Olympic Wrap Up Article

[Allen Evans]

I think Walter is on the right track. Other countries will be looking for a way to shut down the "stand off" weapon that the US fencers seem to employ with their strong, physical game. The easy answer is to simply copy the US fencer's footwork, but that is a game of diminishing returns (how much faster can they go?) AND leads to the referee having undo sway over the priority. Handwork seems to be the only avenue to explore.

What I can't speculate on is what form that handwork will take, or how it might be combined with footwork. There seems to be mixed opinions about whether it's possible to implement a parry riposte game in this environment, but it's hard to know what changes will occur with box timing and with ROW interpretations in the next 4 years. I am not enough of a saber expert to speculate.

What IS nice to see is that United States fencers seem to be (at least in some cases, and some weapons) forcing other countries to adapt to them, rather than the other way around.

Allen Evans

[edew]

Originally Posted by sabreman

Veeco, You are right on target regarding Smart and Lee. The only exception is Rogers who is less athletic (coached by Nazlymov) and a more tactical fencer.

By the way the fastest sabre fencer I ever saw was Vilmias sp? Szabo from Romania. He was very successful at first but once the comp found out he was a one trick pony his results went down.

I wouldn't say Rogers is less physically capable compared to Smart or Lee. Rogers is not as lanky, and thus doesn't have the ability to out-reach Smart or Lee. But he's just as good physically and can move forward and backward with the best of them.

What I think is Rogers' weakness compared to Smart and Lee is the mental (or heart) aspect. He's just a tad too introspective and thus he plants just those little seeds of self-doubt. He doesn't have as much confidence as Smart or Lee. Or, he shows his loss of self-confidence a bit too openly compared to Smart or Lee. In saber, the fencer's gotta have 84LLs of shot-put steel magnitude. All too often, I've seen Rogers fold before playing his hand. (I should qualify that this only happens at the quarter- to semi-finals levels of NACs. I don't usually get to see too much saber fencing until then: I'm either fencing myself or refereeing or whatever.)

[Sabresque]

Did you see roger's bout Charikov (not a shabby fencer)? 10-4 big comback. I'm not saying Rogers is the strongest part of the team but though he has self-admitted mental blocks every once in a while he has no lack of heart.

[edew]

Regarding the lack of handwork in saber, I think the primary reason is that many kids are starting in saber from scratch and not starting with foil first. I fence foil primarily and when I fence saber, I make much more use of parries than most others.

In a team match against NYFC at the 2001 Summer Nationals, I fenced against both Morehouse and Hagamen, making about six to eight points (total) using false parry-real parry, beat attacks, and such. I probably made more parry ripostes during my saber bouts than probably the rest of the field combined.

I've now moved away from making as many parries only because the whipover thing is just too hard to prevent. People are learning to whack hard and hope to bash through. It's tough.

I'd say it's virtually impossible to make successful parries or beats without proper distance, which means great footwork is necessary. And if fantastic footwork is available, bad handwork can be excused (making a person miss is just as good as making a parry, so if one's footwork makes one travel farther back than needed, so what).

[wflaschka]

So, no one's buying the "Sabre hand will improve" theory (edit: not that sabre hand is weak or anything right now). *Sigh* I guess time will tell.

I'm surprised nobody has nailed me on the foil stuff -- particularly calling Italian foil "cheerful" and "zen". Does anybody want to take a stab at differentiating Italian foil from French/German/Russian? I'm really curious about that.

[telkanuru]

I would, if I had seen any bloody fencing! Someone *has* to upload that feed.

[Grasshopper]

Originally Posted by wflaschka

The box-timing changes will clamp down on some of this improvisational stuff -- fencers will need more planning/time to get the tip around in time. In the short term, I see the French and Russians (and old eastern bloc) seeing immediate gains for their styles. But the Italians are already working towards strong hits (and the Germans, too). An example is Sanzo charges forward, hand high, threatening a flick to the back -- but changes at the last minute for a downward point-strike under the defender's block (against Joppich in 2003 World Champs?). Those hits probably hurt because there's no place for the blade to bend, but it will set off the stickiest tip.

Walter, I think reason that the above technique works for guys like Sanzo is that there is a threat of them finishing the attack on the back - their opponents are forced to open up their guard making their chest look like a barn door. Without this threat, you will see guys keeping a patient en gaurd position, waiting for the real attack to the chest.

I agree with you in that the attacks will become more Romankov-y. Also, I would say that we will see many more deux temps attacks to the chest - like Bissdorf. If anything, the last 10 years of flicking and marching fencing have given foilist new ideas on tempo and marches, and although they won't be able to be as "Matrix-y" with their foils, I think we will see creativity manifested in other ways on the attack. The absence of flick attacks will lead to the presence of blade and patient en gaurds, which will lead to more pris de fer attacks, counter-times, clean parry ripostes - remember the day when a parry meant more than just whirling your blade around and waiting for the sound of metal? Look for distance to play a bigger roll - much more changes of direction at generally shorter distance.

