Fencing Referee Study Guide DVD 2008

I have been looking for a video guide to help with refereeing for years, so this product immediately appealed to me. It has around 20 "staged" actions each for foil, epee and sabre. Actions include PIL, PIL after an attack, covering target area, hitting while falling, simultaneous beat and parry, corps a corps, leaving the side of the strip, touching the floor to stop the action. There are many others. The actions are played at full speed and in slow motion several times. A voiceover explains the action. There are then about 30 clips from foil and sabre competition footage, again played at regular speed and then in slow motion. The "staged" actions are very clear. The fencers' timing and motions are very precise.

A couple of drawbacks. First, there are subtitles sometimes, but only in French. Second, the interface is clunky. As far as I can tell, this is not a DVD you can play in a DVD player, but must be played on your computer. At least on my copy, moving between choices requires the use of the arrow keys. About half the time it doesn't work, and I need to close and reopen the program. Third, while there are foil and sabre competition clips, no epee clips. Finally, some of the calls are confusing, as they either contradict accepted wisdom or seemingly contradict the rulebook.

I believe that the clarity of the actions and the good conversation among top referees (and the rest of us) that this DVD will generate will help clarify how we make calls (and expect them to be made) and will generally improve the quality of fencing. Some of these actions have been discussed for many years without a clear, consistent signal from the top about how they should be called. I hope this DVD will clarify some fo these grey areas in the sport. This DVD will be valuable to referees, coaches, and fencers.