Photos of Flying Flickers at Flickshutter

[Joe biebel]

Originally Posted by OROD

But, my understanding is that covering means that a certain area of target cannot be reached from ANY direction, not just the one the attacker is attacking from.

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I think it's pretty much the opposite. The/mask/body part can be between your opponents weapon and valid target and not have it be covering. For instance, while keeping distance, with no attack underway, I take my unarmed hand and adjust my front pant leg while you are not attacking. No card. A posture becomes covering when an action (attack/remise, etc.) blocks access to the target with an invalid surface. So the angle and timing are important for an action to be covering target.

[Joe biebel]

Originally Posted by OROD

We dont know how they got that way, maybe it was DeSmet who stepped forward and turned to arrive at that situation. But in any case, DeSmet needs to continue to face his opponent according to the "turning the back to the opponent" rule, at least until his opponent passes him or the halt is called.

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I think this is wrong. It is entirely possible that an opponent runs/moves to a position relative to you that has your back to them. This does not mean you turned your back. Example: I'm left handed and fencing on the right side of the strip. My right-handed opponent makes an attack with flesche to my four line. I take a deep four parry with a half turn toward four. Nothing illegal so far. My riposte misses as my opponent remises changing direction toward the other side of the strip and stops, jabbing at me, but not quite past me. My back is now pretty clearly toward the opponent, yet I have not turned. I do not believe it is necessary for the "stationary" fencer to turn toward the opponent that has moved to an angle that puts my back to them. As a referee, I might call halt if I felt that there was heightened danger from the position, but I would not card the fencer that maintained his position.

[OROD]

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

I think it's pretty much the opposite. The/mask/body part can be between your opponents weapon and valid target and not have it be covering.

Didnt I just say that?

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

A posture becomes covering when an action (attack/remise, etc.) blocks access to the target with an invalid surface. So the angle and timing are important for an action to be covering target.

What??? An attack blocks access to the target with an invalid surface? Can you unscramble that please?

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[tbryan]

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

I think it's pretty much the opposite. The/mask/body part can be between your opponents weapon and valid target and not have it be covering. For instance, while keeping distance, with no attack underway, I take my unarmed hand and adjust my front pant leg while you are not attacking. No card. A posture becomes covering when an action (attack/remise, etc.) blocks access to the target with an invalid surface. So the angle and timing are important for an action to be covering target.

Out of distance - agreed.

Angle/etc - agreed to some extent. Otherwise, a classic lunge position where a fencer throws his arm back is covering target on his non-weapon side.

But note that if I attack low and under your weapon side or even if I flick over your weapon shoulder to your back, and when I do it, you bring your non-weapon arm over your chest, I think that most referees would call it covering. What you were saying almost makes it sound like it's not covering unless I'm aiming for the spot that you're covering. And that's certainly not true.

Really, the covering target rule is just as subject to interpretation and current convention as other rules are. For example, someone mentioned that DeSmet's hair is "covering target." That is, referees are generally advised that no hair may touch the lame at all. It doesn't matter if he fences in a "walking" stance with his shoulders squared. His opponent never needs to attempt to hit him on the back of his neck. If any hair is on the lame, he can be carded. That convention exists just because it's an easy way to enforce the rules around covering with the hair. Tucked or up, and if neither gets it off of the lame, cut the fencer's hair.

Same thing with "covering" when you're out of distance. That would just be silly. There's really no point to card at that distance.

Once the fencers are "in distance," if a fencer covers target, he can be carded. If a fencer does all of his actions with his back arm glued straight down at his side (on his non-weapon hip away from his opponent), I don't think that he'd be carded even if his opponent attempted to run past and flick to that target area. If the same fencer brought the rear shoulder/hip toward his opponent, then I think that he would be carded probably before the rear shoulder even made it all the way in front.

Anyway, I tend to think of covering relative to the direction of the opponent. I'd like the back arm to be mostly hiding behind the fencers relative to their opponents. It can creep up from behind, but then it needs to at least be out and away from the body.

So...um...what were we talking about again (/me looks at previous posts to try to figure out what this thread was supposed to be about)?

[OROD]

It's very simple, if your arm, leg, whatever is up against your lame it's covering no matter where your opponent is. It it's not up against your lame and there's space in between the lame and arm (or whatever) where your opponent could hit you then it's not covering. That's it.

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[Joe biebel]

Originally Posted by tbryan

What you were saying almost makes it sound like it's not covering unless I'm aiming for the spot that you're covering. And that's certainly not true.

I very much like, or at least agree with the unquoted portion of your post. I think you make several good examples and points that I agree with. I'm not really saying anything quite so simple as "it's not covering unless I'm aiming for the spot that you're covering". But this is probably true most of the time. Let me ask you what you would do as the referee if a fencer attacked his opponent with a low lunge and the opponent held their ground and made a high line parry and riposte with lunge over the top of the low opponents head? The original attacker finishes with their non-fencing arm on the ground between the opponent and themselves. The opponents weapon at this point is poised over the attackers back heading for the target on the back. Do you still card the attacker for placing his arm between the opponent and himself? I guess what I'm trying to say is, that it is the target's angle to the weapon, and the opportunity, that are important in making the covering call. The interpretation of this rule needs to be quite fluid to make sense. Yes, I'm one of those old folks that thinks the rules need to make sense.

[Joe biebel]

Originally Posted by OROD

It's very simple, if your arm, leg, whatever is up against your lame it's covering no matter where your opponent is. It it's not up against your lame and there's space in between the lame and arm (or whatever) where your opponent could hit you then it's not covering. That's it.

