Funny or interesting fencing stories

[ShadyLane]

I'm sure at one point in your life, something funny happened that has to do with fencing. Well, feel free to share your stories here! I love to hear stories of all sorts!

In fact, I'd like to share a rather funny (well, it's rather funny to me) incident that happened to me 2 years ago. It was the last day of class for the year and every year on the last day of class, there would be a concert on campus called the Arts County Fair that university students go to (most go for the cheap beer, not the music, although the bands there are pretty good). But see, I have 2 choices: go to the outdoor concert or go to the last fencing practice of the school year. Of course I went to the fencing practice After the practice, I hop on the bus and I'm basically surrounded by drunk, loud university students (since the concert must have ended not too long ago), and am practically the only sober student ON the bus! The bus of course fills up entirely. Here's the funny bit - I was about to get off the bus since it was my stop, so I get off my seat and out of nowhere, some majorly drunk guy yells, "EVERYONE WATCH OUT!!! SHE'S GOT A SWORD!!" At that time, I was carrying my foil since I was too poor to buy a fencing bag to put all my gear in. Immediately, everyone stopped talking for a second and started looking at me (and of course I felt awkward at that moment). I got annoyed and thought, "it's NOT a sword, grrr". I managed to blurt out, "IT'S NOT A SWORD, IT'S A FOIL!!" It's not even a real, sharp sword anyway (frowns). (Sigh) silly drunk people . What happened next as I made my way to the bus door to get off, was that these students all around me started to walk away from me (as if it were a real sword and that they were afraid) and they actually paved a way for me to walk to the door lol! I didn't even have to elbow (unintentionally) my way through to the door this time, woo! Hehe...anyway, I thought that was funny...

And another "story" although it's not really a story. On many separate occasions, when a friend of mine asks me about fencing, I tell them about it and eventually talk about "electric fencing" - unfortunately, all of them immediately go something like, "but why would you want to electrocute your opponent??" or they'd ask "so you electrocute people?" (One would hope! ) Don't you just hate it when they ask that?

Imagine if electric weapons were designed to give your opponent a zap Haha, wouldn't that be interesting and fun...lol...probably would be a good learning tool (if you don't do the technique correctly or you screw up, you get zapped)

[yeoldearmourer]

People use to get zap with there opperate wepons back in the days of relay machines if you were really sweating I saw a guy that got zap and went back two feet from that zap out of 110. That why the FIE required boxes to be hooked up to 12 volt batterys. The voltage in Europe his 220v 60 cycles.

The funniest thing that happen to me while fencing foil in New York City Circuit event same as a NAC today. I went to fleece and on the video you can see were the DUCT Tape gave way on both side of the strip underneath my feet I went flying 3 feet off the grounded and landing face down on the floor and the mask slam back into my face when i got up blood was running down my face from my forehead where the mask slam into. Oh by the way I scroe the touch

[Jas2on]

Originally Posted by ShadyLane

But see, I have 2 choices: go to the outdoor concert or go to the last fencing practice of the school year. Of course I went to the fencing practice

If you were a true foilist you would have gone drinking

[ShadyLane]

Originally Posted by Jas2on

If you were a true foilist you would have gone drinking

Hahaha...the line-ups for beer is very long and you get pushed a lot...nah, not worth it, plus the thought of someone vomiting near me...ugh...no thanks

Plus, I paid for those fencing lessons! I went to get my money's worth!

[Moses]

Originally Posted by Jas2on

If you were a true foilist you would have gone drinking

....and then go fencing.



-Da Mose

[gatorjosh]

I had to take a tripplett scoring box through an airpost check once. Nothing happened, but you can imagine my worry... A metal box with a bunch of buttons/wires and a big red and green light inside.

[DruggedZorro]

haha... many of the fencers at my salle are still drunk when they come to fence. It's rather amusing, they are some of the most awesome people, though. Lots of laughing and sometimes more beer afterwards.

[Purple Fencer]

Hokay....here’s one from armorer’s college...session 3...Mergs will recognize it right off...

At one point in the class there is a simulation...the armorer class sets up a weapons control station and the coach class comes in to play the role of irritated fencers....to see how we armorers would handler it.

One of our class is the daughter of Rocky Sorenson...who just got his Level 1 armorer certification...she’ll be just as good as her dad one day. She ALSO was in the coach’s course the week before and knew what would happen. In fact, she was one of the prime kleptos....she stole damn near everything?

