I'm not convinced by the opening post, mostly for the reasons mentioned by Inq, but I do find the followup post "What about saving foil?" is right on the button ("button" - a fencing pun opportunity). I've seen so many fencers, coaches, and refs who believe that an attack can be correctly made without extending the arm (note, I do not say "extended") and without directing the point roughly in the direction of the opponent, and that priority is retained even if the arm is pulled back completely. It's not as bad as it was some years ago, but it still persists, and now there's opinions all over the map. For a while, I dropped foil and fenced epee specifically because I couldn't stand all the refereeing based exclusively on whose legs moved forwards first.
And now, the lockout timing can prevent correctly executed ripostes from registering. Well, maybe that would lead back to the Very Old School way of making riposte with opposition.
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"In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, theory and practice are different."
1. The situation in saber is serious, says Maestro Coltorti. But obviously what the hell does he know compared with the common wisdom of most members of this forum?
Shall I point out the fallacy or shall I wait for Inq to come along?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pieter
Er, no. When you watch modern fencing, foilist and sabreurs can go as far as to entirely ignore an opponents blade. Epeeists are far less like to do that.
To quote telk: lol, wut?
Epee is about hitting before you hit the other guy. Are you honestly telling me you'd fence a duel the same way you fence now (the question which was posed to saber/foil fencers) as an epee fencer?
See, I tend to care if I'm going to get stabbed, regardless of if I stabbed the other guy a half second before. But I suppose you're braver than I!
Quote:
Epee is the closest... Again, less galavanting about.
Biased much?
None is "closer" to the other because they all have different roots! Or are you seriously suggesting epee fencing is the best representative of military saber duels?
They are each a different animal, and none remotely close to combat. If you'd like to test that theory and go fence with live steel using your basic current fencing style, then knock yourself out. I just don't think MY insurance will cover that.
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"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it."
Last edited by I_luv_saber; 06-29-2009 at 06:54 AM..
And imagine the outcry for transparency if the answer to a request for a publicly-mentioned report was "Sorry, this is too important and essential to the future of our sport to distribute generally."
-B
I personally agree with you on this and at least two others on the Schermaonline discussion forum concur with you, one being the OP and starter of the thread. Not everybody understands the need for transparency and openness...
Just an observation: The Mediterranean Gameshttp://www.pescara2009.it/index.php?lang=en are important regional games involving 28 sports and 23 countries. Not all sports are at world level, but fencing, with France, Italy, and Spain is of a rather high caliber. If a trend can be discerned in these games (the reason for the OP) it is something worth considering and debating.
Also, because these games involve many sports, the selection process of which athletes and for which sport to send to these games is in the hands of the national Olympic committee (for Italy this is CONI). Since CONI does foot a large (60%) portion of the FIS budget, any problem concerning one or more weapons (in this case lack of participation) can have serious consequences for the FIS. It is in their interest to be proactive rather than reactive to current or future problems.
As someone struggling to comprehend the absurd rules of Foil, and the need for increasingly-complex but basically stone-age wired electronic equipment, I'm not at all surprised that the simplicity of epee is becoming more popular.
However, I don't personally want to get poked hard in a lot of the target areas permitted in epee, so I'll be sticking with foil for the foreseeable...
this is a simple situation: foil and sabre are much harder than epee. It's easy to get results of winning with just poking people who are trying to poke you. I happen to like foil, get a much better workout with it, and others agree with me. People are just lazy. There are enough of us to suit me.
this is a simple situation: foil and sabre are much harder than epee. It's easy to get results of winning with just poking people who are trying to poke you. I happen to like foil, get a much better workout with it, and others agree with me. People are just lazy. There are enough of us to suit me.
This opinion and others expressing more or less categorically the "superiority" (intellectual or otherwise) of one weapon with respect to another is something I wanted to test with real experts in the art of fencing. I posted it on Schermaonline asking for opinions.
Maestro Giancarlo Toran replied as follows:
There is no easier or harder weapon. Difficulty is always proportional to the obstacle in front of you.
Epee is more difficult statistically (just check the figures below).
However, it is the easiest to learn because of the simplicity of its rules.
But it is the most difficult to master because of the complexity of its technique.
And it is the easiest because an epeeist with a good tempo and a good sense of measure can go quite far just by mastering few actions.
However, it is the most difficult as it is proven by the unpredictability of the results of epee bouts which is higher than those of the other weapons.
But it is the easiest because it requires a lesser physical commitment, however, who is stopping us from committing more? Cleverness and experience allow us to get more by spending less...but only up to a certain point.
