I Never Cared Much for Swords. Then I Had to Fight with One

If you want to try sword fighting there are a bunch of ways to do it.

HEMA people are generally very welcoming and probably slightly mad. quite expensive to get into, but great fun.

Fencing is more common, but start out with epee, foil is a big weird as you have right of way, its a training system and it shows, its harder to learn and not as fun. Sabre is for people who like shouting lots, more one hit wonder.

For the eastern styles:

A good Aikido class should start out with weapons, you wont be going full speed as even with wooden sticks, stuff gets dangerous pretty quick.

Korean sword work is going through somewhat of a renaissance, I don't know that much about it though.

If you're doing eastern style sword work, don't be tempted to get a metal sword, you'll never be able to train with it, and they are almost always poor quality. (unless you know what you're doing)

I would disagree about starting with epee.

But that may be a bias about form.

I fenced 4-5 times a week for about 10 years, even teaching and was at one point ranked.

Our policy was to start people on foil with a strong focus on form for usually about a year before moving to Sabre or epee.

Of course, we also usually started people with a French grip, and wrist up vs sideways.

One goal for example would be in lunge practice to have a penny or dime a few inches in front of your shoe, and have that go flying without your shoe hitting the floor.

I agree with you though that epee is the most fun, and also the most realistic.

The right of way in foil is not realistic. Furthermore, I always disliked Sabre as it is very showy but not nearly as enjoyable.

In short, foil to learn initial form and practice, and then move to epee. (I realize the arm position difference can create a challenge for some there )

“Foil is art, Sabre is theater, epee is truth”.

In Epee, if you poke someone in the toe, it "kills" them. Not sure it is any more realistic than foil.