I have no idea why, but for the past couple days I've been thinking of a particular WF bout I reffed quite a long time ago. Idk, maybe 6 months. I remember it really well, and the more I think about it, the weirder of a bout it is.

Alot of contested beat attacks vs. parry ripostes. Neither fencer was really doing it very correctly. The attacker (left handed) would start in a low line, start to come up to the target, but then have a decision point of either beating the blade if it was there, or finishing strait to the target. The beat wasn't starting when she was in the low line. It is up to high line THEN over to the blade. Every once in a while, she wold do it slightly differently, and go strait for the blade. Maybe is was a different action, maybe it was the same action executed slightly differently that made me see it differently. The problem is that she always thought her beat started when she started coming up to the high line. If this was the case, then they all would have been hers, because she would have started going for the blade before the opponent. However, thats not what was really happening.

The defender, on the other hand, was trying to parry, but had a wierd...er...hitch?... in her parry. She would effectively wind up her parry 6 by moving her hand into 4 first. I don't think she was trying to make 2 parries, I think she was just (for some reason) winding up her parry. Unfortunately for her, the first wind up part, isn't part of the actual parry. She wasn't moving towards her opponents blade.

So really, most of the time, neither fencer started their blade action when they thought they did.

One of the weirdest bouts I can remember reffing, and I don't know why its on my mind...