Screaming Fencers

[Boo Boo]

Sorry, this discussion appears to have moved on from screaming, but did have something "funny" happen to me yesterday - so thought I would share...

Just scored the winning hit to make the last 4 of a major competition (our closest equivalent to your NAC Div 1 competitions), screamed with such animation (relief and joy) that my eyes opened very wide and one of my contact lenses came off of my iris and slid into the corner of my eye.

As I went round shaking hands (opponent, ref, coaches) and hugging my husband, I had to explain why I had one eye closed (people thought that I was injured)! Then dashed off to the restroom to relocate my lens so that I could see with both eyes again.

Thank goodness it happened at the END of the fight.

Boo

[Peach]

Congratulations on your finish!

Not to mention that you make me feel a little better about my own celebratory noises.

[haggis]

Boo boo

Women's foil, right? Did you win your fight in the last 4. Quite possibly, I think.

Regards

Haggis

[Boo Boo]

Nope I didn't win my last 4 fight: lost 15:13 (including two blindingly wrong decisions from the referee...). So Haggis is wrong ;-)

Still, a really great day: hope that I can repeat it again soon.

Shocking thing though: would you believe that 2 of my 5 poule fights and 4 of my 5 DEs were against left-handers? Lucky I had 3 left-handed lesson last week then...

Boo
(the contact lens popping fight was definitely worth a celebratory scream - I had gone out to my opponent in a big competition the previous week...)

[haggis]

Boo boo

My humble apologies. Haggis was indeed wrong.



Got the full results after I'd posted and I had hoped to edit my post before you read it. Still, in a thread about screaming fencers, your last four fight was surely fairly "vocal" as well. Your opponent isn't exactly know as someone who appears to have taken a vow of silence on the piste.

So why do women foilists make more noise than anyone else? In men's fencing, the sabreurs generally seem far noisier than the foilists or epeeists. Although sabreurs usually direct their screaming at the referee, women's foilists' screams and squeals seem to be far less targeted.

Regards

Haggis

P.S. Have PM'ed you

[Boo Boo]

Haggis, how on earth did you get the results? Did you compete this weekend? Do you know the results from today?

My L4 fight was pretty vocal. No she isn't the quietest on the piste... (but I can't complain ;-)). At one point my opponent complained that I was making her loose her hearing...

Some women foilists are very vocal: Patsy, Dom, Rachel, Hannah and me (ahem) to name a few. Some are quite vocal and others are completely quiet all of the time.

Don't know why some people make a lot more noise than others, but I can't think of many male foilists who do it a lot. Some of the male epeeists do (I remember John Chalmers used to make an awful lot of noise, don't know if he still does - don't get to see much epee competition). Don't know about women epeeists either. Women Sabreurs tend to squeal/shriek a lot.

Boo

[counter riposte]

As this was a thread about screaming , I guess I should clarify what I meant. This will also offer all of us a little definition as to what is acceptable/inappropriate on the piste.

celebration yell- A yell, usually occuring after only one light goes off, directed at whomever is around, roughly meaning "that's a great touch, I can't believe I actually did that"

scoring yell- A yell, usually directed at the referee in some incomprehensible language, roughly meaning "that's my touch, gimmee". Usually used for inexperienced directors whom can't tell a beat-attack to save thier lives. (Not including Cirus Rex)

Yell- A vigourous outcry expressive of any of the emotional conditions, but more specifically, joy.

Scream- A sudden, piercing animal like sound, indicating intense pain, anger or suprise. Usually reserved for breaking a leg or losing an arm.

Shriek- A loud, shrill outcry, high pitched and piercing in tone. Usually reserved for falling out of buildings/airplanes or off bridges.

For the record: My opponent shrieked (EVERY TOUCH!!!) to the point of truly annoying me, and I yelled back (a Celebration yell, of course. )

[achilleus]

Originally posted by counter riposte
As this was a thread about screaming , I guess I should clarify what I meant. This will also offer all of us a little definition as to what is acceptable/inappropriate on the piste.

celebration yell- A yell, usually occuring after only one light goes off, directed at whomever is around, roughly meaning "that's a great touch, I can't believe I actually did that"

scoring yell- A yell, usually directed at the referee in some incomprehensible language, roughly meaning "that's my touch, gimmee". Usually used for inexperienced directors whom can't tell a beat-attack to save thier lives. (Not including Cirus Rex)

Yell- A vigourous outcry expressive of any of the emotional conditions, but more specifically, joy.

Scream- A sudden, piercing animal like sound, indicating intense pain, anger or suprise. Usually reserved for breaking a leg or losing an arm.

Shriek- A loud, shrill outcry, high pitched and piercing in tone. Usually reserved for falling out of buildings/airplanes or off bridges.

For the record: My opponent shrieked (EVERY TOUCH!!!) to the point of truly annoying me, and I yelled back (a Celebration yell, of course. )

While for the sake of discussion, we can agree to those *ahem* biased definitions, in reality it's a moot point. What sounds like a shriek to you, that you reserve for falling to your death, can be a young girl's battle cry.

[Inquartata]

A friend emailed me this today. Those who believe that yelling is of some benefit in releasing steam/channeling energy/ or whatever, please note especially the very first tidbit....




Subject: Useless Info

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. (Hardly seems worth it.)

If you farted consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. (Now that's more like it!)

The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.

A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (In my next life, I want to be a pig.)

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy.) (I'm still not over the pig.)

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour. (Do not try this at home...... maybe at work.)

