Need more foil referees? Ask some epee referees!

[edew]

I was refereeing epee at the DitD and realized that refereeing epee using foil action calls might help some referees make the transition from being an epee-only referee to being a competent foil referee.

Here's the premise and the practice: get your aspiring foil referees to officiate at epee events (that has to happen anyway). Rather than just giving the point to the one who set a light off, require that the person also call the action. The points are still awarded based on lights (minus any possibility of hitting the ground or the wall or the table, etc), but the referee will need to actually call, "attack, parry-riposte, remise" or whatever action occurred.

The fencers need not care, but an observer can watch to see how the budding referee is doing without having anyone be sacrificed to newbie foil reffing.

Because of the unpredictable actions, epee offers plenty of attack/counterattack actions, which will help train budding foil refs on seeing who went first. Epeeists, however, are generally conservative and won't so muc make an attack without having the arm extend first (very few are willing to go lunging with a bent arm).

In my very limited test of this, I noticed that it's often the case that whoever had right of way, say, the first to initiate the attack, generally scored. So when fencer X starts an attack and fencer Y counterattacks with a late lunge, only fencer X's light lights up. Interesting.

In any case, I think it's a possible route for good training in seeing right of way without screwing over fencers who might not agree with the not-yet-familiar-with-the-whole-right-of-way-thing refereeing.

We can all use more RoW referees and this may be one training method for some of them.

[counter riposte]

Bad Idea.

Tried that once after directing 5 hours of foil. It confused the heck out of the epee fencers and ended up making the epeeists believe I was incompetent instead of knowledgable.

Don't get me wrong, it would give a good training cycle to foil refs, but if you're fencing epee, and your director is giving ROW calls, you'd think him crazy.

[Mr Epee]

An interesting, but not very promising idea.

Epee fencers will hate this, because it even furthers the problem of epee competitions being loaded up with crap directors.

Directors should be developed by judicating practice bouts in club, or warm-up.

[fencerX]

No, no, no! Please don't direct epee that way!

The director's job is to adjudicate the bout; don't go beyond that. Don't provide potential clues to the potentially clueless. The epee fencer getting hit needs to figure out what went wrong, don't assist him. By volunteering any extra information the director can disadvantage the fencer who does know what's going on.

What you suggest is almost as bad as beginning directors who volunteer the time remaining when neither fencer asked for the time.

[edew]

Bad Idea.

Tried that once after directing 5 hours of foil. It confused the heck out of the epee fencers and ended up making the epeeists believe I was incompetent instead of knowledgable.

Don't get me wrong, it would give a good training cycle to foil refs, but if you're fencing epee, and your director is giving ROW calls, you'd think him crazy.

I didn't say to give RoW calls. Just call the actions, use the standard foil hand signals, but still award touches based on whose lights are lit up. If both lights are lit up, both fencers get a point (assuming no one hit the floor or the wall or their own body).

Just use the actions to practice seeing right of way.

[edew]

No, no, no! Please don't direct epee that way!

The director's job is to adjudicate the bout; don't go beyond that. Don't provide potential clues to the potentially clueless. The epee fencer getting hit needs to figure out what went wrong, don't assist him. By volunteering any extra information the director can disadvantage the fencer who does know what's going on.

What you suggest is almost as bad as beginning directors who volunteer the time remaining when neither fencer asked for the time.

Fine. Perhaps the referee can say the action to himself under his breath so that neither fencer can hear (you know, Russian style refereeing). At least it's opportunity for practice: practice seeing and calling right of way. And one can't get it wrong, at least not to the fencers, as points are still awarded based solely on the lights that go on.

[counter riposte]

I didn't say to give RoW calls. Just call the actions, use the standard foil hand signals, but still award touches based on whose lights are lit up. If both lights are lit up, both fencers get a point (assuming no one hit the floor or the wall or their own body).

Just use the actions to practice seeing right of way.

True, you could mutter the calls to yourself, but the spectators will still see the director giving apparent parry-riposte calls. Big no-no.

[Alain]

An interesting, but not very promising idea.

Epee fencers will hate this, because it even furthers the problem of epee competitions being loaded up with crap directors.

Directors should be developed by judicating practice bouts in club, or warm-up.

We do. It does. They should!

[grotto]

edew I actually like this Idea, with one caveat. Tell the epeeist in the pool what is going on... I don't care a whit if the director call it my attack counter attack or what not Epee is really about either being correct, or getting hit. It wil also have a side effect of directors getting "used" to seeing what constitutes a good attack vs a prep and with the new timing in foil every one needs a refresher on that bit.

