Nick Evangelista...

[foible]

WOW! an answer so quickly!! And an instructive one as well! LOL

Thank you, Chris, for your response. It was most helpful. I am looking forward to how the arrival of our sport fencer will affect things. My instructor had a good sized club going a couple of years ago but it is down to he and I and the sport fencer right now. We are hoping to get it built back up.

Blue masks eh! I bet that looks weird!

Thank you again!

foible

[foible]

Thank you as well Danger Mouse!

If the SCA has little connection to CF, then who does sponser CF tournaments?

foible

[Christopher J Umbs]

foible,

There's a few groups.

There's the Association for Historical Fencing
http://www.ahfi.org/

Also, there are CF masters and instructors who run their own schools and have occasional tournaments.

Martinez Academy of Arms
http://www.martinez-destreza.com/

You can find others (Masters Crown, Sullins, Evangelista and others) off of the Martinez link page
http://www.martinez-destreza.com/fenlinks.htm

Chris

[noodle]

From what I have read here, many of you are as busy looking down your noses at classical fencers as Evangelista is at sport fencers. Is there no room for both?

to put it simply, yes. its already been mentioned before that there are many classical touraments. the problem that sport fencers have with CF's is when they try to sport fence, lose, and complain about rules or the mechanics of sport fencing.

sport fencing is exactly that. a sport. like footbal, baseball, etc. the point of it turned long ago from practicing to save your life into trying to score more points than your opponent. sure, a SF could fence a duel for his life and maybe win. and a football linebacker could also streetfight for his life and maybe win. its not what they're training for.

it would be like having a rugby team line up across a professional football team. rugby is a different game. you wouldn't expect them to win. maybe they'll do well. maybe they'll win. but they're two different sports with different rules, similar in manner to sport and classical fencing.

i'll stop ranting now, i feel like i'm just throwing stuff out there.

[jeff]

Originally posted by foible
Although I can surely see the benefit to electric foils, I can also see where they tend to eliminate some of the idea that this is (was?) training to use a weapon. A graze with enough pressure on the tip to trigger the buzzer is a hit, even though, were it a weapon, it would leave no more than a scratch - foible

Good points everybody. And, in discussing "why electric", consider the problems with "dry" fencing that electric was designed to fix:

- Biased judging (Nadi complains about this in his autobiography)
- High error rate. Judging is hard, especially when action is fast
- Favors only high lines where the judges can easily see the actions.

The last two are systemic problems. Good shots under the arm or otherwise obscured from the judges' view are rarely scored in dry foil (I've been fencing long enough to remember). I posted this on the classicalfencing mailing list at egroups:

If you really care about "if it were sharp" thinking, you would welcome electrical fencing because it includes touches that would be lethal but would never be seen or called by side judges: shots to the back, low lines, kidney, under the arm. Electrical fencing in that case makes it more realistic. There's a contradiction in CF between fencing "as if it were sharp" and "only count actions that stick, and the judges see the blade bend upwards". Plenty of lethal hits do neither, and won't be seen by a side judge. Electrical fencing with good directing is far more realistic than dry, for these reasons.

That said, I certainly respect people who wish to fence according to a specific set of rules rooted in tradition.

[foible]

Noodle: ranting forgiven. I'm really trying to understand it all and I also will apologise if I was sounding high brow and snooty. I really am too new to it all to be coming off that way.

Jeff: Thank you so much. Those are great points made for the electric foils! I can definately see where there are many valid "lethal " hits that judges would miss from both speed and location. I've yet to use an electric foil and just might consider getting one. I suppose, as with most things, there are pluses and minuses to them, although those are pretty good pluses you mentioned.

Chris: Thank you so much for the links!

foible

[Inquartata]

Yes, as noodle says, modern fencing is no longer trying to be about "what would you do if the blades were sharp". It's purely a sport ( three sports, rather ), with about as much connection to real swordplay as chess has to warfare.

