Chest protector application

[telkanuru]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

"Charge" is correct, but only in regard to the electrification of the sabre blades. Clearly, sabre is the choice of archangels and seraphim, and all creatures good and pure....

They always use those broadsword-type things, I thought. You're not SCA, are you

[leia]

I could imagine that would be extreamly uncomfortable. But why different for men? if its just to put more layers of cloth between the protector and the lame, women have to put up with the harder surface..

[fencer71]

Originally Posted by Gem

I asked this question on another thread, but I'm not sure which forum I did it on, so apologies if it's already on here somewhere.

Why do men have to wear chest protectors directly against the skin. If the women can wear a T-shirt (not a sports bra) underneath, why can't the men? Also, if this has to do with the apparrent advantage of wearing a protector: what's the difference between wearing the protector over a T-shirt and not wearing a T-shirt at all? As far as I'm aware there is no rule stating that T-shirts must be worn under the whites.

What if the man wears a bra ?

[Alan]

That shows well the limits of these test timings :

1) your riposte (after a remise) should be fast otherwise it will not score
because of the block timing

2) but not too fast otherwise it doesn't score because of the depression
timing.

(Actually i have also seen many slow direct hits not scoring even with a nice
bending of the blade on the oppenent's cuirasse)

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by fencer71

What if the man wears a bra ?

Then it's not legal. The ruling specifies directly against the skin for men and makes no mention of a t-shirt (obviously the women's portion of the ruling does mention a t-shirt). It doesn't matter WHAT you call the layer of material beneath the protector for men, if it's not skin it violates the ruling.

As long as you all are coming up with stupid "exceptions" at least argue something which fits the ruling... have a shirt made out of skin and wear that over your other 3 layers, but below the protector. :eyeroll:

-B :)

[kalivor]

Originally Posted by Gem

Why do men have to wear chest protectors directly against the skin. If the women can wear a T-shirt (not a sports bra) underneath, why can't the men? Also, if this has to do with the apparrent advantage of wearing a protector: what's the difference between wearing the protector over a T-shirt and not wearing a T-shirt at all? As far as I'm aware there is no rule stating that T-shirts must be worn under the whites.

I think it goes as follows:

1. The FIE does not want to ban a protective device.
2. The FIE wants as many soft layers as possible over top of it, in order to prevent tips from debouncing.

The solution: Have fencers wear it against their skin, ie, underneath everything else.

Problem: Enforcement! You can't really ask women to prove that there's nothing underneath there. Particularly if you've got a male referee. Some women would probably even feel uncomfortable if they've only got a sports bra underneath.

Solution: An exception. Women can wear a T-shirt underneath it. This way the rule can be enforced with no undue emarassment (and resulting harassment suits) from anybody.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by kalivor

Problem: Enforcement! You can't really ask women to prove that there's nothing underneath there. Particularly if you've got a male referee. Some women would probably even feel uncomfortable if they've only got a sports bra underneath.

Not to mention that a number of them (protectors) are towards the transparent side of translucent.

And I'd imagine that most fencing protectors don't give as much support as a sports bra, so allowing at least one layer is fairly necessary. Once that's allowed, allowing the t-shirt as well isn't a big shift. And, as kalivor points out, while many women have no problem being seen in only a sports bra, a significant number do. Seems like someone at the FIE made a nice catch in making sure the women's rule is reasonable when it could easily have been a non-gender specific rule that was poorly written. As for the men, I guess the requirement of being directly on the skin is to limit attempts to play off of any potential flaw in the exact wording.

And who knows, perhaps the intent is to make it uncomfortable enough for men that many voluntarily choose not to wear the protector. :)

-B :)

[Alan]

beware of the men_wearing_a_bra associations suing the FIE for discrimination :-)

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by Alan

beware of the men_wearing_a_bra associations suing the FIE for discrimination :-)

S'okay, I don't believe that's a protected class.

-B :)

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Glue a layer of felt or other fabric onto the back side of the man plate. Its still next to the skin, and then wear under armor over it. The FIE shouldnt get too nitpicky about what kind of T-shirt worn over it.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by D+F+P=Hadouken!

The FIE shouldnt get too nitpicky about what kind of T-shirt worn over it.