In other words, if we want to play with words, there is no limit in the number of opinions. Facts however, are something else and they lead us to numbers. The numbers of who is fencing what speak for themselves.
The poster may prefer foil and think, if he likes, that those who do not agree with him are lazy. Others could prefer, using the same logic, epee and think that he does not understand this weapon.
One thing is true though. The fencing time in epee is precisely defined: between 40 and 50 ms. If the light comes on, you get the point.
In foil and saber the "fencing time" is not defined and cannot be defined and the referee and the system supporting him have the power to decide who is right and who is wrong if both lights come on. The attempt to diminish the double touch time in these two weapons demonstrates how imperfect we consider the human judgement.
I must admit though, in defense of foil and saber referees, that it is difficult to walk on the quicksands of rules--which are not very consistent--without sinking.
These are the Italian statistics of the senior (Div I) ranked fencers:
ME 1,541
WE 795
MF 453
WF 247
MS 396
WS 190
Only the top 40 or so in each weapon can compete in the senior national championships. Obviously, if an Italian fencer wants to compete at the senior national championship it is "easier" if he fences saber and foil rather than epee.
Numbers for the other age categories (veterans, junior+cadet, Under 14) in Italy reflect a similar pattern.
[*]Epee is more difficult statistically (just check the figures below).
You need to take a statistics course
If there are just a lot of really crap epeeists out there an equal degree of effort may give a higher probability of reaching the top 40 (compared to the other weapons).
The question you may want to ask is how much effort is required to move your position in the distribution. What matters is the skew of the ability distribution and that is unlikely to be the same for each weapon.
If you could show us membership statistics for the various weapons before the foil and saber timings changed, we could make a comparison. Without those, you can't imply that the new rules had any actual effect.
__________________ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WON'T YOU BUY MY TACTICAL WHEEL!!!????
If you could show us membership statistics for the various weapons before the foil and saber timings changed, we could make a comparison. Without those, you can't imply that the new rules had any actual effect.
I believe that the original complaint about the low number of foil and saber fencers in Italy did not refer exclusively to the changes since the new timings, but as a general trend over the years, several years. I don't think the implication is that ONLY the new rules are responsible, rather the general problem of rules which are inconsistent and were set about 100 years ago, while fencing has evolved and changed.
Think for a moment: Italy is known for being very strong in foil, historically. They have had and continue to have the best foil coaches and the top foil athletes (women and men). On the other hand in ME Italy got an Olympic gold in Beijing for the first time since Rome 1960. Foil is popular in Italy and it is successful, but for some reason it loses "customers." I assume that saber is something similar even though in saber Italy is not nearly in the same position as foil.
What the OP posted (I have no opinion one way or another but as a spectator who understands epee and does not understand foil or saber--and I'm not the only one!) is that the numbers for foil and saber decline while those for epee increase and he's concerned about it and asks around for possible explanations/reasons or what should be done to reverse the declining trend. Other people--I dare say with some knowledge--have posted their ideas of why it is so. You may disagree or may think that this is only an Italian phenomenon, but I suspect that the problem is general and this is why I posted the thread and subsequent discussions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by keith
You need to take a statistics course
If there are just a lot of really crap epeeists out there an equal degree of effort may give a higher probability of reaching the top 40 (compared to the other weapons).
The question you may want to ask is how much effort is required to move your position in the distribution. What matters is the skew of the ability distribution and that is unlikely to be the same for each weapon.
Believe me, I am quite familiar with statistics. However, if you can't see that generally speaking with the data provided, it is much harder for any epee fencer in Italy to make inside the top 40 and compete in the national senior championship (compared with the other weapons), then there is not much more I can add. Fencing is quite popular in Italy, it has a long and great tradition, is the most successful Olympic sport than any other sport by several multiples (in terms of medals earned). Ditto for world championships. You may safely assume that the top 40 epeeists there aren't that crappy...
And as foil and saber, they aren't that primitive either. Yet they lose customers and this worries them.
Here is the link to the most recent ranking of all (Div I) Italian fencers
Believe me, I am quite familiar with statistics. However, if you can't see that generally speaking with the data provided, it is much harder for any epee fencer in Italy to make inside the top 40 and compete in the national senior championship (compared with the other weapons), then there is not much more I can add. Fencing is quite popular in Italy, it has a long and great tradition, is the most successful Olympic sport than any other sport by several multiples (in terms of medals earned). Ditto for world championships. You may safely assume that the top 40 epeeists there aren't that crappy...