OTOH, CF, at least insofar as foil is concerned, hasn't much connection to the art of the duel, either. The foil, after all, was invented as a practice tool for the smallsword, and in its fragility it bears small resemblance to an actual sword. My invariable metaphor is that it is the flight simulator of fencing....

[danp]

I've noticed that many sports related books aren't written by the athletes who practice the sport - even the technical ones. Instead, they are ghost or co-written.

Could it be possible that someone who knows very little about fencing but has a tremendous amount of interest and skill as a data collector and writer could produce a nice piece of work?

Perhaps the best outcome would be if someone were to collect the thoughts of today's top coaches and athletes, and present those in a book along with some background on each school of thought and the minds and skill behind them.

A beginner would connect with this, since the person writing the book would be learning along with them - plus, the individual ideals of a single coach (classical vs. modern) could be balanced by an impartial party. Experienced fencers might enjoy it since it would be a reference of the different schools of teaching - and at very least it would be interesting to see how all of the different personalities in this sport tick.

Hey, it worked for the Dalai Lama.

:-)

-Dan

Originally posted by neevel
As noted above, writing a decent book takes a lot of time and effort. Active, top-level coaches are generally too busy with the business of coaching (training their club/team, travelling with fencers to tournaments) to have time to write books. Thus, fencing books have a tendency to be either "retirement projects" by those who are winding down their involvement with active coaching, or written by people who really aren't participating at a high competitive level at all.

[Rolls]

This is my first post, so be kind.

I fenced classically for about 5 years. I now have pretty much switched completely over to sport fencing (pistol grip, en garde in absence of blade, hand dangling to the side). I didn't switch because I thought one was better than the other (becasue I don't). I switched so that I cuold have more fencing oppurtunities. Specifically, the oppurtunity to face other skilled opponents whom I have never fenced before. That oppurtunity comes more often in sport fencing because of the larger number of tournaments.

I do think fencing competitively has made me a better fencer, but I also feel that fencing classically has given me a strong background that many of my competitive opponents lack.

Anyway, I would just like to point out two observations. First, about the classical argument what if it were sharp. I would argue that if it were sharp and my opponent was flicking at me that I would parry anyway. Mainly, because it IS sharp. There's a good chance that it would leave quite a cut whether it was deadly or not. Also, I wouldn't want to make attack while my opponet's weapon was so close to my body (what if he decided he didn't want to die alone). I find that a flick becomes little different than any other attack once you learn to defend against it.

My second observation is the sport argument that you're "just trying to get the light to go off". If that were the case, right of way would not exist. Also, it is important to remember that fencing is still, as far as I know, defined as defending and attacking with a sword. So, I think to ignore the roots of fencing cheapens the sport.

Rolls.

[noodle]

(i would've posted this earlier, but i had fencing practice)

on books:
i found that i like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0271010193/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/103-7958407-9208663" target="_blank">Kaidanov and Garret's book</a> the most.

one more quick analogy for the SF/CF matter that i've had spinning in my head for a while. i meant to post it earlier, but, you know, it was fencey time. this is best understood by martial artists (i've been doing various martial arts for 12+ years now):
the difference between CF and SF is much like the difference between street fighting and point sparring. point sparring developed in the martial arts to help people simulate a real fight. since real fights have winners, so should sparring, so they introduced a point system based on rules. guess what? people took advantage of these rules. if a point sparrer decided to fight a street fighter of equal experience, the point sparrer would probably lose. why? because they'd [probably] only try and hit on target with legal moves. sure, it'd be harder than normal. but they've been preprogramed to only do certain stuff. there are several very popular tricks that score big points that are total crap in a real fight. maybe they'd win with this, but the street fighter knows whats up and knows, for example, that its cool to take a shot to the chest in order to hit to them in the neck, etc etc. but i'm not saying a street fighter would definitely win. its just how they're trained, raised under different rules that make them both fighters, but they're fighting for different ends.

or something.

