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DerekSmartymans posted:I'm not a fencer, yet, but would love to get into it. I followed the streams during the Olympics and they made it look fun even without knowing the meaning of everything discussed (priority, double hits sometime being worth 0/1/both fencers 1, etc.) Helsinki Bolognese Open is sidesword. You wouldn't have seen it in the Olympics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nHxhY6brDk
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Aug 16, 2016 02:53
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. Exactly how many fingers do you need to fence?
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KyloWinter posted:Helsinki Bolognese Open is sidesword. You wouldn't have seen it in the Olympics. Really neat! Thanks!
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Aug 16, 2016 03:54
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DerekSmartymans posted:I refuse to chop off fingers just to wear decent gloves, though
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Aug 16, 2016 09:30
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Siivola posted:Haha, historical fencing has a bit different gear requirements. The swords in the video above are heavy and rigid in comparison to Olympic ones, so we need gauntlets to keep the fingers safe. The "industry standard" right now is sort of an oven mitt with plastic plates on it, and it's often split down the middle to form a Turtles-style three-fingered shape. The Holy Grail of HEMA gear right now is a lightweight five-fingered gauntlet that protects properly. Ok, that is interesting. Is the glove supposed to protect from getting cut (ooh, kevlar chainmail...orgionl idesa DO NOT STEEL) or from getting bruised and sore (what I imagine the plastic oven mitt is good for)? Sorry if the question seems dumb. I imagine a five-finger glove that could do both would be ideal for that style of "fighting."
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Aug 16, 2016 10:27
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The swords are blunt and bruises I could live with, it's the broken fingers and palms I'm worried about.
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Aug 16, 2016 13:48
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Siivola posted:For some reason I've neglected to drill with my freeplay kit on and oh my gently caress I've been dumb it's really loving important. I hadn't even realized I was pausing between my parry and my riposte because I'd been drilling it too slow and careful. Word of warning: The red dragon's are OK but pretty limiting too. You can't really do the twirly stuff with them so make sure you get used to them first.
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Aug 16, 2016 19:30
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I had a pretty fun fight last night. I had a saber and my opponent had a kriegsmesser. I've used a kriegsmesser before but never fought against one especially with a sword that is much shorter. It was a warm night so we went outside and I think that helped a bit I was able to use the uneven ground and trees to a bit of an advantage. Hanging guard was really helpful as well. I'm a big fan of sparring with mixed weapons and that was a good one.
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Aug 16, 2016 21:27
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Ultragonk posted:I had a pretty fun fight last night. I had a saber and my opponent had a kriegsmesser. I've used a kriegsmesser before but never fought against one especially with a sword that is much shorter. It was a warm night so we went outside and I think that helped a bit I was able to use the uneven ground and trees to a bit of an advantage. Hanging guard was really helpful as well. I'm a big fan of sparring with mixed weapons and that was a good one. A steel kriegsmesser!? Pray-tell who's the manufacturer?
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Aug 17, 2016 15:13
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DandyLion posted:A steel kriegsmesser!? Pray-tell who's the manufacturer? Ah sorry it was a Black Fencer synthetic. Both were.
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Aug 18, 2016 06:01
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Holy poo poo fencing without a glove is an awful idea. Even a foil hurts like hell and will break unprotected skin. On that note, I fenced a guy today who had taped a small plastic plate to the little finger of his glove - not strictly legal, but apparently he'd been hit there so badly once that his whole hand swelled up for a week. As for me, I don't know how I'm doing it but I lost 3 points against him because my point just kept bouncing off without triggering. At one stage, three times off his arm on what would have otherwise been a beautiful counterattack 
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Aug 21, 2016 09:52
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I think if he taped the little plate to his finger, or attached it to the inside of the glove it'd be legal. I've heard of people taping on plastic plates or wearing inner gloves to protect against flicks to the hand causing damage. As long as it's inside the glove you can wear whatever you want.
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Aug 21, 2016 14:19
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I don't usually share videos of people saying dumb things but  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wyz0D-Z6nI
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Aug 26, 2016 10:44
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Siivola posted:I don't usually share videos of people saying dumb things but It's always an "I don't like thing" kind of issue. I don't see a reasob why HEMA/Classical fencing and modern fencing can't coexist as two different things that, sometimes, cater to very different kinds of people. TBH in 18 years of fencing I haven't heard anything bad against HEMA, but HEMA fencers love to bash modern fencing for the above mentioned issue.
