Rez,

Brian covered most of the points I wanted to make in his excellent
post.

Also, I got very nice and informative e-mails from Walter Green on this
subject. I think he intended them to be public and that he won't mind my
summarizing a few of his points:

1. Many duels were not fenced to first blood, so a multi-touch epee bout
may be very realistic after all. He cited examples from Nadi, Terrone,
and other instances of duels that went on well past first hit.

2. I quote, since I cannot improve upon his words: "getting one ahead
and running up the score with double hits is a risky tactic in the
direct elimination. It is potentially fatal in the pools."

As most of you know: competitions are typically fenced with pools for
seeding, followed by direct elimination. Pools have between 5 and 7
fencers who each fence everyone else in the same pool. Position in the
direct elimination tableau is done based on your result in the seeding
round (sometimes 2 rounds): victories and defeats, and "indicators"
computed by touches-scored minus touches received. Fencers with strong
results are paired with fencers with weak results: in a DE of 16, the
fencer seeded #1 fences the fencer seeded #16, #2 fences #15, and so on.

If you carry out a one-touch-ahead approach, not only do you risk losing
the bout as I mentioned earlier, but you'll have a weaker indicator,
hence a worse position in the DE tableau, and have to fence a tougher
fencer. Two fencers might have 3 wins and 2 losses, but one who barely
won his bouts will be seeded in the middle of the pack, while the guy
who dominated his wins and almost won the others might be seeded high
enough to have a palooka for his first bout. And, quoting Walter again
"profligate double touches in the pool guarantee you a lower ranking in
the round in which you are eliminated (as your overall ranking below the
round of 4 is determined by pool results)."

So, an epee strategy of double touching your way to the end is not a
good one in SF. Good fencers don't rely on it, as it has such negative
consequences. Rez: since we've both seen sport fencing where people
excessively used doubles to their dismay, I think we can let it not be
considered an attribute of sport fencing when done well. On that note,
I'd like to mention that good sport fencers do NOT look at the machine
until the director has called "halt". That's a beginner mistake that
gets beaten out of people. I assume that the reference to Rondelle meant
that SF technique penetrating with control of the blade is a Good
Thing.

In addition to epee, I recommend people try out sabre. Just watched 2004
Olympic finals today. The timing is tight, but it's recognizable as
sabre to anyone who has watched it over the last 35 years. I compared
it in my mind to the Martini and Rossi World Cups I watched in the
1970s. Except for the removal of the fleche, it is actually better
sabre than I saw then. A well trained classisist would see that a
classical background could indeed be the basis of a successful game in
this weapon.

regards to all, Jeff

PS: With Brian's addition, we've now included: salt and fresh water
fish, different musical instruments (Sorry Rez, I forgot 12-string.
Since I forgot Macintosh too, maybe it will turn out that Sean plays a
12-string guitar along with using Macintoshes). Let the metaphors run
amok!






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