Also, esquives and ducking will replace close-outs - as the fencers realize that making your opponent miss a straight attack is done differently than vs a flick attack.

As for the footwork, it will be tighter, more conservative, more variations in speed. And thankfully, there will be fewer fencers crashing into each other.

I agree that the French and Russian style will dominate in the early stages. Since the whole flicking game originally came from Germany, I would say that they would be the worst prepared for the change (except for Bissdorf...). I wonder if Omnes is considering coming out of retirement for this...

[wflaschka]

Originally Posted by Grasshopper

Walter, I think reason that the above technique works for guys like Sanzo is that there is a threat of them finishing the attack on the back - their opponents are forced to open up their guard making their chest look like a barn door. Without this threat, you will see guys keeping a patient en gaurd position, waiting for the real attack to the chest.

That's a very good point. When Sanzo raises his tip, you sort of have to raise your hand to block it -- but that won't be true if flicks are gone. I think it could also be the beginnings of a flickstitute (flick substitute) method.

It would go like this: Sanzo raises his tip, opponent is like, "Yeah, right, that won't land", and then Sanzo hits with a downward stroke (not with a flick) anywhere from the top of the shoulder to the groin. If the opponent squirms around, Sanzo could hit the flank or the back.

For the next action, Sanzo raises his tip again, and now the opponent is raising his hand again to parry. The threat of that raised tip is still real, because it can come down above or below the opponent's blade, on the inside or outside -- it's still a guess-fest where the tip will land.

My old Russian coach taught me the "dance steps" to invite an attack during a raised hand. Glide + stop short when opponent reacts, beat and lunge. This could get integrated into the Sanzo attack pretty easily. There's also an old Michael Marx move (was it called the "alley oop?") which combined a shoulder-bob with a big scooping motion that ended going in over the blade (he made it look good).

I remembered to try it out in bouting several nights ago. The "alley oop" mostly made me look like a fool, but I "felt" the tempo once and froze the opponent, the touch was clean and nice. I also did a successful Sanzo attack that went around the parry like the parry was slow motion -- it felt great. (I did another that landed on the opponent's groin, he didn't like that too much.)

EDIT: The alley oop is the last touch in the video on this post: http://www.fencing101.com/vb/showpos...73&postcount=1

... The absence of flick attacks will lead to the presence of blade and patient en gaurds, which will lead to more pris de fer attacks, counter-times, clean parry ripostes - remember the day when a parry meant more than just whirling your blade around and waiting for the sound of metal? Look for distance to play a bigger roll - much more changes of direction at generally shorter distance.

Again, I mostly agree... The point emphasis will make the opponent's blade a lot more available for beats and engagements. The tip's value will be doubled -- that is, getting inside the tip (and the esquiving) will be very safe without flicks. So to prevent that, I think fencers will open up the distance, and work to keep the opponents in front of the tip. They'll hit from out of distance with long lunges, because those are the safest from sudden changes in distance and the most recoverable if the lunges miss.

As for the footwork, it will be tighter, more conservative, more variations in speed. And thankfully, there will be fewer fencers crashing into each other.

There's another school of thought, that the box changes will cause a remise jab-fest. Eigertek is selling the new firmware for their boxes, and they said there were a lot more remises. I think they're wrong, even though they have the box and I don't. They're seeing the early adjustments -- a lot of casual foil fencers are going to resist the exhausting footwork and the long lunges, but the winning footwork will indeed be demanding on the legs. The Polish women's foil team as a good example of the sort of long attacks we'll see.

I agree that the French and Russian style will dominate in the early stages. Since the whole flicking game originally came from Germany, I would say that they would be the worst prepared for the change (except for Bissdorf...). I wonder if Omnes is considering coming out of retirement for this...

A long while ago, I was looking for the "modern flick game," and so I looked at the Germans. I might be wrong, but it looks like they're already transitioning away from the flick game. Wessels is a good person to see for close-outs and strong tip-hits... I'm thinking of the 2003 Shanghai world cup, where he dominated and even experimented against a Chinese fencer. It was very different from the extreme flicks I saw in 2001,2002 world championships. There, the Germans demolished the French in team foil, though I don't recall who was fencing for Germany at that time. Wessels's game was a very comfortable-looking amalgam of sweeping actions finished by tip-hits.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Germans were weak in this Olympics, because they're installing a technique and they're not good with it yet. If I'm right, the Germans will blast off again in 2005/6.

[Grasshopper]

Originally Posted by wflaschka

It would go like this: Sanzo raises his tip, opponent is like, "Yeah, right, that won't land", and then Sanzo hits with a downward stroke (not with a flick) anywhere from the top of the shoulder to the groin. If the opponent squirms around, Sanzo could hit the flank or the back.