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Aug 26, 2016 13:21
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Future Days posted:It's always an "I don't like thing" kind of issue. I don't see a reasob why HEMA/Classical fencing and modern fencing can't coexist as two different things that, sometimes, cater to very different kinds of people. TBH in 18 years of fencing I haven't heard anything bad against HEMA, but HEMA fencers love to bash modern fencing for the above mentioned issue. I betcha the types of HEMA people that complain about sport fencing also complain about the type of HEMAers that are fine with sport fencing (and are probably on the path of sportifying HEMA). Being self-masturbatory about playing with fake swords "the way it was meant to be" is just another permutation of that insufferable nerd indignation you see everywhere else on the internet. Those of us that are reasonable (sport and HEMA) recognize that we aren't actually playing with swords, so it's okay if we don't always (if at all, in sport's case) treat them like swords.
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Aug 26, 2016 14:00
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I think what draws a lot of people to HEMA is the promise of "real swordfighting" and for some reason we tend to take that to mean "killing dudes". And then we look at sabre fencing and post "this so wouldn't work on the street  " in comments all over the internet while writing articles about how HEMA peeps should dress ~professionally~ because we're all sick of getting confused with SCA nerds. Also I'm jealous of all you fit people doing real sports. But on the upside, I enrolled on a foil beginners' course and I'm really looking forward to it. 
Siivola fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Aug 26, 2016 |
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Aug 26, 2016 14:00
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Siivola posted:I think what draws a lot of people to HEMA is the promise of "real swordfighting" and for some reason we tend to take that to mean "killing dudes". And then we look at sabre fencing and post "this so wouldn't work on the street E:. Have fun with the foil! It's great.
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Aug 26, 2016 14:52
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Siivola posted:I think what draws a lot of people to HEMA is the promise of "real swordfighting" and for some reason we tend to take that to mean "killing dudes". And then we look at sabre fencing and post "this so wouldn't work on the street My HEMA club practices has a sister sport fencing club where we practice in the same space and attend each other's events. There's a lot of mutual respect there. Neither is perfect though. My biggest problem with sport fencing, though, is that the goal of the fencer should be to protect oneself first and strike your opponent second. Priority rules were instituted to promote this but then it's up to the judges to determine what constitutes the beginning of an attack. What Matt Easton proposes is the addition of an afterblow rule to epee to promote protecting yourself before AND after the exchange because to the untrained eye, i.e. to the spectator, it just looks like two people colliding with no clear winner. Even the wikipedia page on fencing uses  as the representative image for sport fencing. It all depends on what the FIE wants to promote though. Remember this is an outsider's perspective looking in.Also if you are looking to get into fencing for fitness you probably won't find what you are looking for. Doing sports without any supplemental activity will lead to muscle imbalances and possible injury. Someone posted this workout which would be a much better and safer way to become fitter and at the same time training for your specific interest.
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Aug 26, 2016 17:28
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KyloWinter posted:
Perfect!. Couldn't have illustrated the posts above better 
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Aug 26, 2016 18:08
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KyloWinter posted:Sport fencers should pretend they're playing with real swords even though they're not because I want to suck all the fun out of sport fencing.
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Aug 26, 2016 18:24
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I actually don't care what sport fencing does as I'm not part of the community. I'm just speaking from a spectator's perspective. Stop being a dumbfuck.
