Olympic Fencing
 

There is a nice little article in the Times today on the Men's Sabre team training at Manhattan Fencing Club. Play the video to get a sense of the action in sabre. This is probably the hardest weapon to understand while watching because of the large target area (upper body/head) and the right of way rules which determine who has priority or the ability to score. It is really appealing visually even if you don't quite pick up the action.

While these guys are very good and are good enough to medal the women's team is probably regarded as our (USA's) best chance.

Pssst, over here in the alley.... wanna buy some medals? pins? tickets? :apimp:

excruciating video replay... aaarrrrgggghhhhh... Never saw what sets apart sabre from, say, sniper. j/k... seriously, the vid didn't help a lot. I did like the end comment about the "practice sword"... hahahaha

This guy gives a simplified version of who is attacking. He doesn't address how the defensive person parries the blade and gains the initiative. I can follow the action pretty well now in foil but still miss it in sabre because the attacks are different and I haven't physically done it outside of messing around.

Like any sport, it's hard to grasp unless you learn it progressively. Try to explain baseball to someone, in one sitting, and I guarantee they'll go cross eyed.

This video has all three weapons. Sabre has the conductive mask and jacket style lame'. Foil has the vest lame'. Epee, my weapon, is simpler. Unlike sabre and foil there is no right of way beyond the harsh reality that you have to defend yourself if the other guy initiates a real attack. You can hit anywhere at any time and you don't get into the nonsense of arguing/interpreting touches, which can be political.



You can get an idea about the physicality of the bouts from that, but keep in mind that those blades which are whipping around like rubber are steel. Lil' Pete had a bout in foil one time with a very angry guy who kept missing the target and whipping (flicking) her in the legs. She took home some serious bruises, but kicked his ass!

So, wrt right of way, in sabre and foil, a touch that is not an attack is not scored as a point?

Also, in sabre, I noticed that the head is a valid target. How does the clear face shield briefly displayed in the poor NYT video communicate a touch?

That's exactly it.

That's generally right, although it is possible to lock out your opponent by hitting when it isn't your attack if the other's action is really slow. The touch should be the opponents by rule but the machine doesn't register a touch after .25(?) seconds.

There is a transition happening from the old grill style helmets. The new clear shield isn't conductive, giving an advantage to fencers with deeper pockets. There are a number of problems with modern sabre. It was a much different cleaner (action wise) game before electronic timing.

Dr. Daniel Bukantz, who was a national champion and Olympic fencer and a longtime Olympic fencing referee while pursuing a career in dentistry, died Saturday at his home in Forest Hills, Queens. He was 90.

The cause was lung cancer, said his son, Jeff, the captain of the 2004 and current United States Olympic fencing teams, continuing a seven-decade family presence in the sport.

We went to see Neil Lazar, Wednesday night, who gave us the news. They had fenced a number of times in the old days. Neil tried to call him after his birthday but couldn't reach him.:(

IIRC one period of fencing time is 1/25th of a second, ie 0.04 seconds. I recall wondering how they decided this, and how they measured it.

Grandson, perhaps?

Ok, Mr Smartypants is being sent to the corner now.

Yeah that's the right number. They've increased the point depression time to reduce flicking, but I don't know how they chose the various timings in the first place. I prefer to think it was a long week on the strip vs a long week in a committee meeting.

Nope son. He's the organizational captain, not an active fencing captain. He wasn't quite good enough as a fencer to make the olympics but he is a respected director (referee) at the Olympic level.

So yesterday I fenced terribly but I did make one amusing touch. I could feel a fleche (running attack) coming so I feinted toward my opponent to mess his timing. It worked a little to well. He stepped on his own foot when he tried to adjust and soared down the strip head first. I hit him on the shoulder as be flew by. "Touch left, yellow card right for fencing out of control." We all had a pretty good laugh.

Damn lefties don't fight fair. :haha:

We went to Les Amis fencing club in Buffalo yesterday. The plan was for lil Pete to kick butt in foil and I would get shelled by the epeeists. Unfortunately, Lil stank it up and a couple of the top epeeists didn't show so I got the silver. Go me! :)

Congratulation! The best laid plans, of foilers and espreers...

Long couple days so far, another tomorrow. We both were kinda weak yesterday although I did score 4 times in 30 seconds to force an OT which I then messed up.

Today our kid just missed the round of 16 out of 90 fencers. I think she'll finish at 17 or so. She lost priority (coin flip) and her final de to a screamer in over-time. The kid did ask the director to explain one of the three blown calls (says the Dad) which is a big step for her as she usually just grouses about this stuff later. We were disappointed to see her opponent sitting chatting with the directors after the bout. Over-all though, it was a excellent day of fencing where she was controlling distance and generally being aggressive and the directing was mostly quite good.

Cool, it's about personal growth and improvement, rather that winning it all.


Unless you happen to win it all, then it's about, IN YOUR FACE, LOSERS :lol2:

Lil Pete qualified for the Junior Olympics yesterday by winning an Under-20 event at Wilkes yesterday. She made a friend as well. It was a mixed event and she and another girl managed to make it an all girls final. The girl's Dad is an easy going but very sharp Russian coach who just started training her seriously due to physical problems and her progress has been amazing. I guess watching tape with Dad was pretty effective. Look out Keystone games, the NEPA girls are getting serious. Lil' Pete said that yesterday's gold was her 28th medal not counting a couple bogus ones where events made awards down to 8th place. On the very good news front, her coach was able to come yesterday and we now have a laundry list of things to fix.