For the next action, Sanzo raises his tip again, and now the opponent is raising his hand again to parry. The threat of that raised tip is still real, because it can come down above or below the opponent's blade, on the inside or outside -- it's still a guess-fest where the tip will land.

This is very interesting and reminds me of the fact that before the back became and enormous target (and you sort of just chose one or the other - "hmm this time I'll go for his back...next I'll go for his front") there was a time where you would choose to finish your attack in one of 5 or 6 places on the front (4, 6, 7, 8, +high shoulder, deep flank). I'm going to have to start re-aiming things... I had selfishly renamed the target area as F and B - front and back.

Originally Posted by wflaschka

My old Russian coach taught me the "dance steps" to invite an attack during a raised hand. Glide + stop short when opponent reacts, beat and lunge. This could get integrated into the Sanzo attack pretty easily. There's also an old Michael Marx move (was it called the "alley oop?") which combined a shoulder-bob with a big scooping motion that ended going in over the blade (he made it look good).

I love hearing about moves that older coaches taught. I wonder if Romankov's now famous "stuttering clown" attack was more method or madness.... Basically, without the safety net of flicks to finish off marching attacks, I think we are going to see more of these kinds of attacks - stuttering, pausing, sweeping - designed to a) keep ROW and b) trick the opponent into reacting early. Russian has always been good at this.

Originally Posted by wflaschka

The tip's value will be doubled -- that is, getting inside the tip (and the esquiving) will be very safe without flicks. So to prevent that, I think fencers will open up the distance, and work to keep the opponents in front of the tip. They'll hit from out of distance with long lunges, because those are the safest from sudden changes in distance and the most recoverable if the lunges miss..

Interesting, but I'm not sure if the lunges will get much longer than now. Women's foil has always had proportionally longer lunges than men so I don't see the Polish team's style as a new wave... And recovering from a long lunge is still troublesome, even without flick ripostes.

Also, let's not forget about the point in line. I bet we will see many more of these. I think Golobitski talks about 3 different uses: 1) catching an opponent who is coming too fast 2) taking over ROW and 3) letting them take the blade, but doing a quick parry riposte. With the new box timings there will be more blade work, and consequently more chances for subtle yet effective POL's at closer distance. POL will become more of a "technique" than a "tactic".

Originally Posted by wflaschka

A long while ago, I was looking for the "modern flick game," and so I looked at the Germans. I might be wrong, but it looks like they're already transitioning away from the flick game. Wessels is a good person to see for close-outs and strong tip-hits... I'm thinking of the 2003 Shanghai world cup, where he dominated and even experimented against a Chinese fencer. It was very different from the extreme flicks I saw in 2001,2002 world championships. There, the Germans demolished the French in team foil, though I don't recall who was fencing for Germany at that time. Wessels's game was a very comfortable-looking amalgam of sweeping actions finished by tip-hits.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Germans were weak in this Olympics, because they're installing a technique and they're not good with it yet. If I'm right, the Germans will blast off again in 2005/6.

I saw the 2003 Shanghai WC with Wessels, too, and I agree with your idea that he may have been experimenting a little. If you want a real dejavu of that match, check out the 1988 Olympics in Seoul Mens Foil Final. You will see Udo Wagner, who if you didn't know, IS WESSLES' COACH!!! Wessles and Wagner fence very similarily and both appear have a sort of "I couldn't care less if I win or lose" attitude towards their matches. They even tug on their mask the same way between points! Wagner beats Uli Schreck who if you didn't know is JOPPICH'S coach!!! (If Bissdorf ever starts coaching, look out, kids of today!)

[sabreur]

Originally Posted by gojujay

How much of that is a result of the flexibility of the blade? Whipovers and such?

With the new S2000 blades, surprisingly little, IMNSHO. Most of the difference is because the electrics register touches that the eyes of side judges could not see.... These touches were always occuring, but we all ignored them--a collective acceptance of a particular reality--the touches were "after the parry" or "through the blade." What electric scoring has shown is that many of these touches were in fact legitimate.

MR

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by wflaschka

When I fence sabre, I only find 1 parry out of every ~six parry attempts, against an easy fencer... and I only find those using commonplace probabilistic strategies.

I still don't understand what you're talking about. Given the enormous number of possible vectors for an approaching blade in sabre---far more than in foil or epee---you'd almost have to have a Cray stuffed in your head to calculate "probabilities" at those speeds. I suspect that's what's really happening is that your eyes are catching tiny cues almost subliminally and reacting to them without thinking about them...