As a competitive fencer I can understand the negativity as the director calling the action "gives away" what you just hit on. but on the other side I would love to have more competent directors for ALL the weapons. Give a little get alittle.

[noodle]

ref can give whatever hand signals they want. if its to help epee refs train for foil, more power to them.

[tchwojko]

I had no problem with the calls like that in my pool, Eric. It had no effect on my fencing (it was poor enough all on it's own). And I prefer my ref show that he/she is paying attention. If my opponent is poor enough not to know what actually happened, I really ought not to have any problem even if it is explained.

The tournament was fun, the shirts were ugly.

[oiuyt]

Seems likely there'd be a number of "attack no, counterattack yes" type calls when, in fact, the attack DID hit, merely too late.

Why much up the other weapons to make yours better?

That's as bad as the USFA restricting D1 NACs to A/B fencers to fix the problem of ME events being too huge and in the process decimating the WF and M/WS events. A change which I hope will continue to be deferred until the idea eventually dies.

-B :)

[mrbiggs]

Random statement, but it's very embarassing when I'm directing epee and I call right of way for an action. I kinda have to trail off and pretend it didn't happen. Otherwise, the fencers look at you funny.

[tchwojko]

When edew was making the calls in the pools, he often wasn't saying "yes" or "no" to each action, but simply describing what happened. I think. I wasn't paying that much attention, though, so I could be wrong...

[Schiavona]

I think this is an idea worth exploring, at least at divisional level. I really don't see the harm in the referee describing the action. I have seen far too many epee refs over the years who just watch the damn box!

[telkanuru]

Random statement, but it's very embarassing when I'm directing epee and I call right of way for an action. I kinda have to trail off and pretend it didn't happen. Otherwise, the fencers look at you funny.

Really? Sometimes I do it on purpose. What makes the fencers look at me funny is if I call touch left while rasing my right hand, or the inverse, both of which I do frequently. Dyslexics of the world untie?

[edew]

I had no problem with the calls like that in my pool, Eric. It had no effect on my fencing (it was poor enough all on it's own). And I prefer my ref show that he/she is paying attention. If my opponent is poor enough not to know what actually happened, I really ought not to have any problem even if it is explained.

The tournament was fun, the shirts were ugly.

I actually didn't do it during the pools, just during the DEs, so you wouldn't have seen me doing it.

[edew]

Seems likely there'd be a number of "attack no, counterattack yes" type calls when, in fact, the attack DID hit, merely too late.

Why much up the other weapons to make yours better?

That's as bad as the USFA restricting D1 NACs to A/B fencers to fix the problem of ME events being too huge and in the process decimating the WF and M/WS events. A change which I hope will continue to be deferred until the idea eventually dies.

-B

Well, an attack no is different than an attack that lands late in epee timing. What I would have said is, attack, counterattack. Then award the point as per epee rules. If an attack actually missed, and the counterattack landed, then I would say, "attack no, counter yes" but still award points based on epee rules.

Basically, just make the call, don't refer to the lights. It's practice.

[fencerX]

I really don't see the harm in the referee describing the action.

Those who don't see the potential for harm probably are missing some of the strategy, tactics and beauty of epee as well ...

Great epee fencing involves trying to outthink your opponent and that can involve deception and trickery -- you're trying to set your opponent up to provoke them to make mistakes and take advantage of the situations when they make them. Having a director describe the actions, even if it's as simple as stating who attacked and who countered, can help clue a competitor in to what's going on. That's not the job of the epee director and can disadvantage the fencer who might have spent a great deal of effort setting something up.

Epee directors who describe actions in the manner edew originally suggested are giving out TMI -- too much information. Please don't do that. Go ahead and think about how you'd call the action for foil if you want, but keep it to yourself. If someone is going to point out to a competitor what's going on, it should be their coach during the breaks -- it shouldn't be something the fencer possibly gleaned from a director's color commentary.

Ways some directors give out TMI ...

1) Commenting on the fencing action in any way beyond that necessary.

2) Volunteering the time remaining when neither fencer asked for it.

3) Noticably looking at the stopwatch closer and closer as time gets shorter and shorter.

Epee directors should stick to adjudicating/scoring the bouts and strive to avoid giving out unnecessary information. Having edew teaching us to count in other languages is cool though

[Schiavona]

If you think that calling 'Attack no, counterattack yes' or 'Attack right, yes' or even 'Attack no, parry riposte yes' is giving out too much information you must have been fencing morons all your life. If your opponent is too stupid to realize the actions that just resulted in a touch, 'giving them a clue' isn't going to help them any.

And guess what, when referees were called presidents they did just as EDEW is describing.