representation of the original 1864s and in terms of your availability so they're often in stock and I know that sword shop regularly gets batches of them so you'll often be able to just get them very very quickly which is always nice to see because again waiting times for swords can be so tedious so so far from what I've seen you can get them very very quickly and the service I've experienced and seen from others with sword shop has always been excellent so there you have it the swordshop.ca gymnasium saber I think it is a really good entry into the ball hill market it's great to see these kind of 800 gram roughly ball hill military sabers maintaining a safe and sensible weight rather than you know being big clubs that's nice to see and we've seen you know Regheny improve theirs for example and I know people are going to want to compare the latest spec Regheny tournaments with the swordshop.ca and some other sabers now at the start of this year I did a 2025 buyer's guide for HEMA sabers and clearly the picture has changed significantly so in the new year I'm going to shoot another one of those videos for 2026 because we've already got to talk about this one the two swordias I've got some of the entry-level poker armory sabers on the way as well so the you know the scene has already changed in that time so I will do a 2026 saber buyer's guide because there's an awful lot to say but in short if you wanted to compare these two you would simply say the sword here is a little bit lighter because it's 835 to 790 or 800 the balance point is a few centimeters further back the blade is a little bit more flexible so basically this one has a bit more blade presence and this one hits a little bit lighter and is a little bit more nimble and that's all I have to say about the swordshop saber it's a really cool product it's exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see more of for British military saber now obviously I'm a huge lover of Napoleonic stuff I love you know slot hilts and stirrup hilts and stuff like that and I use those but I also regularly use bowl hilt military sabers because they're a safe go-to and generic kind of tool so either way they're really really useful absolutely loving this saber it's excellent and that's all there is to say about it so thanks for watching please subscribe if you haven't already