new sabre rules

[Michaele]

What about the new 2000 stiffer blades? Fewer mal parres? And fewer wrist counter-attacks? Comments about the new gauntlet, mask and reel free fencing on the horizon?

[Cutter]

There aren't many sabre fencers here, I am one of the few. Regarding the new blades, they don't seem to have made much difference. Now everyone just hits harder to force the blade to bend. They are also too brittle. I went through 2 in one weekend tournament. Part of it maybe from the hard hits being dished out. The new manchette has made a big difference as I relied a lot on stop cuts to the hand. I have now had to change a bit and aim for higher up on the hand but it has only improved my techinique.

[flik]

I only dabble a bit in sabre... mostly I fence epee. In previous years I would annoy most of the sabre fencers I ran into with lots of counter attacks, mostly to the back of the hand. The loss of the overglove has forced me to change my tatics slightly and to develop my actual sabre fencing (instead of just using it as a strange epee). I'm not overly fond of the new blades - I think they just encourage fencers to hit harder in order to bend the blade - but have not run into too many yet. I actually have fewer mal parries now... getting hit by the new blades a few times really motivated me to fix my parries

[HilandDoug]

I used to be nothin' but a sabre fencer in '85 at Michigan State, when it was "dry", and you had four touch judges. You not only had to fence for the referee, but the judges as well, and proper form was a must. It was not uncommon to hit your opponent (or be hit) with the flat of the blade, a judge would raise his hand, and the ref would call a halt: "Attack from my right," he'd say, and the first judge would say "yes," the second would say "NO-FLAT", and the referee would agree with the second judge, admonishing the fencer to turn his edge to the target, since the rules say you must hit with the edge. And, God Forbid, if you made ANY contact with the opponent's bell guard, the answer was always a resounding,"NO!" How could it be a hit if it landed on the guard? The only accepted flat hit was the chest cut, so your blade would bend and not rip the opponent's jacket. Back in those days, we were lucky enough to have William "Bill" Goering in the Michigan Division, a great sabre fencer if ever there was one. At a meet one day at MSU, he said I had great form, and that day, I didn't lose a bout on his strip (the only time I've ever done that). Anyway, I'm getting off the subject I wanted to bring up: who is the final arbitor of the touch? The scoring box (which is blind as a bat and doesn't know good form from the free flow of electrons), or the referee? The first time I fenced electric sabre, I got my butt kicked, and every attack went "CLANG!!!!!" on my guard, only to have the blade whip over and set off the light. After the bout, I asked the referee, "Are you a scorekeeper, or a referee? A trained monkey can read the lights, YOU'RE supposed to interpret the action!" He said I should check my weapon to see if it's properly grounding, but at the time ('88), who knew? And he said I fenced well enough to win, but that maybe I should parry bigger to stop the whipover. I was just fencing for fun, and it wasn't any fun anymore. I haven't competed in a while because of a minor nagging injury, but I'm hoping these stiffer blades will help eliminate that problem. And if it does, can we fleche again? I spent a whole year flecheing at a practise dummy with a sabre in my hand, and whenever I pick one up, my subconcious mind says, "FLECHE!", and I have to stop myself. Likewise, the crossover. I know why these rules were instituted, but wasn't it essentially a coaching problem? Anyone want to start a petition to bring it back? Maybe we should start another string on this topic. Hmmmm, I think I will.....

Doug

[HilandDoug]

And one more thing: if we can hit with essentially ANY part of the blade, it's no longer a conventional sabre, but Luke Skywalker's LIGHTSABRE!!!! Am I right or am I right? Any referees wish to comment on this? I need to look at the rules again, and see if we're still supposed to hit with the edge....

[RF]

The issue with the fleche had nothing to do with coaching and everything to do with gaining right of way. People needed to gain right of way as quickly as possible and sabre turned into nothing more than two guys running at each other. Since the forward cross over was banned sabre has become much better to watch and I know I personlally htink it's a whole lot more interesting. It forces sabre fencers to use more parries, and a wider range of tactics, which is certainly not a bad thing. If it were only a coaching issue the fleche would never have been banned, because at the highest levels it would have been done correctly, instead the fleche became the only strategy, not just one in among others.

