Annuling the touch?

[_fence(1)]

Here is the question: what do the rules say about reversing director's decision?

Here is the situation: sabre, pools, 4:4, I'm landing my last touch doing the flunge. Wheт my flunge is done (after the touch) I've lost my balance and felt down. Director gives this touch to me. 5:4, bought!

Now my opponent complains about me falling down and says that I can't score the touch and fall.

What does director do? He decided to annul my touch. Just wondering what do the rules say about situation like that?

Thank you!

[tbryan]

Originally Posted by _fence(1)

Here is the question: what do the rules say about reversing director's decision?

Here is the situation: sabre, pools, 4:4, I'm landing my last touch doing the flunge. Wheт my flunge is done (after the touch) I've lost my balance and felt down. Director gives this touch to me. 5:4, bought!

Now my opponent complains about me falling down and says that I can't score the touch and fall.

What does director do? He decided to annull my touch. Just wondering what do the rules say about situation like that?

Basically, your opponent made an appeal. See t.122.

[great bowyer]

i am not up on the rules as much as i should be, but it would seem to me that there would be a halt with your touch and anything after the halt does not effect the score. if you get the touch and go off the strip, the touch would still stand. why would falling after the touch be any different?

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by great bowyer

i am not up on the rules as much as i should be, but it would seem to me that there would be a halt with your touch and anything after the halt does not effect the score. if you get the touch and go off the strip, the touch would still stand. why would falling after the touch be any different?

Actually, if you're not in control of your body at the time you score your touch, it's annulled. A properly executed flunge is one thing, crossing your feet after the touch is scored doesn't affect anything. However, flying at the opponent with no control over yourself is not a valid touch if you fall over afterwards.

[Purple Fencer]

That's not how I remember it from Derek Cotton's directing clinic a few years back...once the light goes on, the action is over...the issue of "control" ceases when the touch occurs.

This is no different than in a properly done flunge...there's going to be a time when the feet may cross in preparation for landing...but if the touch is scored before the feet cross, there is no yellow card for crossing because the action's over.

[KD5MDK]

In general, if you land and then fall, the touch should stand. If you fall while scoring the touch (I saw this yesterday during a Gold Medal bout), the touch does not stand and a yellow card is given.

As for Purple Fencer's comment, I'd say that obviously an exception to that is made for dangerous actions, jostling and things like that, so it seems to me that actions which couldn't be made without losing control ought to fall into the same category. However, I'm open to correction.

[tbryan]

Originally Posted by tbryan

Basically, your opponent made an appeal. See t.122.

To give a bit more detail, an appeal can be one of a few things.

1) Your opponent appeals on a matter of fact. "That wasn't a counter attack. It was an attack on his preparation!" The correct response to this type of appeal (even if the fencer is right) is to repeat the call and ask the fencers to come on guard. If the fencer refuses to come on guard and wants to continue arguing, the director can simply ask him whether he's making an appeal. If the fencer is unwise enough to say, "yes," then he gets a card for an unjustified appeal.

2) Your opponent appeals on the details of a rule. For example, I once annulled a touch when it was shown that the fencer's opponent's body cable had come unplugged from his weapon during the course of the action. Somehow, his retaining clip had malfunctioned. There was an appeal (justified and correct) that the touch should not be annulled. The retaining clip on the weapon is the fencer's responsibility, if it fails, then no touch may be annulled. Normally, with this type of appeal, the referee looks up the rule himself, or he asks the bout committee (who will either know the rule or look it up themselves).

3) Your opponent appeals on the application of a rule. The referee either forgot to apply some rule, or he applied a rule where in a situation that the rule may not actually cover. The response here depends on the referee and the situation. If the referee knows the rule, he should not change his mind here. He might be wrong, but if he already took the rule into account, an appeal really needs to procede to the bout committee on whether he applied it correctly. If he simply forgot the rule until reminded, then he may change his decision without going to the bout committee. In that case, if you think he was right the first time, it's time for you to appeal. But you'd better know what you're talking about because it will almost certainly involve the bout committee.

