The difficulty of fencing according to ESPN

[thecoldroom]

ESPN recently did a study to see which is the most difficult sport in the world. They based this study on several physical abilities and elements. In the end, fencing comes out 24. What I don't understand is that the study seems inaccurate on some levels. For example due to the speed of fencing and the limited reaction time an athlete has to deal with a threat, you would think that fencing would rank as number one under "hand-eye coordination" but such is not the case. I'll post a link, check it out and tell me what you guys think.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills

[telkanuru]

I find it moderately insulting that surfing, vollyball, and the pole vault are rated higher. I definitely disagree with the ratings, having done many of the sports. I also do not see how basketball or hockey requires more agility than fencing, especially by 2 points on their scale.

[whtouche]

While, clearly this chart is idiotic, I'm not sure it's as wrong as it seems at first.
Most of the categories are physical and some of them dont even apply to fencing.
The ability to absorb impact? Strength, as defined as the ability to produce force?
.75 grams at most necessary for a touch, clearly more for a parry or bind I guess - but you arent hitting anyone.
This is all basically information people already knew. It doesn't at all mean that fencing is easier to succeed in than those listed ahead of it.
They barely take into account a large part of the mental game of fencing.
I don't want to sound elitist and say that it would be easier to become proficient in most other sports, than it is in fencing just for the reason of the endless layers of complexity fencing has.
I know very well that other sports also have underlying layers of complexity, but none-argueably-as deep.

My two cents.z.

[thecoldroom]

I find it moderately insulting that surfing, vollyball, and the pole vault are rated higher. I definitely disagree with the ratings, having done many of the sports. I also do not see how basketball or hockey requires more agility than fencing, especially by 2 points on their scale.

Yeah, having competitively done wrestling(high school and college), boxing(college), and martial arts(akido, shootfighting, jiu-jitsu at semi-national level), I disagree with their ratings even on these sports. For one, I think wrestling is harder in almost every way when compared to boxing, and martial arts are far too diverse to blatantly label, as kung fu and judo have very different skill and ability requirements. As far as stategies go, you would think fencing would rate very high in that as well.

[telkanuru]

Oh, right, and overall, tennis should be right next to fencing. They are really the same in terms of mental game and general skill sets, especially at higher levels.

[epeemike81]

ESPN recently did a study to see which is the most difficult sport in the world. They based this study on several physical abilities and elements. In the end, fencing comes out 24. What I don't understand is that the study seems inaccurate on some levels. For example due to the speed of fencing and the limited reaction time an athlete has to deal with a threat, you would think that fencing would rank as number one under "hand-eye coordination" but such is not the case. I'll post a link, check it out and tell me what you guys think.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills

having done both baseball and fencing (seriously at various points in my life), I find baseball to take more hand eye coordination than fencing. It wouldn't shock me, thus, to find other sports similarly requiring more coordination than fencing.

-m

[epeemike81]

I find it moderately insulting that surfing, vollyball, and the pole vault are rated higher. I definitely disagree with the ratings, having done many of the sports. I also do not see how basketball or hockey requires more agility than fencing, especially by 2 points on their scale.

Surfing requires INCREDIBLE balance, agility, and core strength! pole vault similarly requires insane control of minor details of one's body. as for volleyball, I'd have to agree.

-m

[epeemike81]

While, clearly this chart is idiotic, I'm not sure it's as wrong as it seems at first.
Most of the categories are physical and some of them dont even apply to fencing.
The ability to absorb impact? Strength, as defined as the ability to produce force?
.75 grams at most necessary for a touch, clearly more for a parry or bind I guess - but you arent hitting anyone.
This is all basically information people already knew. It doesn't at all mean that fencing is easier to succeed in than those listed ahead of it.
They barely take into account a large part of the mental game of fencing.
I don't want to sound elitist and say that it would be easier to become proficient in most other sports, than it is in fencing just for the reason of the endless layers of complexity fencing has.
I know very well that other sports also have underlying layers of complexity, but none-argueably-as deep.

