Fencing

Tarhunt · October 17, 2006, 10:49am

fendrock:

As an aside, I’m afraid your daughter is quite wrong about a point attack. It’s clear she fences sabre ;-). If foilists and sabrists of equal ability fenced each other without right of way rules, the foilist would win most of the DEs 15-0. Even the old manuals for real duelists continually make the point that the point is superior to the edge.

19th century cavalrymen used the point in a straight on charge against enemy horsemen (rare as they were). The edge was used to ride by running foot soldiers and slash backwards at the face, since the infantry’s backs were often protected by their packs.

I know a man who made the Olympic team by using the sabre point and edge when most others were using only the edge. Shortly thereafter, the right of way rules were changed so that using the sabre point became a very risky strategy. Many directors will never give the person using the point the right of way. So you rarely see the point used in sabre fencing anymore, which I think is a shame.

Tarhunt · October 17, 2006, 10:51am

zoosermom:

That’s good to hear. In a bout, the chances of a neck injury are almost nil. As I said to fendrock, sabrists rarely, rarely use the point. An edge attack (which is 99% of the time these days) could never get under the mask. At least, I can’t imagine how that would happen.

Good luck to your daughter.

Tarhunt · October 17, 2006, 11:13am

zoosermom:

I just reread the thread. Let my try to offer some comfort and peace of mind about the possibility of a blade getting under a mask.

Sabre is the only weapon in which touching with the edge earns you a point. Given right of way rules, it is also highly unusual for sabrists to use the point. I recall seeing it only when a sabrist is off balance after a parry and has no other option.

Sabrists use a slashing motion to score to the torso, arms, and head. This motion CAN come in from the side, but usually comes in a downward stroke. One cannot get under the yoke under the mask with a downward or side attack. The only possible way to do this is with a slashing stroke from underneath, which is a losing strategy in almost every situation of which I can conceive. Even IF there is an upward stroke for some odd reason, I can’t imagine how a slashing stroke could get under the yoke. The torso would deflect the blade.

Now, there are two weapons that use the point: foil and epee. I have never, never seen or heard of such a thing even in those disciplines. A point would be far more likely to get under the yoke than an edge, and I’ve never heard of it.

So, the upshot is that your daughter should relax. She was subject to a vicious, vicious attack that should have gotten the young lady in question thrown out of the club. What happened could almost never happen accidentally, and by that I mean there must be about a 1 in one million chance of its happening. Or maybe the odds are even longer.

Please tell your daughter to relax. Sabre can hurt, but she will never have this particular problem in a real bout.

CCSurfer · October 17, 2006, 11:15am

Zooser – Aaaaugh! I’m with Tarhunt. This sort of thing doesn’t really happen in bouts. But continuing to put a potentially deadly weapon in the hands of this out of control 12 year old who has already demonstrated a willingness to do serious injury to another club member unprovoked and intentionally – she has to GO!!! None of the other fencers in the club should be exposed to this sort of potential danger.

How about this scenario: There are times when fencers do take off their masks, as when they go off to change or are approaching the fencing area or need a drink of water, but still have their swords in their hands. What sort of damage coud this “not bad” 12 year old do then? Does she have a good enough aim to just injure a neck and not put out an eye?

What happened is the moral and legal equivalent of this girl attacking your daughter in the alley behind fencing; it cannot be construed as an accident or anything other than a crime by a juvenile. (I know a certain number of willful, hyper, spoiled 12 year olds, but they don’t attack other kids with weapons. Ever. Under any circumstances.) Knowing what her child is like, the mother should not allow her to put other children in danger. Not to mention, keeping a fencer in his club knowing that that fencer intentionally attacks others with her sword could create considerable liability for your coach should the 12 y.o. hurt someone else. There really does have to be a consequence for this sort of thing! If they had been fencing at school, I find it hard to imagine that the 12 y.o. would have been anything less than suspended. This is not a trivial offense, and there is no reason to believe she will be able to control herself in future. Get this little delinquent out of there!!! (And probably her new sport should not be target shooting…)

I should add that I have been around fencing regularly for almost 10 years and I have never, ever seen a situation when a kid has intentionally gone after another kid with a sword, including willful, spoiled, hyper eight year old boys. I swear, Zooser, this is not normal. You can’t predict what this kid will do next.

zoosermom · October 17, 2006, 11:36am

You’re all giving me such good advice and I really appreciate it.

The only reason that I haven’t raised a ruckus is because in all fairness my daughter (she is 14) has been mean, impatient and dismissive of the girl. I don’t think my daughter was a completely innocent victim and my initial thought is that, perhaps, the coach could have a serious discussion with both of them about sportsmanship and such and then put the younger girl on notice that this won’t be tolerated again. Don’t get me wrong, no one ever deserves to be hit, but I don’t think the girl has ever done anything like this before and her mother took it as seriously as can be.