Why should they? They've made no ruling about clothing on TOP of the protector, they made a ruling about what is allowed under it. Granted there are implicit over-layers (whites, lame), but none of those refer to t-shirts or underarmor, etc. Wear a t-shirt, don't wear one, wear seven of them for all the FIE cares. Just don't wear them under the protector (for men). Why do people keep talking about what you can have on top of the protector?

-B :)

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Why should they? They've made no ruling about clothing on TOP of the protector, they made a ruling about what is allowed under it. Granted there are implicit over-layers (whites, lame), but none of those refer to t-shirts or underarmor, etc. Wear a t-shirt, don't wear one, wear seven of them for all the FIE cares. Just don't wear them under the protector (for men). Why do people keep talking about what you can have on top of the protector?

-B

I think the fundamental problem is that the actuality of the ruling is so ridiculous that most people naturally tend to misinterpret it so that it makes a little more sense.

[afencer]

I'll tell you what is ridiculous - men wearing chest protectors. If you broke a rib, ok maybe. Otherwise you are either a complete and utter wuss or a cheat. Period.

[darius]

Or you're a freakin' little kid, or somebody who just doesn't like chest bruises.

One of my students has worn it for years -- why should he cede advantage to the other fencer by suddenly changing the way he competes, just because that other fencer can't hit a manplate?

darius

[downunder]

Originally Posted by darius

One of my students has worn it for years -- why should he cede advantage to the other fencer by suddenly changing the way he competes, just because that other fencer can't hit a manplate?

Because the FIE have decided that it might give an advantage to a fencer wearing it (i say might because i've heard mixed results). To be honest, he will not be attending any competitions where it will be strictly enforced i presume?

[denn'bok]

Not to ask a stupid question, but...

Do chest protectors offer more protection against broken blades?

[downunder]

The most dangerous place for a blade to penetrate is the armpit, under the sleeve, as that is where the seams are on a jacket, thus the weak point. This is why you wear an underplastron. A chest protector would not cover this area, however it would be useful, i guess, in stopping broken blades to the chest area - although most fatalities of late have been due to the former.

[DHCJr]

From the reports I have heard, the last death was just that way and without an underarm protector.

I do have a question that is slightly off the record. From what I have heard from many fencers, other protection is not used, specifically a cup. Those who are now just start wearing a chest protector, are they wearing a cup?

[remise]

There are several older men I know that have physicians exemptions that allow them to wear the plates. In fact, they both have some sort of heart implant, and got notes from their physicians. These notes were quickly shipped to the USFA, who just as quickly approved these men wearing the chest protectors - as long as they wore a t-shirt under them and over them.

All of these guys had their dr notes laminated, as well as the communications from the USFA and they carry them around with them to the tourneys. I read one of the communications from the USFA, which stated that they had been hit with 'quite a few' doctor notes from veterans with medical issues regarding the chest protectors, and therefore, in the United States, chest protectors would not be sanctioned the way they were in Europe.

[R. Exnicios]

On another note about the timing. We tried to made a test box to test the debounce timing. It wasn't perfect and it burned itself up after a test on a Tripplette machine. (back to the drawing board) Not real confident in the tester but we tried

Anyway to the point.

We tested several machines and they were all slightly different with the timing! We tested several different versions of the SG12s, a Favero Full Arm 05, a Favero Full Arm 01, SG11 and a Tripplette. The Tripplette box did some sort of surge and fried the tester.

The results were not duplicated since the box burned up. But we found that They ranged from 12ms to 17ms. An upgraded SG12 would go off with an 12ms break in the circuit. The Longest debounce was the SG11 at 17ms.

There were several questions we wanted to answer but did not get to due to the tester failure. We wanted to know:

1. what is the debounce time of the various brands of machines?
2. does the debounce vary from machine to machine within the same brand?
3. does the debounce time change if both sides are regesting a hit?
4. does it change if one hit is on target and one is off?
5. does the debounce time change as the machine warms up?

Needless to say much more testing needed to be done and the findings would need to be verified to really back up our finds but I wanted to put the info out there. One of you guy (or gals) must be an electrical engineer and can take this on as a project.

If anyone is doing testing like this I think we would all love to know the results.

Cheers

R