Sabre participation

[sabreur]

Hi folks,

I was going to weigh into the thread about people fencing more than one weapon with my usual cant about the need to focus on one weapon, but I thought there is a more serious question at the core. Which is:

Why does sabre have so many problems attracting enough fencers?

Sabre is a weapon with joys all its own, which I think are very different from the epee and foil. Why don't more people give in to the dark side and focus on it?

I admit that I'm a bit biased--I started with sabre and have basically never fenced anything else--I've held an electric epee exactly once in anger, as a lark, and have never fenced foil, even in training.

My feeling is that bad sabre is really bad, and probably off-putting to people. It only takes one bout with a meat-hand to take a lot of fun out of an evening of fencing. But there are things that you can do to create a climate that doesn't allow hammer-handedness--like making the
folks who hit too hard sit down. I'm pretty much an enforcer of this in my own club--although generally I rely on gentle verbal reminders, rather than forcing people out of the round and telling them to go practice finger cuts on a dummy or their mask for five minutes.

And my one experience with epee left me with deep bruises that took a lot longer to heal than your standard sabre welts.

The niceties of sabre are hard to learn--bad sabre can quickly become interminable sequences of brutal double hits. On the other hand, good sabre, with good tempo, tactics and strategy, and lightness and speed of hand and feet is a joy.

I guess that this is fundamentally a plea to teach sabre correctly and not let bad habits perpetuate themselves--that I think is the fundamental reason why we have so few sabre fencers. (And one solution is to have sabre only clubs, quite frankly).

Cheers, MR

[Catal]

> Why does sabre have so many problems attracting enough
> fencers?

The first thing that turned me off was ROW. The second, and most significant issue I had with sabre was that there were so many simultaneous touches resulting from only one or two types of attacks, mostly to the head.


> Sabre is a weapon with joys all its own, which I think are very
> different from the epee and foil.

Yes, they are quite unique.


> Why don't more people give in to the dark side and focus on it?

Why not take pride in your uniqueness, instead of questioning how few sabre fencers there are?

[Peach]

Originally posted by sabreur
Why does sabre have so many problems attracting enough fencers?
. . . .
The niceties of sabre are hard to learn--bad sabre can quickly become interminable sequences of brutal double hits. On the other hand, good sabre, with good tempo, tactics and strategy, and lightness and speed of hand and feet is a joy.

I guess that this is fundamentally a plea to teach sabre correctly and not let bad habits perpetuate themselves--that I think is the fundamental reason why we have so few sabre fencers. (And one solution is to have sabre only clubs, quite frankly).

Cheers, MR

I agree that bad sabre seems to discourage many people. Also, often people mistakenly believe that sabre lacks finesse because they don't see what's happening. The funny thing is, much of the time when I deliberately make an attempt to help someone watch a sabre bout, they get it right away. I think some of the reason people aren't attracted to sabre is they don't ever really watch it up close. They see it at a distance and all they see is the mountain-goat thing.

It might also just be that the speed makes it hard to see. Last week, a teammate and I were trying to encourage his student to try some of the things he was teaching her in lessons (she was sure they wouldn't work against experienced fencers who would know what she was doing), so he and I fenced a bout using the things he was teaching her, explaining after each touch what we had done. Afterwards, we said, in effect, "See?" She was doubtful. She said she supposed we were doing what we said, but it was so fast she couldn't tell.

Another thing that might deter people is the behavior on the strip, and sometimes it takes a little experience of the intensity of a sabre bout to understand that. Also,we sabre fencers were chatting last night after practice and agreed that sabre fencers tend to be straightforward and open about their emotions. On the strip, we can be loud and intense, but it generally melts away afterwards.

It's an interesting question.

[wlc]

Another problem is that you need to buy an electric mask and lame to compete. Depending on your budget, that's $250-$400 just to get started buying what you'll need. I started when sabre was the least expensive weapon in which to compete. Now it's the most expensive. (it's worth though. The box doesn't abstain about place.)