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Gosh OROD, how can I say this? Let me put it gently, you are totally, completely and in every way wrong. Wait a second, this is one of those invitations for flaming. Right? Right? That's it

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

Gosh OROD, how can I say this? Let me put it gently, you are totally, completely and in every way wrong. Wait a second, this is one of those invitations for flaming. Right? Right? That's it

yaay. now you know how i feel all the time!

[Joe biebel]

Originally Posted by downunder

yaay. now you know how i feel all the time!

If you are agreeing with the language of my last post, then I've clearly gone too far. OROD, my apologies.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

If you are agreeing with the language of my last post, then I've clearly gone too far. OROD, my apologies.

ouch.....

[sjpfencer220]

Just wanted to say that those were some great pictures there.

[mackillian]

How did you get everyone to agree to allow you to use a flash setup?

[bernard c]

Originally Posted by mackillian

How did you get everyone to agree to allow you to use a flash setup?

Answer: It doesn't bother anyone as long as three requirements are fullfilled:
1. The strobes are placed well outside of the foveal vision of the participants.
2. People try it; they invariably discover that it doesn't bother them.
3. The flash is isolated to the strip being photographed.

It has been a routine practice--for over half a century--in popular American indoor sports to strobe the arena. Quoting arenastrobes.com:

Arena strobes have been around for a long time. Sports Illustrated was really the first publication to start "lighting" arenas and fights back in the 1950's. Back then, faster color films were of poor quality and when SI started up, they wanted to completely blow away all other publications in terms of their reproduction of indoor sporting events. By using extremely powerful lights and shooting very slow slide films like Kodachrome 64, SI pretty much cornered the market on the best looking sports action pictures for years.

While SI continues to strobe basketball, hockey, and even occasional track meets, many newspaper have resorted to setting up high powered fast flash units in catwalks to make better photos of basketball and hockey games. Virtually every NBA arena in the U.S. has multiple sets of strobes (one in each of the four corners of the catwalk over the court). Some freelancers, like myself, have purchased lights to be able to take assignments from editors wanting "strobed" event coverage.

As advances in digital photography continue to wash over our business in ever increasing waves, the demand for high quality digital basketball and hockey pictures is high. The problem is "snow," or the sort of grainy look digital files get when they were shot at 1600 ASA at a basketball game under poor lighting conditions.

Tune in any high-level basketball game and watch for the flash. It's there, and it can occur at anytime, even at a moment of quiet and solitary concentration, such as just before the release of a free throw.

The bad reputation of flash in fencing derives from camera-mounted flashes that are fired at the eye level of the fencers, and often at a low angle to the strip--oops, foveal vision. That's why camera-mounted flashes are prohibited on the basketball floor where the pro shooters shoot from.

It's not that hard for fencing to join the 20th Century. Improving the basic visibility of the sport offers manifold benefits, including greater popularity.

[edew]

Originally Posted by OROD

It's very simple, if your arm, leg, whatever is up against your lame it's covering no matter where your opponent is. It it's not up against your lame and there's space in between the lame and arm (or whatever) where your opponent could hit you then it's not covering. That's it.

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I would pretty much agree with the former (minus the possibility of the weapon arm against the lame: that's pretty much part of the game, or thigh on lame after making a lunge, also pretty much part of the game).

As for the latter, I as a referee would call covering even if the arm or leg is not touching the lame, as long as it's being an obvious obstacle. If I see the "Cliff Bayer" non-weapon hand position and the opponent hits the hand, I'd call covering target.

[OROD]

Originally Posted by Joe biebel

If you are agreeing with the language of my last post, then I've clearly gone too far. OROD, my apologies.

Hehehe, no problem.

And for the record I wasnt trying to troll or get anyone to flame. I was just stating it as I've been told by high level referees. Basically, if there's an angle that a certain target area can be reached, it's up to the opponent to reach it. Only when the target area is completely covered so that it CANT be reached is it covering. Again, this is due to the fact that wherever the arm/leg/whatever is it's always covering some line-of-attack unto a portion of target. So if one fencer attacks and hits the non-weapon arm (for example) he cant just claim that it's covering target just because if the arm wasnt there he (thinks he) would have hit. If the arm is in the way, go around it. If the fencer is too far, get closer. If his blade is blocking the attack, beat it out of the way. It's not supposed to be easy, otherwise anyone could do it!

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[downunder]

Originally Posted by OROD

If the arm is in the way, go around it.
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OROD, this does not make sense.

If the arm is in the way, its a yellow card.

[OROD]

Originally Posted by downunder

OROD, this does not make sense.

If the arm is in the way, its a yellow card.

If the arm is in the way on purpose, then it is covering. But sometimes the arm is in the way because it has to be somewhere. It's not covering target just because you hit someones arm... that's called hitting off target, and being hit off target is not against the rules.

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[downunder]

Originally Posted by OROD

If the arm is in the way on purpose, then it is covering. But sometimes the arm is in the way because it has to be somewhere. It's not covering target just because you hit someones arm... that's called hitting off target, and being hit off target is not against the rules.

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give me a situation, i don't understand you at the moment.

[OROD]

Originally Posted by downunder

give me a situation, i don't understand you at the moment.

Well lets just say that my opponent is moving at me and he attacks, I parry, and as he runs by I reposte. Now, as I reposte I hit off-target on his non-weapon arm (since he's a righty and running past me on my left). I didnt hit his arm because he was intentionaly trying to cover target, and his arm isnt even close to his body... but if it hadnt been there I believe I would have hit his lame. This is just attack-parry-reposte off-target. No covering. Now, if his arm was flush against his body then yes it'd be covering.

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