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Aug 26, 2016 18:52
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KyloWinter posted:Priority rules were instituted to promote this but then it's up to the judges to determine what constitutes the beginning of an attack. I know you probably didn't mean it super harshly, but I do get really tried of this quibble. Just because the ref is interpreting the action, it doesn't mean that they're being biased or making things up. Like, I hear this from sport fencers as well and don't understand it. I get it that I have a different perspective on this as a ref, so I assume it more from ignorance than malice. Specifically, the training and rule explanations/interpretations are very much given in the form of mentor-student, like how fencing itself is very much coach-student. So unless you've trained as a ref or had a coach who keeps up with this, you're unlikely to know that there is a justification for a marching attack, what an attack compose is, or the difference between a beat and parry. This is certainly not helped by the lack of authorized definitions and examples. Whether that is because of a desire for secrets, the concern over constantly changing definitions, or the lack of conviction on the part of the FOC or FIE is anyone's guess. There is consensus among the international cadre over what means what, and to willfully have a contrary opinion is to do a disservice to the athletes and would put into question one's integrity. quote:What Matt Easton proposes is the addition of an afterblow rule to epee to promote protecting yourself before AND after the exchange because to the untrained eye, i.e. to the spectator, it just looks like two people colliding with no clear winner. I would argue that's what it looks like to differently trained eye. The untrained eye of a sports spectator probably understands the concept of a tie and can quickly swallow both get a touch. At a glance, the described "afterblow rule" is pretty poorly thought and is a radical departure from everything that is epee fencing. It eliminates the double touch and, possibly, makes it a penalty. It greatly increases lockout time to being about 3 times that of foil, which currently has the longest lockout of 300 ms. This would make doubles far more likely and result in far less touches being scored. I fail to see the appeal of this change.
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Aug 26, 2016 21:05
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Epee is, if anything, the most spectator-friendly of the weapons: get a light, get a point, no questions asked. As long as you avoid non-combativity issues (speaking of fighting like you have a real sword). Foil and saber are hard for non-fencers to follow -- and can even be hard for fencers to follow -- but so is trying to watch any sport that you've never seen before (ex, trying to get an American to watch cricket). Fencing on TV would do well with a big investment in commentary, but probably more that we can afford to throw. Commentators that know what they're talking about and can communicate it would be a godsend; show the ref better so it's easier to follow the calls; show replays from the start of the action, not just the hit, etc. There's so much that could be done before you even have to start talking about changing fundamental rules.
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Aug 26, 2016 21:21
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Nah, some sports aren't really that hard to follow at all. Basketball and Soccer all have lots of complexities the unskilled watcher won't notice, but there's not usually much in the way of wondering "what's going on?" overall. Stuff like sprinting or sport shooting is even easier to follow. Fencing is always going to inherently involve very small points moving very quickly in lots of different ways, with complex rules, there's not much that can be done to turn it into an "easy" sport to watch.
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Aug 26, 2016 21:34
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BirdOfPlay posted:I know you probably didn't mean it super harshly, but I do get really tried of this quibble. Just because the ref is interpreting the action, it doesn't mean that they're being biased or making things up. Like, I hear this from sport fencers as well and don't understand it. I never said there was anything inherently wrong with using judges. I meant to only highlight the difficulty of trying to create rules that promote defending oneself. BirdOfPlay posted:I would argue that's what it looks like to differently trained eye. The untrained eye of a sports spectator probably understands the concept of a tie and can quickly swallow both get a touch. Before i started training HEMA or even knew about HEMA I couldn't understand why bouts were scored the way they were as both people would touch and each celebrate the point. In this segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs8O-MFu4yU we can see Stephen Colbert doesn't understand why he isn't scoring points despite getting his light to turn on. BirdOfPlay posted:At a glance, the described "afterblow rule" is pretty poorly thought and is a radical departure from everything that is epee fencing. It eliminates the double touch and, possibly, makes it a penalty. It greatly increases lockout time to being about 3 times that of foil, which currently has the longest lockout of 300 ms. This would make doubles far more likely and result in far less touches being scored. I fail to see the appeal of this change. I'm not sure Matt Easton was actually saying "this is the way the rule should be." I believe it was more points to think about, again, with the goal of protecting oneself.