[DHCJr]

Let us talk about Peter Westbrook, arguably our best Sabre fencer. Did you know he also fenced Foil and was very good at it? At an Olympic Festival, one of the Foilists was injured and Peter was substituted in and won every bout he fenced. His point attacks are phenomenal. I will agree that most of his fencing was Sabre, but he made use of the techniques from the other weapons. It is the same, when you practice lunges using your off-leg. You do not want to be a one-directional fencer. I would agree to emphasize one weapon over the others, but not the exclusion.

You might try some foil lessons and then make use of a point attack in Sabre.

[Purple Fencer]

I do point in line in sabre all the time...generally works against inexperiences guys...they try and parry it from so far away I see it coming for hours...either that, or they just stand there, unsure what to do, while I sloooowly advance on them and if they make a move, beat attack upside the head.

Against an experienced saber fencer, though, I use it as a means to buy time only.

[Philistine]

I'd always assumed that the lower participation in sabre was due mainly to two (related) things:

1. Fewer existing sabre fencers mean that new fencers will be less likely to choose (or have the opportunity to choose) sabre because fewer people to fence/coach them.

2. Most beginning fencers are taught foil first and thus may be reluctant to switch once they have become proficient in foil (with a switch to epee being somewhat more likely, possibly due to the superficial similarlity and much smaller additional cost).

--Philistine

[oiuyt]

Bingo.

Head of nail, meet mister hammer.

Philistine has it exactly right. While the other things are also large influences (how stupid bad sabre is, how brutal bad sabre is, initial cost), the primary factors are that there just aren't enough sabre people out there already. How many experienced sabre fencers are available to teach? Now compare that to the number of pointy weapon people. Then factor in the number of clubs/divisions that have no (or close to no) sabre. Why WOULD anyone start sabre in most instances?

-B :)

[Peach]

Originally posted by oiuyt
Why WOULD anyone start sabre in most instances?

-B

Because it's so much fun?

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Member of a sabre only club.

[Inquartata]

Yes, those are the main reasons. I think Philistine hit on the biggest one, though----almost invariably, schools and coaches start people out in foil. Before long inertia comes into play: I'm just getting good at this, why would I want to start over in sabre, and after I've just gotten my own equipment at last? Moreover, after a few months they internalize the "values", if I may call them that, of foil: intricacy, deliberation, third-and-fourth intention, and so on. This is the biggest problem I've had persuading foilists even to try sabre, with loaned gear---they have decided that sabre is nothing more than charging each other, that there's not enough back and forth play, it's not complex enough for their now-selective taste, etc.

Unfortunately, the complexity of sabre is not readily seen from the side of the strip. Only when you have been doing it awhile do its attractions become apparent. So you hear, over and over, the same comments from the uninitiated: "It looks so crude, its just charge, whack, halt, there's no "conversation of the blades", no finesse, no cultivation".

Foilists who get frustrated with foil tend to go into epee---the same attractions as foil without ROW or lames.

So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: there are fewer sabre fencers to "spread the word" of how great it is and to teach it, thus no one takes it up, thus there are fewer sabre fencers. An ugly circle.

The other factors, such as expense, are ancillary. For example, given how much you will save on blades and the time spent wiring, rewiring, adjusting, troubleshooting, repairing and otherwise fiddling with them, the difference boils down to low up-front costs and high continuing cost for foil, high up-front and low continuing costs for sabre. Bad fencing? What is uglier than two bad foilists infighting? Brutality? Is it more painful to be hit by a bad sabre cut than by a bad flick?

[Peach]

Originally posted by Inquartata
Bad fencing? What is uglier than two bad foilists infighting?

ROTFL

Now THAT's a Zen koan.

[swordsen]

Part ofthe problem is that atthe lowerlevels sabre fencing is unfortunetly nothing more than two people leaping forward amd smacking one another with a weapon. Niether the spectators nor the participants can tell what they are doing. Unless you have a caoch taht really knows the modern game of saber you will not get it. In foil and in epee any reasonably coordinated person can learn to fence and do fairly well on the local level. In saber nobody knows what is going on.
A sad but true story, at a local event a foilist was pressed into directing a saber pool. After a few mutualt thrashing he began mentally flipping a coin before he said fence. Whichever fencer won the coin toss got the touch if both lights came on. No one complained about any touches and after the pool was done they all complimented him on his directing. If the players can't tell what is going on people aren't going to start the weapon.