Tried new foil times

[striker]

"All of them" fits to a large extent when you compare to the much larger world of fencing, but I meant Evangelista. He doesn't get all that much credit in the CF crowd, actually (I've been on the classicalfencing list for about 4 years). Evangelista is not a classical fencer - he was trained as a sport fencer around the same time as me, and never particularly distinguished himself.

All of the above?
Seriously though, I can understand people wanting to do historically accurate fencing, but I don't think they claim it is a sport, or even a martial art. And I can understand some aspects of classical fencing, but not the rampant bigotry. If you don't want to be competitive, fine, but don't say you are better than modern competitive 'sport' fencers just on principle. The aim of the game, as in any game, is to win.

I do not think this discussion belongs to this thread. It needs its own
thread. So, I will not respond in detail. I will just make a few observations
for now and move on.

I do not think some of the responses in these two posts
are quite accurate. By historical fencers I did not mean SCA. I meant
people who practice, bout, and study a weapon of a certain period
as a serious sports and intellectual endeavor. Also, I noticed that in
such short responses many strong words such as "bigotry" , "not trying
to be competitive", etc. are used. As usual the discussion has diverged
into who Evangelista is and is not instead of discussing the issues.
It also look like the messenger is dismissed in order to dismiss the
message itself.

As for who speaks for sports fencing, the common knowledge was that FIE
speaks for sports fencing. These days I also read a lot of unkind posts
about FIE and its leadership. I was reading the following thread about
the opinions of the Italian Fencing Federation on new timings.
http://www.fencing101.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16800
Here is how they describe the goals of the new timings from the FIE's
perspective:

"The FIE had two goals:

(1) try to reduce the simultaneous lights, and

(2) bring back the bout to a more classic way in accord with the fencing tradition.

To achieve these two goals the FIE has tried to develop technical solutions which could in some way, if not totally eliminate, at least diminish the number of double touches and the flicks. "

What is interesting is point (2). What is more interesting is that these
discussions have been started by FIE. However, some of these same
issues have also been raised by that long list of sports fencing critiques
in the past. It is something to think about.....

[Alan]

"The FIE had two goals:

(1) try to reduce the simultaneous lights, and

(2) bring back the bout to a more classic way in accord with the fencing tradition.

To achieve these two goals the FIE has tried to develop technical solutions which could in some way, if not totally eliminate, at least diminish the number of double touches and the flicks. "

What is interesting is point (2). What is more interesting is that these
discussions have been started by FIE. However, some of these same
issues have also been raised by that long list of sports fencing critiques
in the past. It is something to think about.....

I don't see issues here. And the FIE does not care about these issues
for foilists but just to make foil more telegenic. And King René himself has said that many times in the different FIE magazines.

Now if a majoritty of adult foilists prefers flicks and simultaneous lights
i think they should decide to keep them, not being imposed to change
by people who see that as "issues".

[Schiavona]

Nope, it sounds correct, from the ref's standpoint, as long as the referee thought that the contact was sufficient.

How does a referee tell whether the click of a parry was enough to clear the point from target? Perhaps we could have "angle judges", who could watch from every side, and indicate whether the tip was appropriately deflected.

Or, we could assume that if a material contact is made (not a mere grazing, but the click of blade-on-blade contact) that it is a parry.

darius

Of course it's correct from the ref's standpoint! Darius, we both know that fencing is too fast to tell if the point has been deflected enough in fact.
We assume on hearing/seeing enough blade contact that the blade's been parried. Nothing wrong with this. I was trying to address Bill's complaint that because a referee didn't see his attack land that fencing is all screwed up. Yes, that's an oversimplification, but it sounds like that's the heart of his complaint. I won't be really happy 'till all the refs are replaced with really, really smart computers that can see every angle of the fencers, then I'd still b***h and moan about something

[MikeHarm]

So what Alan is saying is we shouldn't have FIE reps doing the votes and just straight voting by every fencer in every country for the new rules?

I don't understand why we'd say that a kid who is say competing internationally shouldn't get to vote whereas an unrated adult newbie should be eligible under this scheme.

[Alan]

So what Alan is saying is we shouldn't have FIE reps doing the votes and just straight voting by every fencer in every country for the new rules?

I don't understand why we'd say that a kid who is say competing internationally shouldn't get to vote whereas an unrated adult newbie should be eligible under this scheme.

That's over simplification. There are means to know if changes are popular or not. Without doing any poll, it seems obvious today that a majority of foilists and foil trainers are against the test timings.


By the way the FIE votes are biaised because they use
one country = one vote whatever the number of fencers in the country.

[kalivor]

Exactly Kalivor!

Compensate for the parry, lead your attack, and your oppenent will guide your weapon into themselves.

Why bother? My intent is there, and my point control is good enough that I can turn my light on within 350 ms of being parried. I don't see any reason to set up the point, if all that's needed is for me to intend to be parried.

[kalivor]

And dude how can you cay that a slo-mo warble of the blade that makes the tip deviate for fractions of second, is a parry? Threatening attacks can not be judged by where it is in mid flight, but where it ends up when the eagle has landed. And if the parry was good, I should have missed instead of being taken to 4. If my one time move (lunge deceptivley aimed at 6) was parried, why am 2 inches deep in his 4?
And you still never proved the tennis point. To achieve the 150 mile an hour serve is not a gross change in the sport. Neither is players hanging out at the baseline. He still serves over hand, with a high toss, and a little spin. It looks like the same serve thay had 50 years ago. Roddick just really cranks it.

AND

Kalivor, Im still not sure you were being genuine or sarcastic. it was not a remise because it was all with one motion, one time. I lunge 6, and by the time my lunge ends I am at 4 and on target. A remise would have to follow a failed attack, or a succesful parry. If the parry was succesful i wouldnt be stuck deep in the 4 off of one smooth forward motion.

But you did remise. Was it not immediate? Was it not direct?

You've stated that you can flick. I'm sure you're familiar with angulated attacks. Perhaps you've seen some epee fencing at some point, or even tried it. It's not hard to replace your point after a parry. It's not hard to change the angle of your attack after the blade contact so that you arrive on target. It's very, very easy, even in mid-lunge.

Why is displacing the point from target not enough? Have you ever watched low quality slow-mo fencing video? Fencing is fast enough that you can't see the extension -- the arm is in en garde, the arm is fully extended. Does this mean that an extendING arm doesn't exist because it exists on too small a scale? For how long a time ought the parry to be held? One full second? Two seconds? Until you start to recover from your lunge?