Annuling the touch?

[tbryan]

Originally Posted by peet

You may not hit while falling regardless of whether it is because you were out of control or because you just slipped, or the cord got in your way, or there is a wrinkle in the strip, or whatever....You simply may not hit and fall.

It matters not why you fell, nor whether you hit your opponent before or after the floor. (Think about it, we don't need a rule to annul a touch that occurs after a fall, because it would be after halt.) If the action during which you hit ends with you on the floor, you get no touch, and a yellow card to boot.

Yes, sorry. Rereading my posts, I certainly didn't make that clear.

So, assuming the falling fencer is the only one with a light on...

Fall then stick out arm and hit. Halt for the fall. Touch is after the halt. No touch; no card.

Make an action, touch, and fall on that action. Halt. Yellow card for touch with a fall. Touch annulled.

Make an action, touch, and fall after that action. Halt. Touch awarded. The fall was after the halt, and we don't care about it.

The referee has no leeway in the rules. If you didn't fall, he cannot give a card because he thought you were going to fall. He cannot fail to give a card because you didn't meant to fall (in the case of a touch while falling).

The place the referee does have leeway is in the before/after judgement. Attack with lunge hits. Fencer ends up in a split and rolls over onto his back. Okay. There was a fall, but did the fencer hit with a lunge and then slide/fall out of the lunge after the lunge was finished? Or did he simply lunge/fall and hit while falling? That's a judgement call, and the referee needs to determine whether the fencer successfully completed the action of the hit before the fall began.

I guess what I was trying to emphasize was that on an action like a flunge, just because both of your feet hit the ground at the end without crossing over doesn't mean you "landed." If your feet touch, but you were so off balance leaning forward that you immediately proceded to go down in a heap, it'll probably be called a hit while falling.

The more off balance and "no way you're going to do that without ending in a fall" the action looks, the more likely I am to think that the fall happened on the action that scored.

To the original poster, the question you really wanted to ask was something like, "Sir, didn't I finish the flunge successfully before I fell?" Try to establish as a matter of fact the before/after of the fall and the action that scored. If the referee ever says that you finished your flunge before you started to fall, then you've got good grounds for an appeal. If the referee flipped to "you fell on the flunge," then you give up because there's no grounds for appeal. Plenty for complaint. None for appeal.

[notalent]

Greetings K'Shan5,
At DitD I was Reffing Oiuyt in the Sabre 8. Score is 7-3 he breaks distance launches a counterattack hits his opp. His opp. lands his attack but crosses over for the third time in the match. I anull his opp. attack award Brad's now valid counter attack and give his opp a red card. Score going into break is 9-3.

Brad was smart because he had seen his opp crossover in a previous bout, and asked for assesours before hand. That made what might have been a tough bout into an easy one; final tally was 6 red cards and 3 annuled touches, 2 of which let Brad score. Nothing like giving your opp. 10 touches to help them along.

Originally Posted by KShan5[PrFC]

I just want to clear one thing up, it's not touch annuled, it's light annuled. Therefore, (pretend this is sabre), if your opponent (on the right) crosses over in an attack and you counter attacked before the cross over, and you both get a light, it's not just "Halt, yellow card cross over touch annuled," it's "Halt, yellow card cross over, light annuled, counter attack arrives, touch left."

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Originally Posted by notalent

Greetings K'Shan5,
At DitD I was Reffing Oiuyt in the Sabre 8. Score is 7-3 he breaks distance launches a counterattack hits his opp. His opp. lands his attack but crosses over for the third time in the match. I anull his opp. attack award Brad's now valid counter attack and give his opp a red card. Score going into break is 9-3.

Brad was smart because he had seen his opp crossover in a previous bout, and asked for assesours before hand. That made what might have been a tough bout into an easy one; final tally was 6 red cards and 3 annuled touches, 2 of which let Brad score. Nothing like giving your opp. 10 touches to help them along.

Hahah Brad was telling me that exact story on Saturday. He said on the last touch he just ran away from the en guarde line and his oponent eventually crossed over, giving Brad the bout.

