My only ***** about Nats.

[attila]

Just got back from Nats. Had a great time, fenced well. But! Man I had more fricking sabre refs doing epee bouts who were complete tools. There was a lack of refs and it seem like they were pulling them off the street to come in and ref. I had a very young ( maybe 17 years old guy) ref one of my pool bouts and disallow a perfectly good remise to my opponents *** while he was still on the strip and the guys says "no touch" and after I asked "why not?" he said " well, I think he was past after he FLUNGED". Man . I hate sabre refs. We also ran into this prob in the team epee event. Maybe I should get my ref rating just so I can spred the pain around as well,huh?! I would just love to ref a sabre bout.........

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"Kill the men, save the women, and by the gods, do not spill the wine"

[Iwant2bafencer]

Hey attila,
Sorry Nats were crapy. I hate refs that don't know what they are doing! Not to mention I hate it when refs come in from opposite 'sports' and ref a sport that they probably couldn't even play if the tried! I went to a pro baseball game a few nights ago and the field ref either didn't know squat about the game, or was as blind as a bat! Could be both, but you never know! What did he mean when he said 'well, I think he was past after he FLUNGED' ? The operative word being FLUNGED. Team Epee? DO you play in teams kind of like doubles in tennis? By the way I'm glad you did well! Nice aim on the remise! lol j/k.

Wannab

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Don't let school get in the way of your education!
-Mark Twain

[Foil Girl]

Originally posted by Iwant2bafencer:
Hey attila,
Team Epee? DO you play in teams kind of like doubles in tennis?

In tournaments, there are events for you, personally to fence in, against one other person, but there are also team events. In team, instead of a normal bout, or fight, against one other person there is a team of fencers, with one substitute. (woah, that was a run on sentence) The fencers on each team rotate who fences. The whole team bout is to 45 touches, but each two people fence to the next multiple of 5. So if the score starts out 0-0, the first person to 5 touches signals the next rotation. Next rotation the first to 10 touches signals another rotation. So, hypathetically if the score was 40-0, a fencer from the zero side could come back to be ahead and win it for their team with 45 touches. But they'd have to get 45 touches before the other guy got 5. See? It's lots of fun.



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-Foil Girl
"Nadie nace sabiendo"

[damianip]

Ed,

I see you got 14 in Div II épée. Congrats!

Did you fence that kid Matt Sisco (out of Philly, eventual 2nd in Div II, 23rd in Div I-A)? I've fenced him a few times and he massacres me every time. He just keeps getting better. Damn kids...


Paolo

[attila]

Hi Paolo

Yes, had a good day, at least up until the round of 16. I had used my fav weapon and FORGOT ( yes, I am a dumbass) to check the screws on my last DE. My replacement weapon performed a badly as I did. It was much too whippy and I kept landing flat both on the arm and body. Bad combo of bad blade action against a fine fencer. I was doomed. I didnn't fence Cisco, but i did see him bout. great form and speed. Making the round of 16 was cool. One of my students also made the 16 , ending up tied for 11.

Hey wannab, Nats were not crappy. I had a great time. Refing is really tough. Even though I ***** about the calls, I am glad there were enough refs to make the thing go. I guess I would take a few bad calls over endlessly waiting to endlessly wait.

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"Kill the men, save the women, and by the gods, do not spill the wine"

[Iwant2bafencer]

Hey attila,
Thats good that you had a great time. I must have blown past that when I was reading your message the first time. What did the ref mean when he said 'I think he was past when he "flunged"'?

How old is that kid sisco or what ever his name was?
Hey foil girl, That does sound like fun! I like just playing doubles in tennis, so that must be a blast!
P.S. Foil what language is that with your quotes? Wannab

[damianip]

The "kid" is about sixteen give or take a year. He fences at Bucks County Academy of Fencing in Pennsylvania, and he's really developing. I occasionally fence there and each time I go, this kid just keeps getting better.

He's a nice, low key guy to boot. No flaming ego that I've ever seen.


Paolo

[attila]

Hi WannaBaf

FLUNGE is a sabre term for a short fleche launched from a lunge, usually with a hop at the end. Only a sabre fencer would confuse a flunge with a fleche. Also in epee there is much more leeway in close quarter fencing because the ref only needs to look to the box for a touch as long as the fencers are still at it while on the strip before a halt. Foil and sabre refs usually stop the action after the knees cross because it is very hard to follow the right of way.

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"Kill the men, save the women, and by the gods, do not spill the wine"

[Stryder]

There are test events for up and coming referees. The sad news is the USFA was desperate for referees because not enough qualified ref's were interested in showing up.
$40 per day is not much compensation for missing work, standing on concrete for up to 14 hours per day for 9 days, and not fencing.

Not to mention putting up with half educated jerks screaming at you about the fact that it is YOUR fault that they can't hit a simple riposte 14 times, then get called in prep on the last action.

Be nicer to your referees and they might come back. Even the ones that suck. Imagine how nice NAC's would be if ref's were waiting in line for the priviledge of reffing the next bout. The ones that suck could be sent home and we wouldn't suffer. And the ones that were good would be kept around.

Right now if they sent all the bad and developing ref's home from summer nationals they would be down to about ten good ones who all had students in the final.

If ref's were paid $200 per day, we could hold out for quality from them. Since we are accepting ANY volunteer for the job, we have to take anyone that comes in off the street.


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www.geocities.com/strydermike

[its_me_mango]

so maybe american fencing isn't in such bad condition after all, what is the credentialing process in other countries - at their national level? won't it bring the level of fencing up to have certified refs at national competitions?