So....after she’s been telling us what happened previously, Mergs ask Dan Dechaine if he would step out of the room for a few minutes...and the fun begins...

Practical upshot....one of the first rules of combat is to control the battlefield...and Mergs is a tanker...

#1 The credenza we planned to use as the control table fits PERFECTLY in the double doors leading into the room.

#2 We push all of the small stud that is easily swiped against the walls and about 10 feet back from the doors....you’d have to be Mr,. Fantastic to reach them!

#3 The only things on the est table are three test boxes...and they’re all rubber banded together.

#4 All test cables and other gear are kept under the table, out of reach of the fencers.

Jerry Dunaway – one of the staff – comes up the stairs, fully intent on making our lives miserable....but the look on his face when he saw the setup was PRICELESS!!! He just stopped dead in his tracks and his face went from anticipation to “oh s###”

All he could do (besides be a real jerk, which was cool) was to mess up the test box settings...he tried to give one of us (Mark Tickner) a hard time, but Mark is one of those unflappable southerners....every time Jerry’d complain, he’s do so to Mark, who’d reply “Y’all have a nice day, Sir” in a far too pleasant voice...southern drawl and all.

When the rest of the coaches came up, about all Michael Marx could do was to try and go UNDERNEATH the table, but no joy there!

I think we were the 21st class to NOT have anything stolen!

My GOD we had fun!

On a more serious side...Ms, Sorenson discovered a severe mask failure to Michael’s mask that he was unaware of....pretty nice to have basically saved a life!

[Larrison]

Originally Posted by ShadyLane

Hahaha...the line-ups for beer is very long and you get pushed a lot...nah, not worth it, plus the thought of someone vomiting near me...ugh...no thanks

Plus, I paid for those fencing lessons! I went to get my money's worth!

Dude if you were a true foilist and working on proper form, you'd take your coach out drinking and convince him to buy the first round.....

[Aeric]

"People use to get zap with there opperate wepons back in the days of relay machines if you were really sweating I saw a guy that got zap and went back two feet from that zap out of 110."

Reminds me of the sad, sad fencing scene from Magnum where the guy gets thrown across the room and killed (!) by the secretly "sabotaged" weapon. Later they say he was hit with some ungodly amount of voltage that contacted on his lame.

[Purple Fencer]

Originally Posted by Aeric

"People use to get zap with there opperate wepons back in the days of relay machines if you were really sweating I saw a guy that got zap and went back two feet from that zap out of 110."

Reminds me of the sad, sad fencing scene from Magnum where the guy gets thrown across the room and killed (!) by the secretly "sabotaged" weapon. Later they say he was hit with some ungodly amount of voltage that contacted on his lame.

I rememebr that scene...but it was epee. Typically (althought there have been exceptions) you see epee on a TV screen because it's a bigger blade and easier to see...

[Aeric]

Pretty sure it was foil, because he opened his case at the beginning to show an old italian grip foil like it was some sort of relic.

Also, they had lames. It looked like they've been fencing for a less than a week.

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by gatorjosh

I had to take a tripplett scoring box through an airpost check once. Nothing happened, but you can imagine my worry... A metal box with a bunch of buttons/wires and a big red and green light inside.

December 2001 I was carrying an Eigertek Eclipse with me to the NAC in Palm Springs. At the security checkpoint this, unsurprisingly, got flagged and I was asked to step out of the line. The TSA agent takes out the box from my backpack, then takes the scoring machine out of the box and looks at it for a few seconds, turning it over a couple of times. She then looked at me and asked if it were a computer, to which I simply reply "no." She looks at it for another couple of seconds, while clearly thinking about what to do next, puts it back into the box, returns it to my bag, and hands everything back to me, commenting that if it were a computer that their guidelines would have meant that she was required to have me turn it on, but as long as it wasn't a computer that she guessed those didn't apply.

Three months after 9-11 and she was going to make me power up a computer, but a mysterious box of electronics that she didn't understand was completely acceptable. :eyeroll: Then again, the security check returning home from PS didn't flag it at all, nor did the hand inspection of my bag at a random gatecheck (in which the box was removed from my bag but not opened to see what it contained and where the nice glass club I was carrying (cleverly disguised as a bottle of wine) passed without comment).