My two cents.z.

um, first of all, it's not .75 grams, but rather .75 KILOgrams, though that's still clearly minor force.

Secondly, the ability to absorb impact is very important in fencing. a lunge is a very high impact action on the knees.

as for the endless complexity, I've heard enough various high level athletes talk about their sports to know that I don't know NEARLY enough to comment on relative complexity. high level athletes are thinking about things that aren't even CLOSE to on our radar screen.

-m

[epeemike81]

btw, everybody is aware that page2 is the lighter side of ESPN, right?? it's a humor page, largely.

-m

[noodle]

having done both baseball and fencing (seriously at various points in my life), I find baseball to take more hand eye coordination than fencing. It wouldn't shock me, thus, to find other sports similarly requiring more coordination than fencing.

-m

sigh

i'm also a little bent out of shape about that list; i've played a lot of the top sports seriously (football, basketball, baseball, martial arts). i'm going to have to disagree about the baseball part at least. sure, pitchers probably require the most hand-eye coordination since they're constantly throwing (i was a pitcher half my {very successful} baseball career), but most of the time, fielders are just standing around. fencers exert much more hand-eye coordination over longer periods of time under much more stress. i could do similar analysis for the other sports, but i'd say that some of them do belong up there, but fencing was definitely short-changed.

anyway, the general reaction to this thread reminded me of a pa strip that still tickles me and reminds me of the general air of the fencing community towards other sports

[RebelFencer]

I agreed with the rankings almost completely, except I would move wrestling and fencing up a bit more. Other than that it looks pretty accurate.

[kalivor]

sure, pitchers probably require the most hand-eye coordination since they're constantly throwing (i was a pitcher half my {very successful} baseball career), but most of the time, fielders are just standing around. fencers exert much more hand-eye coordination over longer periods of time under much more stress.

I think that they were considering hitting for baseball's hand-eye co-ordination. Probably at the major league level.

One can pretty easily argue that hand-eye co-ordination doesn't get much more difficult than that.

[sabreur]

The problem with the chart is that it mixes apples and oranges. It is nonsensical to consider agility when thinking about how difficult swimming is, for instance. I've competed seriously in three sports--swimming, squash and fencing. Each has a different skill set, and each is equally difficult to excel at. Of the three, fencing is IMNSHO by far the most intellectually demanding. Swimming requires the most endurance and discipline. Squash is sort of three quarters fencing; one quarter swimming--you need a lot of hand-eye coordination, flexibility, agility, and the ability to think about what you are doing, but you also have to have the endurance to run hard for an hour or an hour and a half.

On the other hand, I do agree with boxing (and other contact combat sports) being at the top. It is really hard just to maintain the level of energy output that boxing requires, much less absorb punches and try to out think the other guy...

Cheers, MR

[sabreur]

The problem with the chart is that it mixes apples and oranges. It is nonsensical to consider agility when thinking about how difficult swimming is, for instance. I've competed seriously in three sports--swimming, squash and fencing. Each has a different skill set, and each is equally difficult to excel at. Of the three, fencing is IMNSHO by far the most intellectually demanding. Swimming requires the most endurance and discipline. Squash is sort of three quarters fencing; one quarter swimming--you need a lot of hand-eye coordination, flexibility, agility, and the ability to think about what you are doing, but you also have to have the endurance to run hard for an hour or an hour and a half.

On the other hand, I do agree with boxing (and other contact combat sports) being at the top. It is really hard just to maintain the level of energy output that boxing requires, much less absorb punches and try to out think the other guy...

Cheers, MR

[Gav]

The study is flawed in may respoects. Like most journalism, the writer seems to have taken the opinion of a few 'experts' as gospel and probably has little or no experience in many of the sports listed. Did any of you do the questionairre. I almost felt like demanding the minute of my life back it's such a waste of time.