Tarhunt · October 17, 2006, 11:56am

zoosermom:

Good for you for understanding and acknowledging your daughter’s behavior and how it created animosity in the younger girl. Having said that, I think you might not be competely aware of fencing culture. It’s a sport. It’s highly competitive. But practitioners are keenly aware that they are using weapons, and those weapons have been known to maim and kill. It’s rare, but it has happened, so safety is absolutely crucial.

Fencers don’t have to like each other. If they don’t, they can settle it on the strip. One doesn’t take one’s weapon and shove it under another person’s mask to do damage to the unprotected, soft, vulnerable, and vital areas of the neck, larynx, and area under the chin. Sabre blades break a LOT, as I’m sure you’re aware. After the break, what remains of the blade can be quite sharp. Suppose the young lady in question had used a broken blade, even if by accident??? Your post might not have been about a painful injury but about a serious, or even lethal, injury.

I’m not suggesting you’re not taking the right approach. You know the people in question. I don’t. Having said that, I just cannot tell you how utterly shocked I am by your story. It’s the most vicious thing I’ve ever heard of in fencing at any level. It’s simply unbelievable.

I do know that, in your situation, I would become very, very attuned to how much emphasis your daughter’s club puts on safety. I can’t imagine anyone in my son’s club, from 10 years old on up, not being keenly aware of safety and what sorts of behaviors are tolerated and not tolerated.

I feel like that British sergeant in “Lawrence of Arabia” who shows up at a military hospital and shouts “Outrageous!” over and over again, face reddening in indignation.

CCSurfer · October 17, 2006, 11:58am

Zooser – No matter how mean, impatient, and dismissive your daughter has been to this girl, this does not make it OK or any less dangerous for the 12 y.o. to be in the club. If your daughter taunted another child at a baseball game, would it be OK for that child to come after your daughter and hit her in the neck with a bat??? Allright, you want to talk with your daughter and be firm about sportsmanship and how you insist she treat others, you may want to let her know that if she does not display the sportsmanship fencing demands she’s going to have to sit out the next session. But the consequence of being nasty to another child cannot be that the other child attacks you in the neck with a weapon. I don’t want to minimize the emotional impact of having an older girl be mean to a 12 y.o., but it’s in a whole different category than attacking the “mean girl” with a sword under her bib. The fact that your daughter treated the 12 y.o. badly does not make the 12 y.o. any less dangerous. Understanding sportsmanship isn’t going to make her any less dangerous. Knowing that if she attacks someone with a sword again there’ll be a consequence, in light of the fact that apparently there’s no consequence this time, is grossly insufficient and may be irrelevant to a kid who’s this out of control and has this poor impulse control. (I mean, how does she react when she really, really wants to win but loses?) Go ahead and acknowledge your daughter’s bad behavior when you make your ruckus, but a person who stabs/shoots/physically attacks/seriously injures/jeopardizes the physical safety of someone she even justifiably dislikes, is still a very dangerous person and shouldn’t be in a sport with weapons. Period. What the 12 y.o. did and what your daughter did are not equivalent. Your daughter might have been a real pain to be around, but she didn’t physically attack anyone, injure them, and potentially threaten their lives, health, and safety. (And maybe the 12 y.o. has never done anything like this before because she’s never had a weapon in her hand when she was upset before.)

NYMomof2 · October 17, 2006, 12:19pm

zooser, I don’t know much about fencing, but I clicked on this thread because my older son has been wanting to take it up for months. I haven’t been able to manage it yet- the only fencing club near us is over half an hour away- but I’m interested. At first I thought that this incident had happened during a match. When I read the circumstances, I was shocked. I have two boys, and the older one is 13. When he was younger, a couple of his friends were quite aggressive, to the point that some people wouldn’t let their kids play with them, and I only let my son play with them at our house, and I watched them like a hawk. I have two points to make. First, I never saw anything like what you described, even with 8-year-old boys with very poor impulse control who were near the edge of the normal range. Second, this aggressiveness was outgrown by age 12. A 12-year-old girl who would deliberately stab another child in the neck with a weapon is not normal. It sounds like fencing is not the sport for her; there are plenty of other things she could do and most of them don’t involve dangerous weapons.