The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. ("Honey, I'm home. What the....?!")

The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field. (30 minutes... lucky pig... can you imagine??)

The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?)

Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still want to be a pig in my next life...quality over quantity)

Butterflies taste with their feet.

The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people. (If you're ambidextrous, do you split the difference?)

Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (OK, so that would be a good thing....)

A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder who was paid to figure that out?)

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)

Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that too.)

Polar bears are left-handed. (If they switch, they'll live a lot longer.)

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig??)

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by Inquartata
The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.

Not unless it is a human under a foot tall.... for a six foot tall man, slightly above average human (because the math is easier), it is equivalent to jumping the length of SEVEN football fields.

-m

[edew]

Not only were they useless, some aren't even true.

And what do they (besides the first, and only tangentially) have to do with screaming?

[Boo Boo]

The only time screaming (or really agressive yelling of most kinds) annoys me is in training.

I don't mean a delighted "Oh!" after a really good hit in training (a lot of us do that).

I mean you guys out there (it is always guys in training, SOME of them don't like the possibility of being beaten by a girl....) who are big and strong (ouch!), who fence foil with the same strength and force with which they fence epee (ouch, ouch!), who punch out attacks, but prefer to punch out counters into your attacks at rapidly closing distance (ouch, ouch, ouch!) and to top it all off they do every action with a Braveheart type war cry as they try to physically beat the living daylights out of you.... (this describes a fight I had in training last week....)

I can understand aggression in competitions (I can make a lot of noise myself), but I thought training was about trying new things and refining skills (rather than necessarily just winning and definitely not about trying to kill the other person).

Boo
(That thing about left and right handers isn't true? I thought that I had finally found an advantage over left-handed fencers... ;-))

[achilleus]

Originally posted by Boo Boo
The only time screaming (or really agressive yelling of most kinds) annoys me is in training.

I don't mean a delighted "Oh!" after a really good hit in training (a lot of us do that).


I can understand aggression in competitions (I can make a lot of noise myself), but I thought training was about trying new things and refining skills (rather than necessarily just winning and definitely not about trying to kill the other person).

Boo
(That thing about left and right handers isn't true? I thought that I had finally found an advantage over left-handed fencers... ;-))

I so agree with you completely. Screaming in practice defeats the purpose of practice, unless of course, you are practicing winning.

But I realize that while I look at practice to improve and train for competition, some people see it as fencing and not practice. The difference, they don't come with a practice mindset, the come to fence. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a very different mindset than what I am accustomed to.

Originally posted by Boo Boo

I mean you guys out there (it is always guys in training, SOME of them don't like the possibility of being beaten by a girl....) who are big and strong (ouch!), who fence foil with the same strength and force with which they fence epee (ouch, ouch!), who punch out attacks, but prefer to punch out counters into your attacks at rapidly closing distance (ouch, ouch, ouch!) and to top it all off they do every action with a Braveheart type war cry as they try to physically beat the living daylights out of you.... (this describes a fight I had in training last week....)

I've found that gender rarely matters in terms of intent, although, the big guy fencing the small girl causes issues. Really, it's a matter of the person's attitdue in general.

And as an epee fencer, I take offence at the implication that we hurt!

[Mo]

.

And as an epee fencer, I take offence at the implication that we hurt!I've found that gender rarely matters in terms of intent, although, the big guy fencing the small girl causes issues. Really, it's a matter of the person's attitdue in general.

The Air Force Cadets in Colorado Springs REALLY do not like to lose to small females. They beat the crap out of them even if they lose. It is almost shameful.... they are the future protectors of the country and they think nothing of pounding on young women. The epee was especially brutal. It was appalling...

[Boo Boo]

Sorry, did not intend to suggest that all epeeists hurt when they fence foil. The skilled epeeists (and I have fenced several at foil) do beautiful, reasonably light hits at foil: they are a pleasure to fence (really skillful, powerful, yet graceful and light-handed).

Its the unskilled epeeists that really hurt when they fence foil... (they seem to think that they need to hit through you and not on you...). The guy I was fencing was trying to poke holes through my collar bone :-(

Boo

[achilleus]

Originally posted by Boo Boo
Sorry, did not intend to suggest that all epeeists hurt when they fence foil. The skilled epeeists (and I have fenced several at foil) do beautiful, reasonably light hits at foil: they are a pleasure to fence (really skillful, powerful, yet graceful and light-handed).

Its the unskilled epeeists that really hurt when they fence foil... (they seem to think that they need to hit through you and not on you...). The guy I was fencing was trying to poke holes through my collar bone :-(

Boo

S'ok, I hit like a truck.




I understand you were venting about a particular bout.

Really, these problem people are competitive people who get frustrated at losing to someone whom they think they should easily beat. Large guys vs. small girl, nationally rated women vs. lowly ranked guy.

[Boo Boo]

Will be careful who I fence if I am ever in Greece then ;-)

Boo
(not the lightest of hitters herself sometimes...)

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by edew
Not only were they useless, some aren't even true.

And what do they (besides the first, and only tangentially) have to do with screaming?

Absolutely nothing...unless one has a sense of humor.

[achilleus]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by edew
Not only were they useless, some aren't even true.

And what do they (besides the first, and only tangentially) have to do with screaming?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Inquartata
Absolutely nothing...unless one has a sense of humor.

Aw, EDEW's just upset cause he's going to die 9 years earlier due to his mutant gene....

[JEC]

There is a reason why they are called "sinister".