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Aug 26, 2016 23:31
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Ok. FIrst. Sport fencing is "real" fencing, so Easton can gently caress off with that. Second, if Easton want to turn epee into literally nothing but wrist-touches and the most defensive fencing you've ever seen, then we should implement the afterblow rule. It may be interesting to fence as a practice exercise or for fun, but it would be much less interesting to watch, not more. Every bout, especially those that added the "doubles = point lost" penalty, would end 1-0. Every one. Third. Epee is already the easiest to watch and understand as a spectator, and doubles are pretty rare at the higher level until one fencer is using them tactically because they're significantly up, and that's a very easy concept to show and explain to casual viewers. (The reason that making afterblows a penalty is loving stupid is that the fencer that is down would use them tactically to bring the score down to 0-0, btw). Fifth, you and Easton are basically describing how confusing sabre and foil are to newcomers (and they are) and then using it to suggest a change to epee, which is weird. Sixth, if we're going for "realism" as if its, for some reason better, why even put a time or score limit? gently caress it, first person to get a touch wins. If there's an afterblow, the competitors are both eliminated from the tournament. Finally, why did we even decide that the point is to emulate the very rare duels to the death? Like, poo poo, why is this even assumed to be a good goal? Are we trying to make it more interesting to watch? Then afterblow in epee would be a horrendous failure. What are we trying to do here? Because if you want to make a sport that will somehow produce duels like people see on TV, I don't see it ending well at all. Here's video of one of the last duels. Its boring as poo poo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e68nuAcSuWQ Here's video from the 1960 Olympic epee, so roughly contemporary. Its irritatingly edited, but it personally looks more interesting to watch than the above. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNNxYZ8tT8 I know I've heard of there being a comparison video showing the same person doing sport fencing and duel fencing at a very high level, but I can't find it. I'll let you know. edit: Went and made it clear when I'm talking about Easton. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 01:04
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Ravenfood posted:Sixth, if we're going for "realism" as if its, for some reason better, why even put a time or score limit? gently caress it, first person to get a touch wins. If there's an afterblow, the competitors are both eliminated from the tournament. Finally, why did we even decide that the point is to emulate the very rare duels to the death? Most samurai sword-to-sword battles supposedly ended up with both dying. The 'no-doubles' goal is a lofty one, but it extremely hard to avoid. Finally HEMA isn't any more real than 'sports' fencing or kendo. It still follows an artificial rule set that determines the winner and loser.
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Aug 27, 2016 01:27
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Ravenfood posted:FIrst. Sport fencing is "real" fencing, so this guy can gently caress off with that. I never said it wasn't. Ravenfood posted:Second, if you want to turn epee into literally nothing but wrist-touches and the most defensive fencing you've ever seen, then you implement the afterblow rule. It may be interesting to fence as a practice exercise or for fun, but it would be much less interesting to watch, not more. Every bout, especially those that added the "doubles = point lost" penalty, would end 1-0. Every one. I don't want to turn epee into anything. Ravenfood posted:Third. Epee is already the easiest to watch and understand as a spectator, and doubles are pretty rare at the higher level until one fencer is using them tactically because they're significantly up, and that's a very easy concept to show and explain to casual viewers. (The reason that making afterblows a penalty is loving stupid is that the fencer that is down would use them tactically to bring the score down to 0-0, btw). I never proposed the penalty. And never said Matt Easton's proposal was perfect or should be implemented. Only that afterblows should be thought about. Ravenfood posted:Fifth, you and this guy are basically describing how confusing sabre and foil are to newcomers (and they are) and then using it to suggest a change to epee, which is weird. I'd say they are all equally confusing, but fair point. Ravenfood posted:Sixth, if we're going for "realism" as if its, for some reason better, why even put a time or score limit? gently caress it, first person to get a touch wins. If there's an afterblow, the competitors are both eliminated from the tournament. Sure. Good things to think about. Ravenfood posted:Finally, why did we even decide that the point is to emulate the very rare duels to the death? Like, poo poo, why is this even assumed to be a good goal? Are we trying to make it more interesting to watch? Then afterblow in epee would be a horrendous failure. What are we trying to do here? Because if you want to make a sport that will somehow produce duels like people see on TV, I don't see it ending well at all. I never said it was meant to emulate a duel to the death. I'm pretty sure foil is meant to emulate first blood drawn from the torso though. I may be mistaken however. Thanks for the videos but I can't really see what's going on in the first one. ImplicitAssembler posted:Most samurai sword-to-sword battles supposedly ended up with both dying. Never said it was any more real. I also think people are making some pretty big assumptions about what I am saying and jumping to conclusions about opinions I hold. This thread seems pretty anti-HEMA despite me not ever comparing the two. barkbell fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 03:43
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Penalize too many doubles. That's how HEMA longpoint does it. Three open doubles (hit each other without even trying to protect yourself) and you both receive 0 points for the match. As for hitting each other in the hands...what makes that boring? poo poo, make getting a hit in the face or torso worth more than a hit to the hands/legs. That would be rad. I personally find sport fencing to be incredibly boring to watch. I think it's mainly in the way it's presented, but even when it's explained to me it looks like flailing and then both fencers get hit and someone gets the point. At the bar recently while watching the olympics, patrons were straight up asking "wait, why did that person get the point when the other person hit him". Some really cool stuff happens from time to time, but the majority of what happens looks indecipherable. The sport has already become artificial, so why not add more artificiality in a direction of verisimilitude? I'm not saying they should change the rules of the game. People like it for what it is, but it's moving further and further away from what "real" fencing is and was. It's a fencing game at this point, just like a HEMA tournament or kendo or gekken tournaments or whatever.