I admire your ability to recognize your daughter’s social shortcomings, but in my view her attitude toward the other girl is irrelevant. What would you do if your daughter had done what the other girl did? I’m glad the other mother was horrified and apologetic, but I don’t think that’s enough.

zoosermom · October 17, 2006, 12:37pm

This is a total learning experience for me. You’re all correct that I don’t understand the culture of fencing. So far my contribution has been to write a check to the nice man on the West Side. I’m making a list of questions that I need to ask at the club. I also don’t know what action they have chosen to take because we haven’t been back yet. I’m completely at a loss her, I really am. It’s totally foreign to me. The advice offered here is truly priceless.

siusplau · October 17, 2006, 1:39pm

Son is a sabre fencer–I’ve read throught this thread and the advice is very good. I was recently reading the fencing article on Wikipedia, and it gives a good description of the protective equipment and how it has been upgraded over the years (especially after a fencer died from a broken blade in 1982–I think). This would be very unlikely to occur during a bout, and I agree that the girl should be dealt with quite sternly–if not banned outright. I do feel that most fencers are very respectful of the rules and careful with their equipment, but I am surprised that more “accidents” don’t happen–since tournaments are so crowded and confused–with weapons left all over the place and spectators passing so closely to the strips.
Recently, one of the coaches at my son’s club was injured when he removed his mask to clarify an instruction (telling student to stop, also). Student misunderstood what he was saying and lunged at him–weapon went into coaches mouth and into the tissue at the back of the throat, 1/4 of inch away from…well, you get the picture. But that was a real accident.
Fencers are very competitive, and I’ve seen some real childish behavior out there–throwing equipment, yelling, put-downs etc. If my son behaved that way I would pull him out so fast his head would spin!! It’s good that you are aware of your daughter’s own behavior and can talk to her accordingly. There are parents out there that seem to be oblivious to their own kids’ unsportsmanlike behavior–so it only accelerates. Good luck!

driver · October 17, 2006, 1:52pm

Zoos:
My son fenced for about three years. All I can say is that the maestro at the Fencing Academy of Philadelphia makes it extremely and fiercely clear to all new students that any misuse of the weapons will result in instantaneous, permanent expulsion. I have to agree with the others that the girl in question doesn’t belong in there. Not that you should go and demand her expulsion–I just think it reflects negatively on the program that the girl is still there.

fendrock · October 17, 2006, 4:18pm

“Tarhunt, it seems to me that you may not have seen a sabre bout in a long time. The way you make it sound, sabre is all brawn and no brains. Sabre is not ‘hacking’, my coach trained me and my teammates to extend the arm before you lunge, and slightly touch them with the edge of the blade. We have always known about, and used, the option of the point. In any sabre bout, the point is only an advantage because saberists are so unused to it. Also, it doesnt matter how a fencer attacks in sabre, point or edge, who ever extends their arm first gets the touch. That being said a foilist would not win 15-0, and a truly aggressive saberist would not give a foilist even a chance to score a touch. Anyway, its ridiculous to think of a bout between the two weapons, since there are different parrys and target areas. Please do not insult my weapon!”

ellemenope · October 17, 2006, 4:30pm

It seems that clearing the air between these two girls and letting them know that behavior on BOTH of their parts is unacceptable and must change.

Tarhunt · October 17, 2006, 7:50pm

fendrock’s daughter:

I CERTAINLY didn’t mean to insult your weapon. Far from it! Sabre is just different than the point weapons, that’s all. I enjoy watching sabre very much!!!

Of course it would be silly to match the weapons up in competition, but it was done all the time historically. In Europe, point weapons replaced edged weapons because they were deadlier. Probably the deadliest dueling weapon ever was the smallsword. It was so light and so quick that, in most duels, someone was bound to die ;-).

As you know, the sabre was rarely if ever used by foot soldiers. It was useful on horseback where point attacks were impractical, especially since most horsemen used the swords mostly to ride down and slaughter infantry.

The reason the point supplanted the edge was simple geometry. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. A light, quick sword with point extended represents a shorter distance to target than even the most abbreviated curve of a slash. In addition, any slashing motion that missed meant certain death for a man wielding an edged weapon against a point weapon. Recovery time on a real edged weapon was too long to mount an effective parry against a point weapon.

I actually did see a demonstration of an edged weapon against a point weapon, once. A friend of mine (and fencing instructor) was told that kendo was far superior to d’escrime as a sword style by a kendo instructor. So, they set up a challenge … a kendo practice weapon against an epee. The bout was actually pretty comical. The epeeist always touched first because the kendoist just took more time to get the blade around. It just takes longer to move a sword through a curve than it does to move a point in a straight line. The kendoist would advance with sword held at ready, point up, in front of him or slightly to the side. The minute he moved to the attack, the epeeist fleched into his body or touched him on the hand. The epeeist took a pretty good beating physically, since the kendo guy insisted on following through and hitting him, but the epeeist didn’t lose a single point that I saw.

As for sabrists using the point, I sincerely hope that’s coming back, but I know that I’ve had conversations in the past two years in which I’ve asked sabrists about the point and the reaction has always been the same: using the point is risky because of the way directors call the right of way. If I’m wrong in that, it makes me happy. I much prefer a weapon when it is used in the most versatile manner.

Ideally, the USFA has gotten its act together and is holding directors to higher standards than in the past. I hope so.

Thanks for your reply!

Fencing

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