New Compilation Video: Point in Line

[CyrusofChaos]

its almost saturday again which means i am done with my newest compilation video. this one focuses on point in line but since i didnt have enough footage of any one fencer to create a specific video, this video uses lines and set ups from everyone i saw using them in the olympics. since it uses examples from about seven fencers it is a little longer than usual... here it is. enjoy

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1GcuXghOHE[/YOUTUBE]

[oiuyt]

Another nice job.

The length of text time is better here.

A bit harder to see exactly what the examples are showing, but that's likely an artifact of having to hop around through a bunch of different fencers and just the overall infrequency meaning you had fewer examples from which to select.

That you could only find a single example of a successful parry riposte set up by a line is interesting. And perhaps an indication that we collectively try to use it more often than we should. How many examples of such attempts did you find that were unsuccessful (unsuccessful parry or the remise locked out the riposte, or some other failure state)?

-B

[CyrusofChaos]

That you could only find a single example of a successful parry riposte set up by a line is interesting. And perhaps an indication that we collectively try to use it more often than we should. How many examples of such attempts did you find that were unsuccessful (unsuccessful parry or the remise locked out the riposte, or some other failure state)?

geeze i dont know. when i go through i write down the times of things that i think would be good for the video so i can go back and crop them all at the same time. when i saw unsuccessful ones i didnt write them down for the most part because the video looked like it would already be pretty long. let me just say that the ratio of successful parries to unsuccessful ones after line was quite low...

[Superscribe]

I like how easy it is to have line now. You can move forward, you can move back. You can do this weird bent arm thing.

Huge arguements have been had about how line is established in the rules, and how it's actually called.

There were some analysis that made this quite useful for foil as well.

[Purple Fencer]

Have the rules on PIL changed? I saw a lot of very bent arms (some of these weren't even remotely close to being a straight line fro the shoulder to the tip), disengages around a non-existent attempt to parry, and establishments of line (or attempts to) well inside advance-lunge distance...all of which did not establish or lost PIL when I was competing.

I would NOT have given Jason that first touch, for example, since he disengaged around nothing.

'Course, with no blade sound, it's hard to tell if there were parries there...but I have major issues with how PIL was called in a lot of these shots.

Props to using Rush for the first music chart, tho!

[CyrusofChaos]

Have the rules on PIL changed? I saw a lot of very bent arms (some of these weren't even remotely close to being a straight line fro the shoulder to the tip), disengages around a non-existent attempt to parry, and establishments of line (or attempts to) well inside advance-lunge distance...all of which did not establish or lost PIL when I was competing.

I would NOT have given Jason that first touch, for example, since he disengaged around nothing.

'Course, with no blade sound, it's hard to tell if there were parries there...but I have major issues with how PIL was called in a lot of these shots.

they have become very lenient with the way line is called. for example a lopez line where the arm is bent in a V-shape will definitely be called line if the opponent runs into it and a verbrakel line which is about as high as his stomach will also be called line. they are pretty lenient on disengages too and establishing a line these days is more tempo-based than distance-based. for example if you establish when they are right in front of you but they do anything for about two tempos it is a line

i tried to lump all of the non-beat lines in the beginning and then for the most part the lines were beat. it is very hard to edit it so that the video has music and beat sounds so i didnt try

[Purple Fencer]

they have become very lenient with the way line is called. for example a lopez line where the arm is bent in a V-shape will definitely be called line if the opponent runs into it and a verbrakel line which is about as high as his stomach will also be called line. they are pretty lenient on disengages too and establishing a line these days is more tempo-based than distance-based.

What's the point of defining a line, then, if you're not going to follow the rule??

[edew]

I have no problems with the "tempo" defining the line. That is, you can start to establish a line even when the opponent is advance on you and is very close to you. But, as long as you keep retreating and the opponent has to take more than a few steps (depending on when you finally establish the line), then it's a line.

What I don't like were the sweeping straight arms. If the point of the blade bobs up and down, that's, well, no big deal, you still have a line. But when the whole arm from the shoulder is bobbing up and down, making circular actions, it's not a line.

Then there's the bent at the wrist line so that the arm looks like a very shallow tierce. With the arm circling and bobbing, it's not clear whether the fencer is putting out a line or attempting a parry. As a fencer, I might still beat that blade, since the timing is so short that I could get locked out even if I make a straight attack against this fictitious line.

[erooMynohtnA]

Note the people complaining are foilists. I think lines are called more stringently in foil due to the fact that it's a point weapon.

Reasoning: In saber it's very clear when you're attempting a line, so they allow a little more slop than in foil where a line is relatively close to normal arm position.

[catwood1]

Idk. I'm both a foilist and a sabreur. I was pretty confused at the way things were getting called. It seemed like fencers were able to disengage, change lines, and make false counter attacks, ALL WHILE MAINTAINING THEIR LINE!

I mean, if thats how its supposed to be called, then... ok... never knew that one though.