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Aug 27, 2016 04:06
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Making it more like "real" fencing (whatever that means) doesn't do anything towards making it easier for people that know nothing about it. The happenings of a HEMA bout mean nothing to me, but that doesn't mean it's fatally flawed. I don't understand the classical mindset, and that's fine. tl;dr there are many types of fencing for everybody's inclinations, and none are wrong because in the end it's all just a game. All fencing is and always has been an artificial abstraction; the only time it's not is in a battle, and I for one won't be doing that. dupersaurus fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 04:19
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I disagree with your statement that all fencing is artificial. Tournaments are artificial. Fencing for points is artificial. Training isn't, and what you train for isn't, unless you are training specifically to get points or to win tournaments. Otherwise the same argument could be made that all martial arts are artificial unless you are in the middle of a street fight.
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Aug 27, 2016 04:50
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If you're not in immediate peril of life or limb, yes it's artificial. You can be performing your drills according to the books of the great masters, but if you screw something up and get pretend disembowled... well let's just try it again. No matter how much you try and push it out, it'll always be there in the back of your mind, the knowledge that you'll be leaving practice alive. We're not emulating actual fights, we're playing the practice manuals
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Aug 27, 2016 05:00
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dupersaurus posted:If you're not in immediate peril of life or limb, yes it's artificial. You can be performing your drills according to the books of the great masters, but if you screw something up and get pretend disembowled... well let's just try it again. No matter how much you try and push it out, it'll always be there in the back of your mind, the knowledge that you'll be leaving practice alive. We're not emulating actual fights, we're playing the practice manuals Training is the art. The act of using the art is the art. The two exist concurrently. You can make the argument that using aspects of the art in a gamefied setting is using the art. But saying any one facet of it is the only time it exists is pedantic at best.
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Aug 27, 2016 05:11
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KyloWinter posted:I'm not sure Matt Easton was actually saying "this is the way the rule should be." I believe it was more points to think about, again, with the goal of protecting oneself. Sorry I thought Easton's proposal was the one we were discussing, not some unknown rule that might work.  He was saying this is what the rule should be, hence why he put out a loving video describing it. Hell, at the end of his video he even makes the brilliant deduction that serious athletes would adapt within weeks to the radical rule change he is proposing. Also, we're not super anti-HEMA, but you're specifically couching your language in a pretentious and smug manner. I've seen phrases like "defending oneself" in reference to sport fencing far too often being used in a dismissive manner than not. You yourself even bring it up as if it would make sport fencing "better" than it is, as if it is a self-evident fact. I'm a competitive rear end in a top hat; I protect myself by winning the bout. This is why I fence. Verisimilidude posted:I'm not saying they should change the rules of the game. People like it for what it is, but it's moving further and further away from what "real" fencing is and was. It's a fencing ftfy
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Aug 27, 2016 08:07
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I'll say it again, sport fencing is paintball/laser tag for swords. Probably some transferrable skills to using real live weapons, but so long as the rules make some sense and the game is fun, then that's good enough for me. Not gonna comment on martial arts, they can do what they like. As far as I'm concerned, that guy on youtube might as well complain that athletics is bullshit and Bolt's 100m records don't count because they're running on nice flat tracks instead of cross-country while wearing army boots and getting strafed by an F-16. Touching on a couple of things that came up a few times: the idea that your own safety should be paramount pretty much is the priority rule. If someone threatens you, you aren't going to score a point unless that threat is removed first. Want to be a suicidal dickbag and blindly counter, resulting in a double touch? No points for you. Sure, the flipside of this is that it encourages risk-taking once you gain priority, but that's what the lockout timer is for. On that note, you could consider the lockout time in epee an afterblow rule of sorts - it's hella quick but you have to draw a line somewhere. Feels right when you're fencing, anyway; there are few times when I've got countered (or failed to counter in time to get a light) and not been able to see