New Foil Timings and Your Observations

[SmokeyTheCat263]

1. A
2. Right-handed
3. 8 years
4. National, or regional/local if its a good tourney
5. I've been fencing on the new timings since the day they came out.

6. I'm not going to fully answer this one, seeing as how past-posters have gotten wildly pretentious about every little thing they do in their game(Or atliest everything they think they do). I will say, however, that I was a fencer who used to flick a lot and do alot of attacks that displaced the point.

7. I practice on the new timings almost every day of the week, and I'd suggest the new timings are not bad, so long as the following occurs:

-Lots of tape on your foil
-Insulated grip (this is one people forget about, but when your sweating through your glove, it makes a differnece)
-your opponent is not wearing a chest protector.

Other than that, all results at tournaments have been faily consistent. High level bouts between good fencers still triumph the best fencer. Sure, scrubby fencers fencing an experienced fencer are bound to get one or two touches with counterattacks, but the stronger fencer still has to royally f**k it up to lose the bout.

I believe where the timing has affected competitive fencers the most is not what people have been claiming (ramiezs, counterattacks, etc..) but rather its effect on displacing the point. Before, attacks and reposts where one's point faced either the ceiling or the floor were still good attacks that had the right away, and could easily be finished with either a flick or just straight. However, the new timings have made that much more riskier. Chasing your opponent down the strip with your point to the side, and trying to finish straight at the last moment is tough....especially when "glancing" hits no longer put a light on! Additionally, a counterattck can arrive before you get your point down to valid tartget, thus locking you out.

So what's the end result?? Competitive fencers still pull their arm back to attack, but now they must do it more conservatively, making sure to be ready to finish at any time. This new conservitism in foil fencing has slowed the game down, making preparation in the bout much more important. Overall, foil is less flashier and more boring than ever before. Congrats Rene Roche, you made foil super spectator-friendly.

Chest Protectors Suck

[gladius]

Original French:

"Hier à l'entraînement 2appareils on été branché sur la même piste un réglé aux nouvelles normes et un aux "vieille" normes.Avec le nouvelle appareil 5/0
Avec l'ancien appareil le tireur gagne aussi mais 5/4
alors sa change rien???"

English translation done by a human, not software:

"Yesterday, during our training, we attached 2 scoring machines to the same strip [obviously, connected to the two fencers]. One scoring machine was calibrated according to the new rules, the other one according to the "old" rules. Final score with the new scoring machine 5-0. Final score with the old scoring machine, the winner is still the same fencer, but the score is 5-4. So, nothing has changed???"

I assume that he describes the same bout between the same fencers, though it's hard to imagine how the bout was conducted to get 5-0 on one apparatus and 5-4 on the other at the same time? Regardless, even if the same winner was recognized by both machines, the difference in the points scored by the loser (0 v/s 4) is significant.

[Safir]

Original French:

"Hier à l'entraînement 2appareils on été branché sur la même piste un réglé aux nouvelles normes et un aux "vieille" normes.Avec le nouvelle appareil 5/0
Avec l'ancien appareil le tireur gagne aussi mais 5/4
alors sa change rien???"

English translation done by a human, not software:

"Yesterday, during our training, we attached 2 scoring machines to the same strip [obviously, connected to the two fencers]. One scoring machine was calibrated according to the new rules, the other one according to the "old" rules. Final score with the new scoring machine 5-0. Final score with the old scoring machine, the winner is still the same fencer, but the score is 5-4. So, nothing has changed???"

I assume that he describes the same bout between the same fencers, though it's hard to imagine how the bout was conducted to get 5-0 on one apparatus and 5-4 on the other at the same time? Regardless, even if the same winner was recognized by both machines, the difference in the points scored by the loser (0 v/s 4) is significant.

Yes it was the same bout between the same fencers. The difference
is because of the lamps that didn't light on with the test timings either because of the tip timing problem or because of the block time.

[keith]

Yes it was the same bout between the same fencers. The difference
is because of the lamps that didn't light on with the test timings either because of the tip timing problem or because of the lock time.

Do you have any idea which change contributed most to the difference in the score?

[Safir]

Do you have any idea which change contributed most to the difference in the score?

in that match, it was more the direct hits not scoring.

[cowpaste]

Honestly that is a bad way to test the effect of the new timings. Did they try to flick? Did they fence with the old timings in mind or new? If they tried to flick, it would have resulted in more colored lights on the old timings. If they had the old timings in mind, they probably would have attacked more.