You cannot make a touch while falling. (The spirit of the rule, I think, is that you cannot launch an action to score on your opponent where you have no hope of not falling. In this case, you're not allowed to make an uncontrolled fencing action, such as a flunge that you never "land" and simply fall out of.) Now, if the referee just forgot about that rule, and you flunged and fell, then it seems reasonable and correct for the referee to reverse his decision. "Oh, right. I forgot about that rule. I'm sorry, the touch is annulled, and you get a Yellow for scoring while falling."

If you flunged, hit, landed, and then stumbled and fell, the referee could have argued that you scored before you fell, then he called halt, and then you fell. If that's what really happened, then he really shouldn't have changed his call. He should have just explained it.

Of course, even if he had time to call halt after you hit, the referee might have felt that there was no way that you would not fall. Like I said, I don't think that you're really allowed to throw an action that will definitely result in you falling. If the referee felt that your flunge was entirely out-of-control even if you initially "landed," he is still probably within the rules to card you for scoring while falling and annul your touch.

Unfortunately, whether you fell "after the action" or on the action that scored the touch is a matter of fact. Once the referee makes a ruling, there's not much you can do to appeal it. You can try to give him an "out" if he looks like he's about to change his mind. "Sir, didn't I land properly and then stumble after the action was over?"

I feel sorry for your referee. It sucks to blow a call as a referee. It really sucks to blow a call and realize that you've blown it as soon as it's out of your mouth. It really, really sucks to blow a call, realize it, and immediately have a fencer protest for exactly the right reason.

[fencerbill]

I have expressed this opinion elsewhere.

Could the fencer have scored the touch and by heroic measures not fallen, then the touch should stand. Regardless of whether, after the touch was scored, he did fall.

If he could not have scored the touch without falling then the touch should not be allowed to stand.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

It depends....if you needed to fall to score the touch, then the touch should be annuled. Therefore if you were flunging hit and never landed, just fell gained no balance the touch should be annuled. If you hit, then say, trip over your oppoent after a step or two, the touch should stand.

t.87 All bouts must preserve the character of a courteous and frank
encounter. All irregular actions (flèche attack which finishes with a
collision jostling the opponent, disorderly fencing, irregular
movements on the strip, touches achieved with violence, touches
made while falling) are strictly forbidden (cf. t.114–t.120). Should
such an offence occur, any touch scored by the fencer at fault is
annulled.

Plus, you should have been given a yellow card.

[tbryan]

Originally Posted by Purple Fencer

That's not how I remember it from Derek Cotton's directing clinic a few years back...once the light goes on, the action is over...the issue of "control" ceases when the touch occurs.

That doesn't sound quite right.

Imagine a fleche where I don't attempt to land on my feel at all. I throw my body out entirely horizontally. I hit on this action while I'm in mid-air. Then I procede (as planned) to belly flop on the strip. My touch?

I could have brought my feet under me? Nope. I made an uncontrolled action. No matter what happened, I wasn't going to be on my feet after that action. Card. Annul touch.

Now, if I fleche, score, continue to run past, trip over my own feet, and fall, then the touch should stand. If I lunge, hit, and step in a slick spot on the strip so that my front leg shoots out from under me, and I end up on my back, the touch should stand.

Hm...perhaps I'm arguing less about a "falling" card than I am about an "abnormal action" card.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Originally Posted by tbryan

That doesn't sound quite right.

Imagine a fleche where I don't attempt to land on my feel at all. I throw my body out entirely horizontally. I hit on this action while I'm in mid-air. Then I procede (as planned) to belly flop on the strip. My touch?

I could have brought my feet under me? Nope. I made an uncontrolled action. No matter what happened, I wasn't going to be on my feet after that action. Card. Annul touch.

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."

[tbryan]

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."