In any country, I would guess that most of the recreational fencers are epeeists. They may be "ranked", but they are still recreational.
I would wager that in Italy it would be harder to make the top 40 in foil than in epee, regardless of the total number of fencers in each weapon.
__________________ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WON'T YOU BUY MY TACTICAL WHEEL!!!????
Believe me, I am quite familiar with statistics. However, if you can't see that generally speaking with the data provided, it is much harder for any epee fencer in Italy to make inside the top 40 and compete in the national senior championship (compared with the other weapons), then there is not much more I can add. Fencing is quite popular in Italy, it has a long and great tradition, is the most successful Olympic sport than any other sport by several multiples (in terms of medals earned). Ditto for world championships. You may safely assume that the top 40 epeeists there aren't that crappy...
And as foil and saber, they aren't that primitive either. Yet they lose customers and this worries them.
Here is the link to the most recent ranking of all (Div I) Italian fencers
Ugh. Are you really serious Gladius? It's fine to state that you have opinion X but can you stop with the spurious statistical claims? It's an opinion. Even a legitimate opinion that you may believe but it's not a scientific fact of any sort.
If I said that, in Italy, to qualify for the equivalent of division 1 national championships in ME you must fight to the top of a field in which 43 of the 1541 athletes listed on the national rankings ( thats ~ 2.8%) are all listed on the FIE rank list whereas in MF ~7.3% of your field would have FIE pts would that change your feelings about the topic? What if we just note that of the top 40 in each weapon in ME only 10 of the fencers are also within the top 200 in the world whereas in MF 16 (17 if you count the last fencer, also with 8 pts whose rank is 201) fencers are ranked within the top 200 in the world. The even make the round of 16 at Italian nationals in foil you probably have to beat a world class competitor?
Perhaps foil is just a stronger weapon and the majority of people flock to the weapon where success is easier?
More than the sheer # of athletes should be considered. Otherwise we can all start talking about how anyone can see that it's more difficult to qualify for Dv3 nationals here than it is to qualify for Div1 (b/c I'm sure that if we compare the # of people that could fence each event according to rating with the actual # qualified Dv3 probably wins)...
__________________ I now dangle to the left....my tassle. Get your minds out of the gutter.
"Martin was not an optimist; he was a prisoner of hope." Optimism is about assuming there's evidence that justifies your outlook while hope is about creating the evidence and procuring your own happiness or vision of the world. - Professor West
It might be useful in thinking about the increasing relative popularity of epee to consider who actually decides what weapon a new fencer will fence. The coach? Ok, the coach teaches what he wants to teach, but if he has a choice epee equipment is cheaper and easier to maintain than foil or saber. The parents? Even if the parents know what a foil and an epee is, the attitude around youth foil and saber is pretty corrosive in a way that simply can't happen in epee. There's institutionalized whining, complaining, crying, hissy fits and insults about who got what call, why, etc. At a Y12 competition recently I saw a coach telling a kid who just lost, "The referee didn't see it, he's an idiot, you were doing the right thing,...". Really? This is what you tell an 11 year old kid, that he got robbed? This is a good sport to bring a kid into? Kids lose and are baffled as to why they lost, they think they had an attack again and again but never got the call, for whatever reason. There's the constant suspicion of collusion, and then too there's actual cheating, even at a high level. Especially at a high level. You can't tell a parent that the ref is certainly going to call a fair game after what happened to the Chinese foil team a few years ago against France, can you? Parents in the US, for example, understand perfectly well subjectivity in athletics, any dad will follow you if you tell him that right of way is like the strike zone, it moves a bit but it's there. The problem is, that's not really true. Foil refereeing certainly seems to be a lot more variable and even corrupt than baseball is on any level. So? You're the coach, what do you do?
Suppose for a moment that you're in the middle of nowhere, in Texas or Norway or Egypt or the wilds of Scotland. There's no fencing club close to you, but you can go compete at a pretty good level if you're willing to drive an hour or two. You've been a fencer for 20 years. You were a rated foil fencer once, and then a rated epee fencer. You weren't a World Cup fencer, but you were a "B", you have some grasp of the game. You have a day job, but you're drawn to starting a club, for poorly thought out and nebulous reasons. It's a good idea, too. You put up an ad at the rec center and twenty 12 year old kids show up, and some of them can actually run around the gym twice, and two or three of them are athletes. You teach a class on footwork, do some quickness drills, and go home happy with your first day.