What struck me was how culturally weighted it was if you look at the top 10. If you were to ask for the same assessment of british academics I willing to bet you would get similair biases with more weight given to Rugby, Football [soccer to you us guys], Cricket and so on.

As others have noted, the additional problem is that apples have been compared with pears. How go you compare Fencing with Fishing? In fact I [personally] wouldn't even class fishing as a sport - it's a pastime. There isn't even a listing for their definition of the term sport.

[epeemike81]

sigh

i'm also a little bent out of shape about that list; i've played a lot of the top sports seriously (football, basketball, baseball, martial arts). i'm going to have to disagree about the baseball part at least. sure, pitchers probably require the most hand-eye coordination since they're constantly throwing (i was a pitcher half my {very successful} baseball career), but most of the time, fielders are just standing around. fencers exert much more hand-eye coordination over longer periods of time under much more stress. i could do similar analysis for the other sports, but i'd say that some of them do belong up there, but fencing was definitely short-changed.

anyway, the general reaction to this thread reminded me of a pa strip that still tickles me and reminds me of the general air of the fencing community towards other sports

um, you missed the BIGGEST chunk of hand-eye coordination: batting. hitting a ball moving that fast with movement is VERY difficult.

-m

[MikeHarm]

Lol.. I wonder if they went to watch some epee fencing and saw folks sort of hovering in one spot arm tracking when they put this together. I could see that ranking 24th.. I think modern foil fencing should be up closer to boxing definately.

[thecoldroom]

See, the thing that gets me, is having done boxing at a pretty high level, I really don't think it is all that tough. Sure it takes a lot of natural ability, good tactics, and some serious drilling, but the activity of hitting someone is fairly familiar to most people. Other sports on the other hand, involve completely foreign motions and ways of completeing an action. In fact, fencing itself confuses me, true I am a beginner, because of it's somewhat counter-intuitive movements. Activities with these less than obvious strategies in my opinion take a lot more drilling and practicing to compete effectively.

[Rolls]

Wha? This "study" is ridiculous at best. According to it, it takes more nerve to participate in Cycling: Distance(5.88) than Fencing(4.88)... Okay... I know riding a bike for a long distance can be pretty nerve racking but... How about comparing the nerve involved in Cycling: Distance(5.88) and Swimming: Distance(2.63). Huh? What about Track and Field: Distance (2.00).

So, to summarize getting in the water is more nerve racking than running on land (okay some people are scared of water), but niether of them is half as nerve racking as riding a bicycle? That seems to be a bit skewed.

If you look at the "panel of experts" it contains some people who participated in some of the sports (which are conveniently located in the top 10). It seems to that they would be a bit biased.

One last thing, I think when comparing sports it's necessary to look at amatuers in the field. Every kid on my block played basketball. Most of them learned by.... picking up the ball and dribbling it then shooting. Half of them took martial arts lessons (so, much for the nerve in that sport). But I don't know of a single person who ever "picked up" fencing. Most fencers I know had to learn for a longtime just to be bad at the sport. And if it's so easy, then why hasn't the US brought back gold yet.

[FoilyGeezer]

I find it moderately insulting that surfing, vollyball, and the pole vault are rated higher. I definitely disagree with the ratings, having done many of the sports. I also do not see how basketball or hockey requires more agility than fencing, especially by 2 points on their scale.

As a former Pole Vaulter (NCAA DivIII) I'm not that surprised. It takes a LOT of coordination to place the tip of a 16 foot long pole into a 6 inch wide box while running at a full sprint while making sure that you hit it in a full stride so that your left foot is just hitting the ground as the tip of the pole hits the back of the box.....then it really gets complex. Kewl sport. I've seen several concussions, two broken ankles, one broken leg, and one broken arm plus one guy who ripped himself open from ribcage to his elbow when he veered off in mid air and hit an upright on his way down.

However, I've also surfed and played a LOT of league volleyball..and, well...No.