Cool, better get started on the addition to the house... the trophy room. :thumb:

So I broke out my gear for the first time since I got sick... I was rusty but did okay after a few bouts. You can see a old limpy dwellar in the background of this video. The lefty kid on the left in both bouts took third. I lost 5-3 to him in pools. My distance was a mess but my lungs were good... so I got that going for me.

Swashing them buckles in fine style.:D

So not only is it an extremely popular thread, it's now an Olympic sport?

I fenced over weekend and a coach buddy from Scranton said he got a great shot of me. I just got this, great timing. The college kid I was fencing is training at Fencers Club in New York, one of the top 3 or 4 clubs in the country, so I was motivated to make sure our little podunk club was well represented. He had a pattern of attacking on the high line, and I usually retreat to set up a riposte so this time I simply dropped and let him run onto my point for the bout winner.:)

hahahahahahaha!!!!

Score one for old age and treachery!

Huzzah!

I was surrounded by gray hairs after that one! We always root for each other when fencing whipper snappers. My legs felt great all day, even fenced the sabre event. Good times.

Griff's so good he can beat them whippersnappers sittin' down. :haha:

Excellent!

Today was different. I'm still recovering from whatever happened Friday afternoon. I fenced very carefully saving energy all day and wound up in fourth place.

The topper of the day was a bout only an epeeist could love. I fenced this college guy, who had beaten me in epee and sabre last time out. In the pools, I beat him by hopping openning up quick counter attacks. So he figures he'll slow me down in the de, to which I say thankyou as I am feeling pretty run down today. First period we fence to 0-0, lots of false attacks nobody committing. Second period he picks my hand beautifully on a compound attack. 0-1 going into the third. I break out the hopping a little bit get him moving back and forth and work his wrist obsessively, which as intended opens up his knee on an advance 1-1 w00t. Time runs out he gets priority (randomly assigned) in OT. That means I have to score or I lose. We double touch once nothing done. I slowly work him to the end of the strip and make a false attack at his foot at about 55 seconds. He recovers with his front foot on the endline. I go for it again, he goes off the end of the strip point and bout to the old guy with almost a second to spare. Craziest win ever.

Sweet victory!

Nicely done!

Guile and cunning will often beat youthful speed.

Huzzah!

Heh heh, ya don't survive this long by being stupid. :notworthy

Nice!

They keep settin'em up and you keep choppin' them down.

Nice work, nice work.

Sometimes more insurance will do it. Tawanda!

America! Fuck Yeah!
 

http://www.fencing.net/13162/miles-c...32ee-225747637

Amazing.

USA? But he's not white, might not even be Christian, and he's skinny! :haha:

Well, he was born in Britain... They're fat too though!

Ah, living the American dream... move to America, accomplish an astounding feat, remain poor and fairly obscure to sports fans and the public.

Of course the prick foiled Griff's chances of being the first American, but he can still be the first native born. ;)

Nah, he uses the wrong weapon. Epee is the real deal. I'm gonna start targeting Veteran world championships but I have to survive a couple more years.

Blame Football
 

Emik Kaidanov just got fired from Penn State apparently for no good reason. Fencer throws athletic tape on the ground. Staff assistant thinks its a joint. SA goes over coaches head instead of talking to coach. Fencer gets grilled and drug tested. Fencer is clean. Coach has closed door meeting with SA. Feelings are hurt. Complaints are lodged. Best fencing coach in America fired.

... lawsuit to follow at 11.

I don't know if that'll happen. He was getting ready to retire and they gave his job to the assumed successor.

Was the "assumed successor" the staff assistant who made the complaint? :eyebrow:

No. They gave it to his long time assistant coach who I assume he's very tight with. He might not want to mess that up which would be one reason not to hit them with a lawsuit. On the other hand he could weaken every other coaches hand by submitting.

Is it really clear that the Coach was actually "fired" ?

Maybe he was protesting that the staff person "went over his head",
and so resigned in protest or took early retirement, rather than "submitting".

It does sound strange for the a manager to have been "fired"
... unless there was something more involved than described in the OP.

The school is not commenting so a lot is not clear.

Gah! Tough day of fencing in Buffalo yesterday. The guys who placed 1st, 2nd, and 5th out of 25 were all in my 6 man pool and the only "B" in the tourney sand-bagged coming into the de's one below me mid-pack. I fenced him well but came up short. The room was very cramped, with narrow strips, humid, and hot. I directed a few bouts and was kinda nervous about getting hit due to the lack of space. Then again I got to go fencing! I got to fence the best guys in the room. I hung out with some Syracuse friends, met some Canadians, and touched base with a bunch of other guys. Good times.

Is directing a bout the same as refereeing, or does someone else still decide who won?

It's the same thing. We have a lot of self-directed events in epee since its usually pretty straight forward.

Does anyone still compete in the saber? Seems like it would require tremendous strength in the wrist

Sabre is still fenced and I actually fenced it tonight. A modern electric sabre is a lot lighter than a cavalry sword though. Sabre as its fenced now is more about speed and the blade actions suffer for it. It is still very explosive and a damn lot of fun. I fenced heavy sabre a couple years ago with a rounded blade, it was fun but I felt lucky to have gotten through it with minimal bruising. There is still Schlager fencing and historical fencing if you want something heavy cracking your noggin or actual blood.

Oh Griff, Hollywood's calling.

I'd love to stage one of these.

there can be only one!