-B :)

[Li'l Bebe]

A funny thing happened just this last nationals in Sacramento. It was the 4th of July, and everyone was really stressed out from a bad day of fencing. It was around 3:00, and our coach told us just to go back to the hotel and relax for a little bit so that we'd hopefully fence better the next day. Just then, her phone rings. It turns out that it was one of the best fencers at our club, Chris (he just turned 16 and all ready has his B! urrg so good!) calling from the police station. One of the members of the boys team, Braden (just turned 15, also a very good fencer, though is among one of the most STUPID people I know. He accidentally superglued his finger to his tooth at a competition trying to fix his shoe.) just got arrested for jaywalking. Chris was smart enough to stay on the curb, and not strole right through the middle of the street infront of a cop car.

I can still hear Chris's voice over the phone "um, Bethany? Um, we're in an interesting predicament here....er...Braden just got picked up by the cops for jaywalking, and we're down at the station.....Can you come and pick us up?"

Obviously the cops were just really really bored, and had to give SOMEBODY a ticket that day. So we went over to the station, and picked up Braden, and paid the $15 ticket he got for back talking to a cop. Then our coach taught him the very important lesson in life of how to suck up. (she'd got out of a speeding ticket before by crying)

After that we were all in a much better mood, and kicked butt the next day.

[ShadyLane]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Three months after 9-11 and she was going to make me power up a computer, but a mysterious box of electronics that she didn't understand was completely acceptable. :eyeroll:

HAHAHA!! Hilarious And she didn't ask you to tell her what it was??

[Lemberg]

Hey another UBC fencer! Cool! (well I guess I can't really say that seeing how I am a fencer from UBC, not a UBC club fencer, although I've been there anumber of times). And regardless of beer lineups, you gotta be hitting up the FAIR!!! It's a huge part of UBC experience. Anyways, just wanted to wish you guys good luck with trying to achieve the varsity status. God knows I tried, but alas, I have just graduated.. But hopefully one day there will be UBC Fencing Thunderbirds just like back in the 1990s (or so I heard).
Go T-Birds

[ShadyLane]

Originally Posted by Lemberg

Hey another UBC fencer! Cool! (well I guess I can't really say that seeing how I am a fencer from UBC, not a UBC club fencer, although I've been there anumber of times). And regardless of beer lineups, you gotta be hitting up the FAIR!!! It's a huge part of UBC experience. Anyways, just wanted to wish you guys good luck with trying to achieve the varsity status. God knows I tried, but alas, I have just graduated.. But hopefully one day there will be UBC Fencing Thunderbirds just like back in the 1990s (or so I heard).
Go T-Birds

Cool! Even though it's a part of the UBC experience, some people like it, some don't, but I'll go next year for sure Thanks! Hopefully, if all goes well, we'll be a varsity team this fall

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by ShadyLane

HAHAHA!! Hilarious :p And she didn't ask you to tell her what it was??

No, although I was expecting that to be the immediate next question... it never came.

-B :)

[AllisonT]

[quote=oiuyt]No, although I was expecting that to be the immediate next question... it never came.[quote]

Also goes to show you what NOT volunteering information will do.
She didn't ask the follow-up question because she thought she would seem ignorant (or more so in this case). I bet there is a 5-page flowchart for dealing with "unknown electronic items" in her standard operating procedures manual. Maybe they didn't cover that on the test.....

Now nail clippers, they're the real terrorist weapon

[Bokken]

Originally Posted by Purple Fencer

One of our class is the daughter of Rocky Sorenson...who just got his Level 1 armorer certification...she’ll be just as good as her dad one day. She ALSO was in the coach’s course the week before and knew what would happen. In fact, she was one of the prime kleptos....she stole damn near everything?

Actually, as I recall, she was the fencer who kept getting her stuff stolen by everyone else. Before the day was out I think she'd lost 4 bodycords and a foil or two (all returned).
Also, when we descended upon the armorers (session 2) a certain Frenchman was making so much a hassle of himself that he was bodily picked up, thrown over a shoulder, and carried out of the room by...the gentleman who's doing the post-production work on the CDs they told us about (whose name I can't remember).

Insofar as funny fencing stories...At a tournament my club hosted last year, one of the visiting schools had what I can only describe as a gremlin attack. ALL of their epees malfunctioned (6 or 7 IIRC). All for the same guy, same bout. We convened a fast Bout Committee meeting and decided mercy was the best option. Stopped carding for malfunctioning gear after the 3rd weapon died.
Turns out all 7 weapons had the same malfunction - the B wires had popped out of the bodycord connector. Strange, huh?

Our club's personal favorite though remains "breast cup frisbee."