Hi!
Several members here (including me, see the wrestling thread) have experience from other sports besides fencing. I would like to hear what, if anything, is of interest from those other sports.
1. In some cases, other sports have rules which could be used or modified for fencing - competition organization, punishments, etc.
2. Other sports have had various types of problems, and it can be useful to learn from them - their solutions (good or not), what they did to avoid problems, and bad things that happened to them because they were not foreseeing enough.
It is always less painful to learn from the errors of others.
So, I start with an example of #1. I have done competitive floorball for many years. (more info here:
www.floorball.org). It is a game played with 5 outfielder per team, each one has one stick to handle the ball. The timing setup is 3*20 minutes, just like icehockey. The penalty structure is similar too. 2, 5 and 10 minutes penaties. To have a big hook on the floorball stick is very advantageous too many players, and makes ball-taking from the other team excessively difficult. Therefore, there is a rule for the maximum allowed stick blade hook. The blade of the floorball stick is made of plastic, so it is very easy to increase the hook in excess of legal limit during lulls in the game, or when the player is resting on the bench. That happens often, each player typically plays 1-1.5 minutes before changing to another player (again, compare to icehockey). The ref can not reasonably check each stick blade many times during each match, much too high workload. Therefore, opponents may demand a hook measurement during any break, for no special reason. Since that could be used to stall, there is a rule to limit it:
If they stick hook is found to be within legal limits, the player demanding the measurement is penalized 2 minutes for delaying the game. If the hook is indeed found illegal, the stick owner is penalized 2 minutes for illegal stick.
This limits measurement calls to only the egregerious cases, while still stopping blade benders from excessive hooking - it works well in every respect. Something similar could possibly be used in fencing for checking weapons during the bout, or for doping cases.
So, what can be incorporated from your other sports? Any nifty ideas in synchronized swimming that fencing could learn from?
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
Linear Mode
