Fair warning, this may turn out to be a rant, but at least I will feel better!
This represents the peak of my competitive fencing career, 42 years ago. If I had known I would win I would have chosen a better trophy! I was the Hon. Sec. of the Fencing Union and got the choose the trophies etc.
Back then, club bouts and the early rounds of competitions would be non electric. Here you say "dry foil", there it was "steam foil ". Probably a reference to the steam powered age preceding the electrical age. I have no idea where dry came from.
In those days a hit had to be a very palpable hit (to quote some Danish dude) to be seen. You relied on the eyesight of your two judges to see the hit so it had to be a good one, with the "character of penetration" as it was described. This meant landing the point fairly square onto the target to ensure blade bent. Fencers did not swipe at their opponents with the foil, because even if they did hit, the judges would not reward the result as a scoring action.
This traditional constraint existed to simulate the fact that the foil we use today is the descendant of a training weapon for the small sword, a weapon with a very sharp point but no cutting edge.
I can remember the outrage when the rules were changed to outlaw the serrated beehive point in the mid 1960s and replace it with today's flat point. The reason given was to try to reduce the serrated side of the beehive point catching on the lame and registering hits which did not conform to the "character of penetration". Lames tended to be made of a much courser mesh than today which aided this passing contact.
The introduction of the electronic scoring apparatus did not change the basic criteria for awarding points but the design of the machine and the weapons have altered the these criteria. It is obvious that if we change the rules used to adjudicate a hit in foil to include actions with the edge of the blade, we could expect to see the fencers exploit that rule and begin to swing the weapon at their opponent as well as jab.
Now fencers no longer attempt to convince their opponents or the judge that they have scored. Instead they strive as hard as they can to convince the scoring machine that they have made a touch. This is a subtle but important change.
Further, the remaining human judge also relies heavily on the measurements of that machine to make their judgments; determining the timing of the actions in order to award a touch to one fencer over the other when both fencers hit during a fencing phrase.
The result of all of this is that fencers no longer train in use of the sword and instead learn how to exploit the special qualities of the electronic equipment. We now have generations of fencers who have no idea how to use an actual sword and the true art of fencing is fading away.
I think this can be explained by the change in the manner in which fencers now score with the weapon. One merely has to place the weapon on the target and provide enough pressure in the point to set off an electronic switch. The direction the attack comes from is irrelevant.
To compound this problem, over the years the pressure and time of contact of the point of the weapon with the target that is needed to set off the machine has been decreasing and the weapons have become increasingly flexible due to both safety and fashion constraints. Fencers have figured out that this flexibility affords a certain style of manipulating the weapon that was impossible before. Indeed the flickability of a blade is one criterion for buying weapons these days.
In foil fencing the weapon can be “flicked” around the attempted parries of one’s opponent, hitting them around the sides of their torso or even on their back. This limits one’s protection against such an attack to only the defense of distance (running away), and or timing (hitting them first with your own flick) or stop hitting them whilst their arm is bent at the start of the flicking action and hoping the president has read the rule book about the difference between an attack, the preparations of same and the concept of periods of fencing time.
The resulting bout looks like tag played with fishing rods or something akin to a paint gun contest. It is a far cry from the furious, yet technical game of attack, defense and counter offense, that is characteristic of traditional fencing.
Another unsettling trend is the use of the plastic body shield. No withstanding the vital protection these give, they also contribute to a new phenomenon that of point bounce. A perfectly executed attack lands on target yet the hit does not register. The point has bounced off before the point was depressed for the requisite time. Such a hit would have been awarded in the steam era! Some coaches are even encouraging the use of these plastic garments for precisely this use. Gamesmanship or worse?
.Apparently, all this is an unintended side effect of changing the timing to deter the flick!!!!
Finally, fencing whether sport or traditional is fundamentally about delivering touches to your opponent without receiving touches from your opponent. This has never changed from the first moment in fencing history until now.
What has changed is the definition of what counts as a touch and this is not for the good for the sport's participants or spectators.
There, I do feel better now, so I'll toddle off for a pint of bitter beer.
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