[Purple Fencer]

Note the people complaining are foilists. I think lines are called more stringently in foil due to the fact that it's a point weapon.

Reasoning: In saber it's very clear when you're attempting a line, so they allow a little more slop than in foil where a line is relatively close to normal arm position.

I'm primarily a sabre guy these days...and I've always used PIL...a line is a line is a line...the requirements for establishing and maintaining it should be the same for both weapons. There's no reason to enforce it for foil (if they are...Cyrus might consider doing this same treatment for foil as a comparison) and allow sloppy ones in sabre.

[CyrusofChaos]

I'm primarily a sabre guy these days...and I've always used PIL...a line is a line is a line...the requirements for establishing and maintaining it should be the same for both weapons. There's no reason to enforce it for foil (if they are...Cyrus might consider doing this same treatment for foil as a comparison) and allow sloppy ones in sabre.

i dont have anywhere near the amount of watching experience or video for foil that i do for sabre: i have watched all of the bouts i have at least 10 times each so i basically already know where everything is when i go to get footage for these sabre videos. a foil line video would take me a very long time...

[kapunga]

I found the music for the first 5 minutes or so very distracting.... because it rocked so hard!!!! (I love Rush). All kidding aside, this was a very interesting video. I can't wait to try out point in line some more the next time I fence sabre. (I'm an epee fencer) Hopefully it will be as effective as the Lopez Counterattack video. I fenced a sabre tournament for the heck of it after watching that video and must have hit 30-40 one light counterattacks (plus a dozen or so stop cuts) between my ten pool bouts and two DE bouts.

[Beloit Fencer of Old]

I found the music for the first 5 minutes or so very distracting.... because it rocked so hard!!!! (I love Rush). All kidding aside, this was a very interesting video. I can't wait to try out point in line some more the next time I fence sabre. (I'm an epee fencer) Hopefully it will be as effective as the Lopez Counterattack video. I fenced a sabre tournament for the heck of it after watching that video and must have hit 30-40 one light counterattacks (plus a dozen or so stop cuts) between my ten pool bouts and two DE bouts.

You mean you don't use PIL in Epee?

[Mihail]

Have the rules on PIL changed? I saw a lot of very bent arms (some of these weren't even remotely close to being a straight line fro the shoulder to the tip), disengages around a non-existent attempt to parry, and establishments of line (or attempts to) well inside advance-lunge distance...all of which did not establish or lost PIL when I was competing.

I would NOT have given Jason that first touch, for example, since he disengaged around nothing.

Yeah, I'm going to echo Andrew: PiL in sabre is called very loosely. Referees allow you to disengage even when there's no search. Some refs and fencers even claim that the rules state you can disengage all you want as long as the projection of your blade doesn't leave the target area. There's no such provision in the rules, but stating that to the referee doesn't seem to help ):

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Yeah, I'm going to echo Andrew: PiL in sabre is called very loosely. Referees allow you to disengage even when there's no search. Some refs and fencers even claim that the rules state you can disengage all you want as long as the projection of your blade doesn't leave the target area. There's no such provision in the rules, but stating that to the referee doesn't seem to help ):

I would also say that a lot of those set ups weren't point in line, but weren't necessarily meant to be. Many of them worked just by keeping your blade out and in your opponent's face. It appears in many of the actions shown (except those actually ending with a touch scored on a PiL call) that the action worked successfully just because the blade was out regardless of if it was a line or not.

[whtouche]

Agreed with kshan - when actions are set up off "point in line" you could argue that having yourself in a position to manipulate the blade into the planned position is more important that strictly maintaining an actual line. Especially since doing so would make it more difficult to, for example, parry or land a stopcut.

To Misho, it's funny you say that, because as a referee I find that alot more fencers (of pretty high-level sometimes) have the problems understanding point in line as you mentioned it. I can barely count the number of times a fairly high level fencer (up to members of world championship teams) have tried to tell me that you can disengage with PiL even without your opponent searching, "as long as the point doesn't leave target area".

Line's always been one of those weird things that, in the rules is really fairly straight forward, but so much misinformation has been accepted as fact that it's ingrained in people's consciousness. Like the idea that sacrifice bunts and stolen bases equate good strategy in baseball.

[chase]

good video

[Inquartata]

I can barely count the number of times a fairly high level fencer (up to members of world championship teams) have tried to tell me that you can disengage with PiL even without your opponent searching, "as long as the point doesn't leave target area".

Line's always been one of those weird things that, in the rules is really fairly straight forward, but so much misinformation has been accepted as fact that it's ingrained in people's consciousness. Like the idea that sacrifice bunts and stolen bases equate good strategy in baseball.

Preach it, bruddah.

Frankly I'd like to see that "as long as it's always pointed at valid target" become standard, but it would mean that PIL would have a LOT of power. More than it already does, that is.

[erooMynohtnA]

Frankly I'd like to see that "as long as it's always pointed at valid target" become standard, but it would mean that PIL would have a LOT of power. More than it already does, that is.

Why? Because it's more objective, or something else?