<p>Are there any fencing parents here who might be willing to answer a question?</p>
<p>I am not a fencing parent but fenced at club level in college. I am no expert but what is your question?</p>
<p>I have been a fencing parent for three years. The fencer is now in 7th grade.</p>
<p>I am not, (but I know one) but I will gladly answer your questions! Need to hock some jewelery?</p>
<p>I almost never go fencing with her, so I don’t know anything about fencing. There is a girl at my daughter’s club who hates her with a passion. Last night, she somehow got the sabre underneath daughter’s mask and spiked her right in the soft tissue of her throat. After my daughter finished choking, her neck was swollen and bruised. So my questions are: how does one protect the neck from that type of attack? and Is that a normal place to hit someone?</p>
<p>" am not, (but I know one) but I will gladly answer your questions! Need to hock some jewelery?"</p>
<p>Would you believe I just got that? Very funny!</p>
<p>I’ve fenced a little myself. The fencing mask should have a collar that protects the throat and meets the fencing jacket. </p>
<p>The head and neck are valid targets with sabre. Or saber.</p>
<p>The bib on the mask is supposed to protect against that type of attack. My daughter says that one way the blade can get under the bib is if fencers remove their mask between points during a bout or during practice. If the mask is not put on perfectly snugly, or for whatever reason is not fitting perfectly snugly, then the bib can come slightly off of the chest and leave a very small opening.</p>
<p>The bib is a legal target area. I have only seen what you described happen on a few occasions in my experience of three years. I have never seen someone actually hurt in that area. </p>
<p>If that had happened to my D, I would want to get the coach’s perspective on the incident. He/she might be willing to talk it over with both fencers.</p>
<p>Was your daughter properly attired? If so, she should have been protected by her equipment, specifically the vest and mask (with a “bib” under the chin), from exposure of any valid “target areas”.</p>
<p>I only fenced foil but do know that the target area for sabre (which is what she was using, I gather, since her opponent was) is anything from the waist up, excluding the hands. If she was still hurt while wearing the proper gear, then you will want to look at the equipment to make sure it is protecting the way it was intended to.</p>
<p>No part of the body that is a valid target area is meant to be exposed. It is a civilized sport, after all!</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>It has a bib, the sword was intentionally hooked underneath it.</p>
<p>The girl should be severely reprimanded. If that fails…she’ll have to walk the plank.</p>
<p>Was there a coach present?</p>
<p>Zoosermom – I just tried to PM you but your box is full. I have a kid who has been fencing for years and has been injured a couple of times, at least once intentionally in a way I found more than slightly annoying, but I have never ever seen or heard of anything like this. We should not be making light of this(“walk the plank” indeed!); intentionally hooking a sabre under a mask in order to injure another fencer is not exactly a legitimate fencing move, and it is also extremely dangerous. Zooser’s daughter could have been very seriously injured; she choked and the soft tissue on her neck was swollen and bruised. If this had been done to her in an alley behind the club, I’m willing to bet you would have called the police. If you are absolutely positive that the attack was intentional, then you have an unhinged, dangerous fencer in your club and no one who bouts with her or offends her in any way is safe as long as she has access to a weapon. I think, actually, that the behavior borders on the criminal, and could be interpreted as an assault with a deadly weapon, a police matter. What is the coach’s position on what happened? Were there witnesses, particularly parents or coaches? Does the offending fencer have a history of attacking others (and I don’t mean legitimately during bouts) or obvious mental problems? Does your club have a written policy about what behavior will and will not be tolerated? Is there a mechanism to oust dangerous fencers from the club? Are there other clubs in your city? This is not one of those bad impulse control kind of problems like a kid getting slashed too hard or accidentally on purpose bopped on the mask with a bell guard; this is a serious potential threat and it must be stopped. (And Zooser, please open your private mailbox.)</p>
<p>My daughter is in her third year of fencing saber, and her view is that it would be difficult to do something like this intentionally.</p>
<p>She thinks the easiest way to intentionally hurt someone would be to go for the legs (they are the least protected).</p>
<p>She concurs that if all equipment is of the proper size and in the proper place, it should provide the necessary protection.</p>
<p>Saber fencing moves very quickly, and, in her words, “the fencer would need to be remarkably coordinated to do that.” Also, an attack with the point is easiest to defend against with distance (ie, making them fall short).</p>
<p>I do know of an example of unintentional injury - one fencer from my daughter’s club had the growth plate in her hand damaged in a tournament bout.</p>
<p>OK, it is hard to imagine how this could have happened in the course of a normal bout, but was Zooser’s daughter even fencing at the time, or was she a stationary target not engaged in a bout? Zooser, how do you know that the sabre under the mask was intentional? Did the girl say something? Was your daughter not fencing at the time it happened? Because it is easier to visualize this with Zooser’s kid just standing around waiting for a strip, and the other girl coming in from underneath, standing very nearby, specifically using her sabre to get under the bib. Is this what happened? Yes, fencers get injured during bouts, but this type of injury, and the fact that Zooser says that the injury was inflicted intentionally, give rise to concern.</p>
<p>Hi everyone. Sorry I didn’t respond sooner. Had some small surgery on Saturday and was out of commission for a couple of days.</p>
<p>When the incident occurred, my daughter was standing still. The coach had been offering some instruction and then turned away for a minute to respond to a request to give his keys to another coach. The girl in question is young and extremely. Hmmmm. Something. Hyper, spoiled, willful. The two kids were not engaged in a bout. She simply turned around and hooked the sabre under daughter’s mask. I know this is inappropriate and it was brought to the attention of the coach by another parent, but I was wondering (again, I don’t know pretty much anything about fencing) if this was a normal place to be hit in the course of a bout. When properly attired, of course. It scared my daughter a lot and I think it might be a problem for future fencing if she felt she had to protect that area.</p>
<p>Yikes, if it wasn’t part of a bout, I would be concerned, too, and would expect the coach to discipline (if not expel) the fencer.</p>
<p>Given her concern, your daughter should talk to the coach about it. If it were in a bout, she would not be caught unawares AND she could defend herself!</p>
<p>“Given her concern, your daughter should talk to the coach about it. If it were in a bout, she would not be caught unawares AND she could defend herself!”</p>
<p>Thank you. I’m embarrassed to say that the “caught unawares” part escaped me but, of course, that is the ultimate answer, isn’t it.</p>
<p>zoosermom:</p>
<p>I’m a fencing parent who just discovered this thread. At first, my take was that getting under the mask in a sabre bout would be extremely difficult to impossible for even the world’s best fencers. When I learned that your daughter was just standing there, I … I … let’s just say that I’m OUTRAGED!!</p>
<p>Fencing is not a sport for ANYONE who would do such a thing. Fencing is not dangerous as long as people follow the rules. When the rules aren’t being followed, fencing becomes very, very dangerous, indeed. You pay for that coaching, and I know from experience that you pay a lot. If the coaches/owners know about this incident and have done nothing about it, then I suggest you find a new fencing club PRONTO!!! If they don’t know, you need to tell them. </p>
<p>This girl needs to be out of fencing. Completely out. There’s no room for this sort of thing in a sport where the primary tool is called a “weapon.” They are weapons, and they can hurt or kill if used improperly.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. The coach was informed and the mother of the child was horrified. She’s not a bad girl, really, just young (12) and extremely unable to handle boundaries. The club did take it seriously, I just didn’t know enough to know if this would happen in an actual bout. My daughter is now extremely protective of her sore neck. I’m sure that will pass and I will remind her (d’oh) that in a bout she will be prepared</p>