[_fence(1)]

Originally Posted by notalent

Greetings K'Shan5,
At DitD I was Reffing Oiuyt in the Sabre 8. Score is 7-3 he breaks distance launches a counterattack hits his opp. His opp. lands his attack but crosses over for the third time in the match.

Was his opponenent recovering epeeist? Or just came back from 1996?

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by KShan5[PrFC]

I just want to clear one thing up, it's not touch annuled, it's light annuled. Therefore, (pretend this is sabre), if your opponent (on the right) crosses over in an attack and you counter attacked before the cross over, and you both get a light, it's not just "Halt, yellow card cross over touch annuled," it's "Halt, yellow card cross over, light annuled, counter attack arrives, touch left."

since he's talking about scoring a touch while falling or abnormal action, it is TOUCH annulled. the LIGHT annulled rule is only for crossing the feet.

-m

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Originally Posted by epeemike81

since he's talking about scoring a touch while falling or abnormal action, it is TOUCH annulled. the LIGHT annulled rule is only for crossing the feet.

-m

Fair enough

[PiratePeter]

i think you're only allowed three points of contact ... that's why it got annulled.

[fencerbill]

Originally Posted by PiratePeter

i think you're only allowed three points of contact ... that's why it got annulled.

?????

[PiratePeter]

as in your body is only allowed to touch the ground at three places.

[mrbiggs]

A few months ago, in epee, I scored a touch on my opponent's wrist while retreating as fast as I could, while my opponent stood stationary, as he noticed the touch, and I didn't. After taking 4 or 5 off-balance retreats, I lost my balance completely, and fell over on my back.

Is this a yellow card? On the one hand, I was pretty much out of control when I scored the touch, as shown by me falling 2 seconds later. But on the other hand, the touch had been a few fencing tempos earlier.

(The director, after asking if I was OK, said that he would have yellow carded me, but it had been so long since the touch that he didn't think it was justified.)

[FencingKitten]

Well, yes. I'm not seeing how this is relevant. I think that's what fencerbill meant by:

Originally Posted by fencerbill

?????

[KD5MDK]

Originally Posted by PiratePeter

as in your body is only allowed to touch the ground at three places.

I can't say I recall hearing that specifically.

[keropie]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

(The director, after asking if I was OK, said that he would have yellow carded me, but it had been so long since the touch that he didn't think it was justified.)

I think that's your answer lol. Just depends on the official, I've seen some that would have called you out of control (in my imagination of what that looked like), and clearly there's at least one who wouldn't.

[notalent]

Greetings fence(1),
Neither, the opponenent is a 16 yo fencer who has been fencing for years. The crossover is early in the process and easily missable with out assesours.

Originally Posted by _fence(1)

Was his opponenent recovering epeeist? Or just came back from 1996?

[Chafunkta]

I looked in the rule book, and in the penalty chart it says that scoring a touch while falling is a 1st group offense. It reads in the rule book as "Touches with brutality or while falling."

So does this mean every time I fall while making a touch I am carded, along with anulling the touch?

Today I was refereeing a bout and a fencer lunged, hit the opponent and then fell backwards onto his rear end. I annulled the touch and gave him a yellow card.

Now that I think back on this, though, it doesn't seem that the penalty is in the same vein as the "Touches scored with brutality or while falling." 'While falling' and 'with brutality' seem like two compeletly different things to me.

So my question is, do you card everytime a fencer falls after a touch, even if it's due to a slippery floor, or to a knee giving out. Or do you card only if the fall is intentional and judged to be with brutality?

[peet]

Originally Posted by Chafunkta

I looked in the rule book, and in the penalty chart it says that scoring a touch while falling is a 1st group offense. It reads in the rule book as "Touches with brutality or while falling."

So does this mean every time I fall while making a touch I am carded, along with anulling the touch?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Chafunkta

Today I was refereeing a bout and a fencer lunged, hit the opponent and then fell backwards onto his rear end. I annulled the touch and gave him a yellow card.