Without having any bladework, I still do walk-overs on sabre fencers merely by using distance and tempo (and I'm not magical, I merely reproduce what sabrists do). It's really not hard to get the fundamentals... all I have to do is make my body look and behave like the sabre fencers I watched in NYC, and half my points are already scored for me. I beat the top local guy (looow C on a US scale) the first time I picked up a sabre in 15 years, merely by running a program.

Or maybe you're just a phenom.

Look for increased hand importance -- this isn't groundbreaking or earthshattering, it's merely inevitable.

Not at all. When I watch top coaches giving lessons, they are already spending a lot of time trying to ingrain automatic parries and other hand actions in their students. Yet we still see little of it on the strip. Are we going to spend ALL of our time trying to develop "handwork" next? That's about the only way to get even an incremental improvement IMO.

It's not just that it's difficult to find a blade moving at sabre speeds, either. It's the angles of attack and timing and referee perspectives. As often as not, even if you do manage to parry it gets seen as your opponent's beat, or is seen as landing on the opponent's forte, or the remise is so fast that you can't get off the blade fast enough to score---this is the case especially with head parries. It still comes down to distance in the end: if that's optimal, your parry may succeed. If not, probably it won't. Which seems to me to point to distance as the factor most fencers need to work on, not parry frills...

At a low level they can be simplified and systematized;

I think this is a cherished illusion held by many fencers, especially foilists, but fencing has been around a long, long time and there have been a lot of attempts at "systemization". They just haven't worked very well. There are too many constantly-changing variables to apply any sort of reaction rules successfully, especially in all-over-the-place across-the-visual-threshhold sabre....

I certainly hope so, at any rate. Systemization means mechanization to me. I don't want to fence by rote.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by edew

Regarding the lack of handwork in saber, I think the primary reason is that many kids are starting in saber from scratch and not starting with foil first.

Uh! Not this again! A canard beloved of foilists without any real justification.

Watch some of the top coaches giving lessons. They devote a substatial amount of time to instilling fast parry responses in their students. What they don't do is use endless tic-tac-tic-tac parry drills, because there's no time for the complex parry exchanges in sabre.

I fence foil primarily and when I fence saber, I make much more use of parries than most others.

And when I do epee ( rarely ) I sometimes do cuts to the head. D'oh!


BTW, I'm not exactly setting the epee world on fire.

I'd say it's virtually impossible to make successful parries or beats without proper distance, which means great footwork is necessary. And if fantastic footwork is available, bad handwork can be excused (making a person miss is just as good as making a parry, so if one's footwork makes one travel farther back than needed, so what).

Exactly.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by sabreur

Most of the difference is because the electrics register touches that the eyes of side judges could not see.... These touches were always occuring, but we all ignored them--a collective acceptance of a particular reality--the touches were "after the parry" or "through the blade." What electric scoring has shown is that many of these touches were in fact legitimate.

MR

I have to dissent. There used to be distinctions made---edge of the blade not flat, a certain minimal amount of force. Lots of hits today are still whipovers, which deposit one electron on one thread of the lame...and refs award based on that, because perceptually it's almost impossible to see the difference between malparre and whipopver, especially on the side away from the ref. Easier to say if it gets a light it's valid. It wasn't always thus.

[cfaustus]

I've said it before... I'll say it again:

Electric Singlestick.

No whipover.
Contact strip only on the edges and tip of the weapon.
Slower tempo due to weight of weapon leading to clearer (and more viewer friendly) action.

Now someone just needs to make one.

[darius]

Now someone just needs to make one.

Dowel rod and lame material.

Oh god, that would legitimize what the sketchy trenchcoat-wearing-guys used to "practice" outside my college apartment with foam-covered PVC! On the other hand, it sounds more exciting than rhythmic gymnastics!

darius

[mollusk]

Originally Posted by wflaschka

Their replacements may look like the men (hopefully)

I sincerely hope that the new Italian women foilists look like Italian women and not Italian men. Your mileage may vary.

[P00Man]

a lot of touches called mal-parre are actually whip-over. a lot of people have learned to cut with the flat of the blade (ive actually seen coaches teaching this, the site almost made me vommit...) to garner touches called mal-parre.

i think sabre will remain more or less the same, with perhaps in increse in distance/tempo games

[wflaschka]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

I still don't understand what you're talking about. Given the enormous number of possible vectors for an approaching blade in sabre---far more than in foil or epee---you'd almost have to have a Cray stuffed in your head to calculate "probabilities" at those speeds.

Well, that's the point, isn't it? That's the whole "have an idea what you're going to do before it happens" concept, so you don't have to work at forebrain speeds during the action.

There's not much to not understand about probabilism. I was fencing a guy, and I learned him after the first few touches.
- He would leave his sabre out, tip towards me, and when I went for the blade, he converted to a head cut. I eventually learned to go for the blade, parry 5, and riposte.
- He would finish with a chest-cut after preparing with a certa