[HilandDoug]

If it were just a matter of establishing ROW faster than your opponent, why wasn't it abused in foil? Again, I must point to coaching. Fencers are essentially products of their coaches, and if a fencer's coach says "You need to fleche ASAP," then that's what they'd do. So if the fleche was the problem, why was the crossover banned? This is something I still don't understand. Since sabre and foil both use ROW, shouldn't sabre have been (as I remember it) a foil game that allowed you to use the edge, and hit arms and head? Re-reading this, I sound a little bitter. I guess I'm just pining for the old days. But I will agree that sabre has become more enjoyable to watch, as it was in the "dry" days. My club was lucky enough to host the Great Lakes Sectionals, and State Championships back to back, and we were treated to some excellent sabre fencing, as well as foil and epee. The college advertised that we were hosting these events, and we actually got quite a few spectators dropping in to watch, and they all said that the sabre was the more thrilling to watch.

So again I ask: who is the final arbitor of the touch? Can the referee say, "Sure, you made the light go on, but that's because you hit FLAT so hard into the parry, that you scored with a whipover, which also landed flat, so NO TOUCH." Wouldn't that improve the game as well? And don't the rules say that touches must be scored with the edge?

[Christopher J Umbs]

Doug,

You may want to check out http://www.martinez-destreza.com and the links from there.

Chris

[John]

Hil,
For what it's worth I have heard this argument from many other sabre fencers so your not alone. However, I have also heard of fencers dipping their electric weapons into "liquid-latex" then running a razor across the cutting edge as a solution to this problem. That way flat hits don't register on the scoring boxes. Has anyone else heard of this? Although I give the USFA kudos for trying, I think this would have been a better solution to remove the whip (rather than making the weapon heavier which just leads to harder hits) Just my opinion of course...

[edew]

With regards to why the fleche is not banned in foil as with sabre, it's because it's virtually impossible to make a fleche from the on guard line against an opponent also standing on the on guard line and hit in foil whereas it's quite possible and common to do so in sabre.

Why? Because the hand, arm, and head are all targets in sabre. In foil, just the torso. Also, if you miss the thrust in foil, you're screwed, while in sabre, it's quite hard to miss a swipe.

Lastly, it's fairly easy to make a parry in foil, but much more difficult in sabre. At the Div II sabre at Austin, I think I was the only person to make most of my hits scored by a deliberate parry-riposte. Most Div II sabre fencers use the distance parry-riposte. At the higher-ups, there is more incidence of parry riposte. But I can't recall ever seeing a counterparry-riposte to a parry-riposte during the whole week I was there. Perhaps with the stiffer blade, the chances of a lucky whipover will diminish and counterparry ripostes may soon rise again.

[HilandDoug]

Well, Chris, that Martinez-Destreza site was a real distraction today while I was at work. I hopped to the Robert McPhearson site, and distracted a few of the brokers here. I wish I lived closer to New York so I could visit your club. It's something I'm definately interested in. And the page about the Wine Festival Tournament (using McPhearson's weapons with Triplette Double-Wide epee blades)made me wish I had heard of it earlier. I'd have definately road tripped to NY for that one!

Edew, I like to use the fleche in foil. And you should have seen the sabre finals at the Great Lakes Sectional Championships! There were not only counter parry-ripostes, but counter-counter ripostes, and more. Many times the phrases went 5 or 6 actions. As I mentioned before, many spectators who had never seen fencing before were quite impressed, as well as those of us who do fence. The coaches from Renaissance Fencing Club were in the finals, Matt Dosmann and Tod Dressel (sp?), and those guys are 2 of the best sabremen in Michigan. In fact, Matt placed 11th in Div 1A sabre in Austin , TX. Congrats, Matt! Wish I could have seen it.

[This message has been edited by HilandDoug (edited 07-14-2000).]

[Cutter]

Counter-parry reposte and counter-counter-parry reposte is one of my favorite moves. There is nothing more exilerating than picking up that parry and and second parry and then catching that touch.

[HilandDoug]

Well, a cursory glance at the rules DOES say that touches can be scored with the "edge, flat, or back edge" of the blade. Guess I gotta keep up with the rules, and adjust my game accordingly.

Still workin' on those flat whipovers....