Jeff,
>And, for all the complaints about people doing
> victory dances when they "hit", to influence the
> director, it pales compared to the shenanigans in
> dry foil and sabre to influence their calls.
Since there are so many newly forming clubs
doing variations of "classical fencing" I can
only speak from the goals I have established
for my own salle base on my research of the
original perspective and practice of classical
fencing in the 1800s and from my experiences
gained following this protocol for numerous years.
The goal in my classical salle is to emulate a
higher level of maturity in one's bouts. It's
easy to recognize these " shenanigans" you mention
in dry bouts. And the director has full authority
to give a warning on the first incidence and then
award a penalty upon successive occurrences.
Since our goals are not to win medals or increase
a rating, but rather to perform techniques and
tactics as perfectly as humanly possible, we do
not want to accept a point that we didn't really
deserve. So the "shenanigans" you mentioned do not
occur in my salle, or in any salle in which the master
mentors and enforces the original classical character
traits of honesty, integrity, and honor.
I have however seen these "shenanigans" being pulled
quite often in sport fencing clubs during both dry
and electric bouts. But these guys are just doing what
they are taught, emulating their coaches,
trying to live up to their expectations, to do
whatever it takes to win. Winning tournaments is the
only goal in Sport Fencing, or so fellow SF coaches
have told me over and over. Winning the gold medal
is everything. Pursuing that elusive "A" rating or
that "Elite" status, that's what Sport fencing is
all about.
Even in my sport fining clubs at the first incident
of cheating or failure to acknowledge a touch I always
publicly called attention to it and used the
opportunity as an object lesson in ethical fencing
behavior. So even my sport fencing students learned not
to use these "shenanigans" for fear of reprimand.
I have only had one student (a SF student) who after
many reprimands continued to fail to acknowledge touches.
Since the whole game depends upon honesty and falls apart in it's
absence, I instruct my students to refuse to free bout with
anyone who does not play fair. After a short period of
time no one would bout with him during our open fencing sessions.
I quit calling on him to bout in judged practice bouts during class.
I talked with him about it and with his parents (he was
a teenager). Rather than learn to play by the rules he
quit. He eventually joined a sport club that spun off
from my salle when I quit coaching sport fencing.
He had a lot of promise and could have been a very good fencer.
For us it's not about winning a tournament
which is why we host very few classical events
each year. Developing good character traits
while mastering an effective form of
historical self defense is the goal of my salle.
I believe that should be the goal of all classical
fencers today, since those were the goals which
our Aristocratic forbearers valued during the
original classical era.
We downplay winning and focus
only on proper execution of techniques and
effective development of strategy and proper
use of tactics to NOT GET TOUCHED! In foil "Winning"
the bout by scoring more touches is secondary
to "surviving" the bout by not allowing any
touches to land on us. If "time" ends and no one
has been touched (due to excellent use of
defensive techniques) then both persons in
essence are winners. We still award touches
against (as SF used to do when I started fencing)
to keep us mindful of the wounds we would have
received had the points been sharp.
I NEVER allow my fencers to keep score during
their free bouts because our natural human tendency
is to be competitive. When we keep score the
emphasis changes from performing good techniques
into doing whatever we can to beat this guy.
Winning is addictive. It strokes our ego and
we all are to varying degrees egotistical beings
by nature. I have seen many otherwise great
fencers get caught up in an ego-gratification d
rive to beat more people, win more tournaments.
To do whatever it takes to win. It all comes to
a disappointing end eventually when they learn
they aren't really the best fencer.
I want my students to spend a great
deal of time perfecting their fencing ability by
focusing on doing it right. So during their free
bouting no scores are kept.
Instead each well made touch is considered a
victory, each well made parry is considered a
victory, each timely delivered riposte is a
victory, each execution of near perfect form
is a victory, each time a timid person is brave
enough to bout it's a victory, each time a burly guy
controls his blade and lands a touch without
"brutality of blade" it's a victory. Each time a
fencer declines a touch he or she didn't deserve
it's a victory. These are the types of victories we
acknowledge during free bouting. But we don't keep
a score to see who's won or lost more bouts.
We only keep score in official judged bouts where there
are four judges a director and an instructor present.
Even during these practice bouts the goal is first, "don't
get touched", second, "end this as safely an defensively
as possible."
Our foil tournaments reinforce our goals by awarding points
for form and for touches scored. And as far as the touches
scored part we keep the goal defense (survival) by using
"number of touches received" as our primary indicator on
our score sheet tabulation, not "number of bouts won" or
"number of touched scored."
One of my former students (she moved away) a 17 year old young lady, won
the last Classical foil event I hosted by receiving zero touches against
her. It is also nice to note that even though the following were
secondary indices on the tabulation sheet, she also received zero
penalties on form in both rounds, scored more touches on her opponents
than any other competitor, and won all her bouts. But she won the event
by having the lowest number of touches received, "surviving unscathed."
Even in tournaments I teach my students to focus on defense first and
then making one good touch. Don't focus on making three touches (our
foil bouts go to three), don't focus on winning the bout or the
tournament.
Those thoughts only get in the way and really are not important.
Focus on effective defense and fence one touch at a time.
If you do that you've already won in my book.
> This does however touch on the main difference
> between SF and more pure martial arts: it is a sport
> as well as a martial art. People compete and want to
> win a contest. That is different from a pure art,
> but it's the same in SF as it is in karate. Both
> sport AND martial art.
You have hit the nail on the head !
SF & CF have very different goals:
One tends to be ego-drive and is all about winning bouts, tournaments,
medals, and ratings.
The other is about mastery of an effective historical self-defense art
and self discipline.
And yes there are two type of karate being practiced today:
Traditional Karate (Self-defense Style) and Tournament Karate (Point
Style)
And yes people these days tend to the call both styles "martial arts" in
the looser definition of the phrase.
Blessings,
Rez
Rez Johnson, M d'E
Mississippi Academy of Arms
Teaching Fencing since 1980
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