For a crossover in saber, yes. For other actions like scoring while falling? I don't think so. When I said "fleche" in that post, I really just meant a flunge that stretches out almost horizontally so that the attacker has no way of landing on his feet. He never crosses them, he just lands on his belly.

[_fence(1)]

Originally Posted by tbryan

If I lunge, hit, and step in a slick spot on the strip so that my front leg shoots out from under me, and I end up on my back, the touch should stand.

This is how I'd describe what happened to me.

I guess the proper "comeback" would be to ask "Sir, do you think that falling was neccessary for me to land this touch?". The answer would be "No" and I'd get my touch back...

The point is that I was able to score with or without the falling.

[fencerbill]

Is this the first ever Sabre refereeing discussion with so much agreement?

[FencingKitten]

Now, Depending on the action, I disagree with annuling the touch.

IF you hit landed stumbled, the touch should stand.

IF you hit stumbled while landing, the touch should stand.

IF you hit while stumbling on the landing, it could be argued that you were not in control of your body while you made the touch. Totally up to the director's interpretation of "in control of yourself."

IF you stumbled or landed then hit, the touch should be annulled.

From a referee perspective, I don't think I'd reverse a call like that. If the fencer disagrees with my interpretation of the action, it's kind of a hard-luck-for-him thing, unless it's a material misapplication of the rules (he has a screwless tip, so doesn't have both tip screws, so nonconforming weapon, for example). Judgement calls are not supposed to be appealable. Generally, once a call is made based on the action on strip, barring a missapplication of the rules, it is made and the action will go down in history as called, or so I was taught.

My favorite story on this comes from Beau. "Halt! The attack on my right, is parried. Riposte from my left." Right: "But there was no blade contact when did that become a parry?" Beau: "It became a parry, when I went like *this* (arms in parry sign), and it became a riposte, when I went like *this* (signal riposte arrives)." (That story is better when told by him with visual. It's fun.)

And,

Originally Posted by _fence(1)

Director gives this touch to me. 5:4, bought!

I thought you said he gave it to you, what did you buy? :P

[tbryan]

Originally Posted by _fence(1)

This is how I'd describe what happened to me.

I guess the proper "comeback" would be to ask "Sir, do you think that falling was neccessary for me to land this touch?". The answer would be "No" and I'd get my touch back...

Well, at that point, probably not. The referee would stick with his second call, and you'd have to involve the bout committee. Or the referee would switch his call again, and your opponent would realize that your referee is very malleable and start to argue again...probably eventually escalating to the bout committee.

Originally Posted by _fence(1)

The point is that I was able to score with or without the falling.

Not so much whether you were able to score with or without falling. I think that the question was whether you were in control when you made the touch and whether the action was "reasonable" (that is, had a reasonable chance of landing without a fall or corps-a-corps). If the fall happened clearly after the hit, and the action that caused the fall wasn't abnormal, then I'd let you keep the touch.

Of course, I think that the flunge looks abnormal, but what do I know about sabre?

[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.

"Hitting while falling" and "disorderly fencing" are two different offenses, both of which are first group, and annul any touch scored by the offender. They are separate clauses of t.87, and even appear in separate blocks of the penalty chart.

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.

-p

[KD5MDK]

The trick is deciding when the action that scored ended. If I lunge, hit, and then lose my balance, did I score a touch while falling?

[peet]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

The trick is deciding when the action that scored ended. If I lunge, hit, and then lose my balance, did I score a touch while falling?

Like most things, it's up to the ref. If you hit, remain standing, and then trip while making your victory dance, we'll probably laugh at you but let you keep your touch and not card you. Otherwise, hit and fall, and you're gonna be bummed.

Basically, did you finish your action on your feet, or on the floor? The ref decides when your action is done, just as (s)he does in every other case.

-p

[Downtown]

Originally Posted by Purple Fencer

That's not how I remember it from Derek Cotton's directing clinic a few years back....

Rule for falling and touches changed in the last two years.