You have to order equipment, the little buggers what to hit each other. What do you order? The parents don't know or care, they wouldn't know a foil from an epee from a car antenna. The kids are all eager to get a stick and hit someone. They'll fence what you tell them to fence, it's up to you. What do you order? Foil stuff, lame trouble, dinky little freakin' tips, random off target lights, twice the expense at least and for the first year you have to referee all the bouts because the kids don't see the action yet? Whining and complaining at competitions, watching your nice kids learn to scream for effect and act like they got actions they know they didn't get? Watching a kid you've coached for years get robbed of her touches at a NAC or Summer Nationals that was supposed to be the highlight of her year? Oy, please. You buy some epees, it's a great game, and it has none of the corrosive effects of the right of way weapons. It's not simpler than foil any more than Go is simpler than chess; the *rules* are simpler, not the game.
So that's what you do. That's what lots of clubs do, and some countries even, for similar reasons. Foil and saber make sense if you're an established foil or saber coach, if all those maybe calls go your way because of who you are, if you're in a foil or saber city, if you're already part of the "club" of foil or saber. Otherwise, you fence epee. It's far easier to break into epee than it is into foil or saber. And there are a lot more people not in the foil-or-saber "club" than there are in it; increasingly, I think, they will go to epee rather than a conventional weapon.
So will foil or saber die? No, of course not. But the number disparity will get bigger, I think.
Ugh. Are you really serious Gladius? It's fine to state that you have opinion X but can you stop with the spurious statistical claims? It's an opinion. Even a legitimate opinion that you may believe but it's not a scientific fact of any sort.
...
I really don't even know what you are referring to nor what opinion you believe I have since in general I just report what others said with some additional "cultural" explanations. You may agree or disagree with them and if you write something interesting I'll pass it along for their comments. But as far as I am concerned you don't even understand what the topic proposed was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by K O'N
...
So will foil or saber die? No, of course not. But the number disparity will get bigger, I think.
K O'N
This is it! You got it...
Keep in mind that the initial cri de coeur comes from saber and foil coaches and club managers in Italy who see the number of foil and saber fencers declining while those of epee fencers are rising. Most of these clubs are one or two weapon clubs and if their choice happens to be foil and saber, they are going through tough times or so they say.
I found particularly interesting the comment by Maestro Alberto Coltorti, considered as one of the best saber specialists in Italy, who wrote, "If I were today to start my career as fencing coach (Maestro di scherma) I would dedicate myself to a weapon different from saber. We are disconcerted by the current refereeing. Nobody understands anything any more, athletes, referees, coaches, and we've reached a point where when you teach you might as well drop the conventions and the canons which until few years ago were inescapable."
While Maestro Coltorti may not have the profound expertise in statistical analysis which apparently some in this forum have, and his knowledge of saber may not be universal (by the same comparison), others with an open mind, may be curious to find more[*].
Even here in the US of A, people make business decisions based on some simple numbers: you continue with what works (in terms of public response) and drop what does not.
In Europe in general and Italy in particular they believe in a system whereby when something does not work, you go to the authority/federation/government and ask THEM (federation/NOC) what they are going to do--or tell THEM what they should do--to keep your foil and saber programs alive...
All I did with this thread was to share this info, not to express my personal opinion, just as I do on the other side (on Schermaonline) in posting interesting comments made here.
Don't blame the messenger, as it were...
[*] We may be able to find out more since Maestro Coltorti, exhorted by the OP and oiuyt and yours truly, has promised to share his thoughts and suggestions about this problem with a larger audience. As soon as he does, you'll find out.
I found particularly interesting the comment by Maestro Alberto Coltorti, considered as one of the best saber specialists in Italy, who wrote, " [...] We are disconcerted by the current refereeing. Nobody understands anything any more, athletes, referees, coaches, and we've reached a point where when you teach you might as well drop the conventions and the canons which until few years ago were inescapable."
I think Coltorti may be exaggerating the situation. However, during the last 3 or 4 years, sabre refereeing has changed quite a bit. This has created a lot of confusion. As one might expect, the US referee corps is lagging behind the international referees in becoming unified in their calls--though, while the situation is better than it was a couple years ago, it's still not ideal and, as far as I can see, there is still far less consistency (even internationally) than there was, say, 5 years ago.
I suspect things will smooth out, but it is certainly in the interest of the sport to create refereeing consistency. If the ROW we teach our athletes to fence under in 4 years is different than what we're teaching today, there is a problem.
Obviously, the FIE needs to refrain from Roch-esque interloping, but it should also decide on definitive rule interpretations and stick with them.
