Characterizing decades of fencing...

[o4aversob]

So from what I've read on this board, most people feel the 90's to now has been the evolution of flicks, counter, and stop hits. It is a time where ROW has been obscured because the attack is not clearly defined enough FIE leaving many referees to create their own interpretation. Do some of you older fencers feel this is like a dark age?
I understand the 80's was a time where absence of the blade was used, and the vague feints while advancing (marches) started in this era.
However, I hear nothing of the 70's, 60's and so fourth.
How was fencing during this time?
What do you consider the golden age of fencing?

[achilleus]

So from what I've read on this board, most people feel the 90's to now has been the evolution of flicks, counter, and stop hits. It is a time where ROW has been obscured because the attack is not clearly defined enough FIE leaving many referees to create their own interpretation. Do some of you older fencers feel this is like a dark age?
I understand the 80's was a time where absence of the blade was used, and the vague feints while advancing (marches) started in this era.
However, I hear nothing of the 70's, 60's and so fourth.
How was fencing during this time?
What do you consider the golden age of fencing?

If you are interested in some of the history of fencing, Istvan Lukovich's book Foil Fencing: Advanced Competitive Training has a great section on how electric scoring changed fencing.

Rather than looking at things as all change is bad, he talks about why things changed, and how fencers need to adjust their training to succeed

Great stuff.

[Dan H]

Maybe this is the golden age of fencing.
I've only been fencing since 1991, but most people I know who were fencing in the 60s tend to characterize foil back then as relatively immobile, more focused on actions with the blade, and "cleaner" in the sense that one had to make the hit obvious to the side judges. Personally, I prefer the dialogue of marches, false counterattacks, and breaking distance to that of binds and yielding parries.

[Epee_Pox]

This is clearly the golden age of epee.

[jeff]

most people I know who were fencing in the 60s tend to characterize foil back then as relatively immobile, more focused on actions with the blade, and "cleaner" in the sense that one had to make the hit obvious to the side judges. Personally, I prefer the dialogue of marches, false counterattacks, and breaking distance to that of binds and yielding parries.

The description of 60s fencing above really was gone by the end of the decade, and definitely in the early 70s, due to electric fencing which made actions much more ballistic in terms of footwork. The Russians already (eg: 1960 Rome Olympics) had succeeded with a game of dynamic footwork and simplified phrases. No more 3rd intention actions. Almost never a bind or yielding parry.

Instead: attack with fast advance, advance lunge or balestra lunge, ability to recover forward (for remise or redoublement) or backwards equally easily. Not much marching, except to set up the actual attack, which would be delivered by lunge or advance lunge, Simple blade actions: beat/counter beat (or press/glide while advancing the point). Absence of blade, to be sure: but threats were mandatory with an extending point (if you marched forward with a bent arm you would be called in prep - and that remained true up till the mid-80's, at least in NYC!) So, you might have an advance with a bent arm to draw the attempted taking, or with an extended arm, the difference being that the former was clearly understood to be preparation.