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I see dead people · 02-03-2002, 05:00 PM

How's the club.
Is it really worth 500 bucks a year?

Pommel · 02-03-2002, 05:40 PM

Best club in the US as far as I'm concerned, particularly in sabre. Just look at the finalists.

neevel · 02-04-2002, 09:15 AM

If you want to get good, certainly. $500/year is about $42/month, which is really not at all bad for clubs which have a dedicated facility to make lease/utility/insurance payments on. There are plenty of clubs of lower caliber than FC which cost more for basic membership.

-Dave

damianip · 02-04-2002, 05:33 PM

I live near NYC. I don't belong to any NYC club, however, the reputations I've heard are:

NYAC: THE center for épée in the US.
Metropolis: Very good foil, "upstart club"
FC: Best all-round, particularly good in sabre (a bit of the P. Westbrook legacy).

Paolo

jspierre · 02-05-2002, 08:40 AM

I think only national team members get access to the NYAC. It still seems pretty exclusive from the outside looking in.

edew · 02-05-2002, 09:38 AM

NYAC is a private club where you are sponsored to join. People can't walk up to the front desk and write a fat check (unless that fat check has 5 or more zeros left of the decimal point).

NYAC was the epee center of the US. Various California clubs, including Golden Gate Fencing Center, Lucchetti Fencing Foundation, TZCKA (the club whose name you dare not pronounce), and several others are beating down the NY epeeists. Add into that mix NWFC with Michael Marx's work. By next season, the top epeeists will all come from the west coast.

MikeHarm · 02-05-2002, 06:15 PM

From fencing sucks, they don't seem to get along so good. There was an old member of the NY Fencing club who I've seen over here in Michigan, David Herzig one of Alaux's old students. Best epee work I've ever seen.

damianip · 02-06-2002, 03:21 AM

[quote]Originally posted by edew:

NYAC was the epee center of the US. Various California clubs, including Golden Gate Fencing Center, Lucchetti Fencing Foundation, TZCKA (the club whose name you dare not pronounce), and several others are beating down the NY epeeists. Add into that mix NWFC with Michael Marx's work. By next season, the top epeeists will all come from the west coast.

<hr></blockquote>

I agree that the current crop all seem to be from the left bank, but it seems that a lot of next wave of épéeists will come from NY/NJ:

Top cadets include:
Ben Bratton
Ben Ungar
Jason Henderson

Top juniors include:

Bratton again
Julian Rose
Bill Verigan
Ungar again.

After that it seems like they are coming from all over the country which, to me, seems like a good sign for US fencing.

Paolo

edew · 02-06-2002, 08:41 AM

[quote]Originally posted by MikeHarm:
From fencing sucks, they don't seem to get along so good. There was an old member of the NY Fencing club who I've seen over here in Michigan, David Herzig one of Alaux's old students. Best epee work I've ever seen.<hr></blockquote>

I guess that's why I don't think I really understand epee. I didn't know that there can actually be "epee work".

Seriously, for me in epee, it's all about jockeying for position, setting up for the one action, and reading your opponent's intentions.

As a foilists, epeeists play me like a puppet because when they start an attack, I get into parry-riposte mode and usually wind up being skewered. On the other hand, I do try to control myself and do the non-foil thing when an attack comes.

MikeHarm · 02-07-2002, 03:47 AM

Thats what I thought too until I ran into Dave and started reading Vass's epee book.

jspierre · 02-07-2002, 04:48 AM

[quote]Originally posted by edew:


I guess that's why I don't think I really understand epee. I didn't know that there can actually be "epee work".

Seriously, for me in epee, it's all about jockeying for position, setting up for the one action, and reading your opponent's intentions.

As a foilists, epeeists play me like a puppet because when they start an attack, I get into parry-riposte mode and usually wind up being skewered. On the other hand, I do try to control myself and do the non-foil thing when an attack comes.<hr></blockquote>

I think epee gets a bad rep because it does seem to be either a dumping ground for less talented fencers and/or the absence of convention somehow attracts a lot of lazy hacks.

But epee is about efficiency and reading an opponent's heart and soul, then destroying him in real time. It's more cerebral than mechanical. Watch the world class epeeists and they look like cold blooded assassins.

This stems from the "reality" of epee, I think. The deliberateness in the way the weapon is fenced gives the game a calculating feel rather than an improvisional (saber) or intuitive quality (foil). I don't mean to take anything away from either foil or saber.

Someone also once summed-up epee on the board as (paraphrasing) requiring the finesse of foil and the aggression of saber. As far as that goes, there's some truth in that statement.