Now that I think back on this, though, it doesn't seem that the penalty is in the same vein as the "Touches scored with brutality or while falling." 'While falling' and 'with brutality' seem like two compeletly different things to me.

So my question is, do you card everytime a fencer falls after a touch, even if it's due to a slippery floor, or to a knee giving out. Or do you card only if the fall is intentional and judged to be with brutality?

Note: it says "with brutality or while falling". The "or" does not indicate any relationship between brutality and falling. They are just two ways a touch can be scored illegally, both of which carry penalties. It may seem kinda strange to list them together, but the rulebook often groups offenses only because they carry the same penalty, not because they are the same offense.

Basically, if you hit and fall in the same action, you get penalized, and the touch annulled, regardless of intent, blown knees, slippery floors, etc.

Take-home message: if you trip & fall, try not to hit the other guy*.

-p

(* with your tip or otherwise)
I'm not really sure how one falls with brutality anyway. I mean, i suppose i could hit my head on the floor really hard...?

[peet]

So yeah, I was making that post, and thinking "wow, i'm really sure we've all discussed this several times already", and was just about to do a search when i realized

It was in this thread!

I felt bad enough repeating myself, but in the same thread???


Oh man oh man....



-p

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by notalent

Greetings fence(1),
Neither, the opponenent is a 16 yo fencer who has been fencing for years. The crossover is early in the process and easily missable with out assesours.

Yeah, but how did he make it to the 8 while carrying such a burden as an habitual passe-avant? The referees ( and opponents! ) of all of his pool bouts and his DEs just didn't notice? Wow...

[Joe biebel]

I think PEET is wrong as to the "sweeping, you don't have any latitude and can't use common sense to determine if the falling rule applies, post". Pardon me if I misread or misunderstood PEET's posts that say if you fall during an action, the falling rule, for falling while while making a hit, always applies. As we all know, it is not uncommon for a fencer to lose balance and fall after a hit is scored. If the fall is from the effort it certainly should apply. If the fall is after a hit, Example: fencer flesches and makes a valid hit, passes his opponent, clearly balanced and in control, and then slips or say falls while leaving the raised platform, the rule should not apply.

Secondarily, I think the rule should not be invoked if the scoring action is not the cause of the fall. Example, a fencer flesches, hits, then steps on the edge of the strip turning his/her ankle and goes down in a heap. The attack arrived, the fall has nothing to do with the attack. Attack is good. Call the trainer. The "falling" really needs to be a part of the "paying" stroke to be subject to this rule.

I think a better "rule of thumb" would be closer to what fencerbill stated. It is important and germaine to the infraction that it be a part of the actual attack, and not something that occurs or more precisely, starts to occur, after the attack.

[peet]

I think we can all agree that if you fall after the action is over, there should be no penalty.

[edit]And in re-reading your post, Joe, it sounds like you're mostly talking about when you fall after the action, so I'd say we're probably thinking of the rule in about the same way.[/edit]

But if you fall during the action that hits, I think the rule applies, regardless of the reason for the fall. The rationale that was given for this at a NAC ref meeting a long time ago was that if your (scoring) action ends with you sprawled on the floor, you deprive your opponent of making a (potentially) valid action against you, because you are not where you "should" be to be hit*.

That being said, I think many refs (myself included) will give people a bit of leeway when a fall clearly could not affect the course of the bout at all. We all know that refs exercise discretion as to how strict to be about certain rules in any given situation.

There is the rule, and there is how it is enforced. My previous posts concern the rule, which makes no mention of whether a fall is accidental, or particularly out of control. It just says "touch scored while falling". How strictly to apply it in real life is up to the ref.

-p

(BTW, how come my name ended up in all caps? Because FRED is that way? FRED is an acronym, Peet is not.. )

*Particularly if you are wearing a lame on a grounded strip, which may result in your lame grounding to the strip, depriving your opponent of any lights at all, should they actually find your target.