Adding a 2nd weapon at a late stage

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

I have never competed in any other weapon that epee, and I have done epee (with several long breaks) since late 80ies. I have never thought about fencing foil, but I have started to fool about in sabre recently with a sabre fencer (he is 80 years old, so a lot of old stuff in his technique) and I really like it.

I have toyed with the idea of adding sabre to my repertoire, and here are some relevant facts. I would appreciate your input.

I look much more like the typical sabre fencer (174 cm tall, 90 kg+) than an epeeist. Personality: I like to stand back and defend, until an opening presents itself (when fencing epee). I am more the get-back-at-someone type than agressive.

I am too often beaten by epeeists physically weaker (former wrestler) than me, while the opposite never happens. Those few that are noticeably stronger than me are usually much better technique-wise, and take the top spots. Therefore I want a weapon where strength counts for something, ruling out foil in the comparison. Foil doesn´t "call me" as the other two weapons do. When I look at MS over here, strength does seem to be rewarded.

Where I live, ME outnumbers the other four weapons combined (WS doesn´t exist here), in the nationals we had 68 in ME and 14 in MS. I think that that was one of the largest MS competitions in the country, counted in #competitors.

I think that I could figure out sabre RoW good enough to compete, but I don´t think that I would be of any use as a ref - most MS copetitions here appear to be self-reffed. I have access to some coaching here in epee(small and fledgling club, none other available within reasonable driving distance for ordinary training) but in sabre I would have do it alone and teach myself by fencing against other epeeists who pick up a sabre once in a while. That is the story behind several of the competitors in the 14-man national championship, IICI.

Competitions over here which have both ME and MS almost always schedule them so that they do not interfere - waiting time in between would be the problem in that respect.

What do you think?

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Marcos]

Hi Peter,

have a go at a sabre competition, and if you enjoy it, then do it!
if not, drop it.

I'm a sabreur but do some foil just for the fun of it, and for the extra exercise - if I am travelling 150 miles across Ireland for a comp, I might as well make a w/e of it

what I would say is that the sabre will possibly be detrimental to your Epee, as point control can become wayward. Tactics are very different also.

[Inquartata]

I say, go for it! Not that I could be expected to say anything else.

The oddest sabre bout I think I ever saw was between two epeeists. Two LEFT-HANDED epeeists. 90% of the touches were countercuts to the arm---on both sides! Wierd.

Anyway, sabre does have that in common with epee: the arm is target can stop-cut or otherwise targeted, as of course can the head. Less artificial than foil in that respect. And PIL can be used to good effect, as I sadly know to my cost: I once lost a chance at the finals in a tournament to an A foilist who had never before touched a sabre and did nothing but PIL. And there's a fellow in my club who can still give me fits with PIL...