[veeco]

Div II, top 16 is not that high level (I'm not taking anything out of your performance, Attila, it's still great to fence at this level) but there's no reason why kids couldn't ref at this level. I've seen kids referee better than adults and it's a great way for them to learn about how to act when on the other side of the mirror. As long as they don't referee the final 8, it's fine with me. Before that, little differences like calling a fleche a flunge won't make that big a difference...

[attila]

Hi veeco

No umbrage taken. The young man did fine as refs go. I don't have a problem with his age, I metioned that he was a sabre ref. He made mistakes because he does not fence epee. No other problem other than that.

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"Kill the men, save the women, and by the gods, do not spill the wine"

[veeco]

Yeah I know I've had M. Martinez referee me on one of my pool bouts and the poor dude screwed me over big time the same way you've been screwed it seems.

Looks like this people's motto "Anyone can ref epee" is kinda overrated huh?

[Link14]

I'll be the first to agree that the saying "anyone can ref epee" isn't true. Of course 95% of the time it's easy, but the other 5% is the pain. As a sabrest, the move that gets me in trouble is when one epeest fleches, misses, and the other repostes. Making sure the reposte is immediate, but not calling a halt too soon as the attacker goes by....I've been yelled at for that one a couple of times.

I wish everyone would at least test and try being a ref. It's definitely not for everyone, but there might be a little more empathy for beginning refs who have to try and follow some phrases so sloppy it would be easier to ref a pair of three year olds with wacky wackers!

Attila - I was having trouble following your definition of a "flunge". The ones that I've seen around in Colorado start like a fleche, but the back foot stays behind the leading foot and the fencer lands in sort of a lunge, and like you said, usually bounces several times at the end. I've tried it....way to hard on the knees for me!

[attila]

Hi Link

Yeah, I left out the part where the legs can't cross. Do fence at NCF? I won a DE against a young man from NCF and his coaches came up and shook my hand,saying I fenced a great bout. Damn! What class. I wish there more coaches out there like that.

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"Kill the men, save the women, and by the gods, do not spill the wine"

[Link14]

I'm about an hour's drive north of NCF, up here in Fort Collins. Gary and Andrea run a great club down there in Boulder. It's always a real learning experience when I fence one of their students

I'll be seeing both of them at Coaches College in a couple of weeks. I'll pass on the compliment.

[Peach]

The Summer Nationals serve as a training ground for refs. Without them, we would have to too much of the training at events that meant points towards world competitions--which the Division II doesn't. We had two kids in our club take their practicals this past week--one of them, to reverse your situation, was an epeeist whom they put to work reffing sabre bouts all day. He annoyed some fencers and a coach or two because he wasn't solid on the finer microsecond nuances of right-of-way, but that's what happened to me MY first day of refereeing in Charlotte, and I'm a sabre fencer.

As a low-level national ref myself, the thing I hate about Summer Nationals is the way they work you until they find your breaking point; I saw a few too many inexperienced referees this week who were ready to quit forever because the final stages were too tough for them.

[neevel]

My main personal level-***** about Sacramento:

Working 12-14 hour days in armory trying to keep the decrepit copper strips in one piece is not good for your fencing . I did well in the Div II pools (29th seed out of 185, losing one bout 5-4 against a good opponent), only to choke and lose to the 100th seed in my first DE bout (I don't have enough of the close-twist-and-counterattack types in my area to be practiced at shutting that game down). Div 1A was a rout for me, but I at least came on cam enough to give the #2 seed a real bout (15-11 loss for me) in the first DE.

One good thing to come out of this is an awareness on the part of Mike Massik that we need to plan for replacement of the current strips. The idea was to have 50 strips set up-- in order to do that, a bunch of old copper strips that had been labled with things like "Composed entirely of degenerate matter: do not use" ended up being laid out. By the last week, we'd simply given up trying to repair those, declared them sabre-only strips, and started just slapping gaffers tape over any new rips that appeared. The tentative plan seems to be to get 10 new strips a year for the next two years, possibly of a new aluminum slat type that BG has in prototype (not the plate strip used last year in Austin-- this is a new concept: they had a couple of cut-down demonstrator sections at their booth).

Then there was the staff hotel situation. A computer screw up at the Sheraton resulted in the staff rooms there being sold to fencers, so everyone ended up at the two overflow hotels about 6 miles across the river. I was in the Doubletree, which was pretty nice, but most of the refs were in the Red Lion, which was a glorified motel. The worst thing was that there were no restaurants except for a shopping mall food court and the hotel restaurants within easy walking distance, and the hotel restaurants would close at 10 PM (there were a couple of days when people didn't get back until after that). At the Doubletree even room service was shut down after 10 as an "energy-saving measure".

Anyway, those are my *****es.

-Dave

[Peach]

15-11 against the #2 seed? Whoa, nice fencing.

Yeah, it was a very consistent sight at Nationals to see people down on their knees pounding the strips. Some of them were armorers, some were referees who didn't want to wait for the armorers, and some were fencers who had just lost their DE and were using their fists, not hammers.

[Cutter]

Neevel, I also got drafted several times to try and hold those damned strips together. It was pretty funny at the end to see black electricians tape covering holes. I heard about the problem with the hotel and was really upset that it happened. I wish I had known as there was a nice hotel (Holiday Inn) about 8 blocks away that likely would have handled to problem. I am not pleased with the Sheraton at all. I had a few run ins with them early on and they did not seem particularly cooperative or accomodating.

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Cutter
"It's just a flesh wound."