FWIW, I'm pretty much a nobody when it comes to sabre refereeing, and I could follow the vast majority of the calls at the World Cup in Dallas perfectly fine. To the point that I'd have been comfortable refereeing a practice bout* if I got to stand in the aisle. I could even tell which referees were doing better than others.
TheLuz claims that some weapons are easier or harder than others (to fence). Maestro Toran gave some interesting comments on this subject.
Another claim, this one I dare say even more widespread, is that refereeing epee is much easier and less controversial (i.e., susceptible to interpretation/manipulation by a referee) than foil and saber. Once more Maestro Toran provides interesting insights.
Maestro Giancarlo Toran about epee refereeing
In epee also there are several instances where a referee can influence at his discretion the course of a bout. This can happen because of incompetence, superficiality/lack of attention, or just because he wants to do it.
A while ago I was asked to talk about this at our formation seminars and courses for referees. I did not make a complete analysis of all possible instances but I considered the more frequent situations where an epee referee could, if he so wanted, alter the outcome of an epee bout. Refereeing epee is not as easy as it seems.
Weight and shim. You can always get a wrong reading with the weight because of the very bad habit by many who do not keep the blade vertical. By leaning the blade off the vertical, the weight the spring can tolerate can increase substantially. Other situations which can create problems are the incorrect way to use the shim in checking the gap, not going through the checklist (socks to the knee, proper equipment, spare weapons at the end of the strip) which can determine yellow or red cards at the referee's discretion. This is particularly important in a weapon where the initial advantage can be determinant, because of the double touch.
Remises. Many epee hits are remises after the first action did not finish with a valid touch or was parried and the remise becomes the most effective resource. Remises, most of the time, are executed at a close measure when the referee can call halt, often prematurely, and the scoring apparatus does not block the signal as is the case when time has run out. In these cases, which are quite frequent, the referee can validate or annul the touch at his discretion.
Strip width. Other situations happen more frequently because of the reduction in the width of the strip: those related to the lateral exit from the strip, even with only one foot, which according to the rules is penalized by going back one meter. If this happens toward the end of the strip, the exact determination of the exit point which is left to the referee to decide, can determine the assignment of the touch (or not) for having run out of the strip when getting to the en garde position. Furthermore it is possible to confirm or annul a touch of the fencer going out of the strip by determining, at the referee's discretion, that the touch hit before or after the exit from the strip. In the case of the double touch, it is possible to assign the touch to only one fencer, the one who is still on the strip.
Testing the weapon. After a contested touch the testing of the weapon is liable to many errors or fickleness. Let's not even talk about those done in bad faith which unfortunaltely are always possible. One may not do the necessary controls or do them superficially: if the bell gard plug is actually plugged, if there is the latch, if the bell gard of the fencer who was hit is dirty in some parts...
Floor touches. Other situations which happen often are protests and referee's decisions concerning floor touches outside the metal strip. On narrow strips it is not easy to see if you referee close to the strip whether a touch to the foot close to the edge of the strip hit the foot or outside the strip. A referee, if so inclined, can say that he saw the foot touch or hitting the floor outside the strip, therefore validating or annulling a touch at his sole discretion. It is also possible--though not so easy--to alter the result when the touch is in the middle of the strip which has spots where the insulation is defective. If you look carefully you can always find a spot which is not insulated...
Technology limitations. Lastly, and less frequent, there are situations which require a technological knowhow not every referee has, or even some armorers, for problems connected with the functioning or malfunctioning of the scoring apparatus and the established tolerances. For example, in case of profuse sweating, the scoring machine may not register a touch on the valid target but only when the fencers grips the weapon very tight.
Morale of the story: be always nice to your referee
Foil and saber make sense if you're an established foil or saber coach, if all those maybe calls go your way because of who you are, if you're in a foil or saber city, if you're already part of the "club" of foil or saber. Otherwise, you fence epee. It's far easier to break into epee than it is into foil or saber.
*snort* Kevin, speaking from personal experience, its not quite as difficult to get established as you are making it out to seem.
Oh, and as far as ongoing maintenance costs? Sabre is far less, even when you factor in the costs of the lame.
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"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado." - Emiliano Zapata
I really don't even know what you are referring to nor what opinion you believe I have since in general I just report what others said with some additional "cultural" explanations. You may agree or disagree with them and if you write something interesting I'll pass it along for their comments. But as far as I am concerned you don't even understand what the topic proposed was.
He doesn't have to understand the topic, he's just pointing out shortcomings in your statistical analysis., i.e. more fencers doesn't necessarily make it harder.
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