[DanInMI]

Originally posted by foible
Hello,


Also, although the sport fencer in my class has only been fencing for four years and competeing for two, he in no way was wiping the strip with our instructor, as many of you imply is an easy thing to do against a classical fencer.

Hey, some fencers just suck.

[DanInMI]

Hey, ummmm, how do the rules of classical fencing differ from sport fencing, anyway?

Aside from the fact that you fence on a circular or square piste (a practice that is utterly pointless), and you fence dry, I don't know of any differences.

[DanInMI]

Originally posted by noodle
[Bone more quick analogy for the SF/CF matter that i've had spinning in my head for a while. i meant to post it earlier, but, you know, it was fencey time. this is best understood by martial artists (i've been doing various martial arts for 12+ years now):
the difference between CF and SF is much like the difference between street fighting and point sparring. point sparring developed in the martial arts to help people simulate a real fight. since real fights have winners, so should sparring, so they introduced a point system based on rules. guess what? people took advantage of these rules. if a point sparrer decided to fight a street fighter of equal experience, the point sparrer would probably lose. why? because they'd [probably] only try and hit on target with legal moves. sure, it'd be harder than normal. but they've been preprogramed to only do certain stuff. there are several very popular tricks that score big points that are total crap in a real fight. maybe they'd win with this, but the street fighter knows whats up and knows, for example, that its cool to take a shot to the chest in order to hit to them in the neck, etc etc. but i'm not saying a street fighter would definitely win. its just how they're trained, raised under different rules that make them both fighters, but they're fighting for different ends.

or something. [/b]

Are you kidding? a classical fencer is no more of a street fighter tham a sport fencer. Less so... perhaps. They are more interested making the bout LOOK like an historical duel than actually winning points.

While it is true that a flick attack bears no relationship to actually inflicting a lethal wound in an actual duel, neither does circling around your opponent in a ruffled shirt and tights.

[D'Artagnan1673]

If you hate a lot of flicking but want to fence competitively, try epee. Sure, there is still flicking, but not near like you will see in foil.

[Rolls]

I think there is some REAL confusion on what classical fencing is.

It's not done circularly or in goofy constumes. Classical fencing is almost identical to sport fencing. The main difference is that it is ussually done dry and the touches have to be much more abvious. There are also some big style differences. Classical actions have their emphasis on clarity. The stance is also different, much more upright, with the off weapon arm behind the head.

Rolls.

[Christopher J Umbs]

*sigh*

Some sport fencers think classical fencing is SCA
Some SCA fencers think classical fencing is sport fencing

Both are very wrong. Folks should perhaps read the faqs and previous posts before proving thier stupidity.

Chris

[rory]

Sport fencing: You make the light go off. You dress in mainly white with a dash of colour. You might have an evil clown face on your mask. You read sports bios and mental preparation books by Aladar Kogler. You're an athlete.

Classical fencing: You make the judges swoon with the elegance of your touches. You dress in crisp whites/whites & black trousers ala Aldo Nadi. You read Nadi, Gaugler, maybe Evangelista. You're an artist, maybe a martial artist.

SCA: You hack at people with a big bit of metal. You dress in idealised versions of "period" costume, unlike anything really worn in the past, and very probably sport a ponytail and a dodgy beard. You read... fantasy. You're a computer programmer.



Flame away!

PS. I'm a computer-programming, Nadi,Kogler-and-fantasy-reading sport fencer with a blue mask.

[DanInMI]

Rory, That was awesome.

[DanInMI]

BTW....I throw the question out there again.

Does anyone know of ANY champions that were trained by Evangelista?

Geeze, i thought I would get at least one person that would say they knew a guy that knew a guy that trained under Evangelista that won an event somewhere.

[wflaschka]

I think it's safe to say, that if Evangelista had produced some champions, he would have mentioned them in his books. As it is, he writes about the people that his teacher Ralph Faulkner produced.