quite clearly how I hosed up - aimed for far instead of close target, led with the arm rather than the point, tall guy bullshit  , didn't lock the line out properly on my riposte, etc. In this respect, much like priority, the net effect is to encourage you to prioritise your own "safety", to the point where people complain that epeeists are actually too cagey about committing to attacks.There are kinda two issues currently with this - the speed involved and the problem with simultaneous attacks off the mark in sabre. Both of these can make it hard to watch/follow if you aren't familiar with what's going on, but as has been mentioned I'm sure it could be helped a lot with decent slow-mo replays showing the full action, and good commentary. poo poo is always going to be fast at high levels. I have yet to see a proper bout with the new sabre rules, but maybe it'll help? Conversely, living in New Zealand I have no idea what the hell is going on with American football and find it more or less unwatchable. It's hard enough remembering how the offside rule applies in soccer, and I still don't know what triggers a ruck/maul/lineout/penalty in rugby. [edit]Penalising doubles by giving both fencers zero score would lead very quickly to people deliberately going for the 0-0 if they realise they're not in a position to actually win. Moreso if you have an opportunity to knock out the top seed while your teammate tears up the other side of the DE bracket! It might be counterintuitive, but I would put money on it that learning the best techniques to legally score a double versus a better fencer would instantly become part of standard training. Publicity images for fencing are usually lovely, since the things that look the flashiest to the uninitiated are often risky manoeuvres or outright fuckups that nonetheless look interesting. The dude on the left's epee seems to be not only bending terrifyingly in the wrong direction (the one that makes it snap) and worryingly close to slipping under the other guy's bib... Crazy Achmed fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 09:32
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Crazy Achmed posted:[edit]Penalising doubles by giving both fencers zero score would lead very quickly to people deliberately going for the 0-0 if they realise they're not in a position to actually win. Moreso if you have an opportunity to knock out the top seed while your teammate tears up the other side of the DE bracket! It might be counterintuitive, but I would put money on it that learning the best techniques to legally score a double versus a better fencer would instantly become part of standard training. 
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Aug 27, 2016 11:09
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KyloWinter posted:I never said it wasn't. What works in a duel, what works in practice for a duel, and what works in practice are different things. (See immediately how the sport fencers in the thread thought about how they'd abuse the "afterblows penalize both fencers rule" in a bout, because while I see where he's coming from, that rule doesn't work in the context of sport). Oh, and by the way, what works in a duel to first blood and what works in a duel to the death are different things too, and Matt Easton somehow keeps conflating those two, too. And I'm sure there were people sneering at people dueling to first blood about how that wasn't real, either. So epee can't be an effective training tool for duelists, because the emphasis on "first touch" means that a sport epeeist will happily flick to the wrist while diving chest-first onto a point because they'll win-by-lockout-timer. In a duel, that's, uh, dumb. And in practice, same thing: the consequences aren't there as much, so things like "there's a sword point in my face" aren't actually scary because its practice. Incidentally, this is why Point-in-Line gives you priority in foil and sabre: because if your opponent puts a sword tip in your face, you should probably do something about it. So, in summary. Sport fencing arose because trying to safely practice for duels results in strange quirks because practice isn't "real", and then people decided the practice itself was cool so sportified that. See it? Duel to death with smallswords needs practice and everyone keeps mutually killing each other => lets emphasize a practice ruleset that forces you to deal with danger => hey this is fun => modern foil, eventually. Duels to first blood need to be practiced, so people practiced going to first blood, which was fun, so sport epee happened. Sabre, really briefly, had a similar progression to foil in that it went cavalry weapon > practice > sportified practice. I think. Sabre is weird. If you've done HEMA, you've got to know that a newbie flailing away with no thought for defending themselves is going to have a pretty good chance at hitting you. People do that a lot in beginning sport fencing, too. Epee's a mess low-level, because defending is harder than attacking. Watch two new fencers in epee: they'll basically always counter-attack into an oncoming attack without even trying to close the line and a lot of bouts are decided based on who misses fewer of those simultaneous attacks. The most common action in a bout between two fencers of ~1 year is probably "attack with a disengage" with the other fencer "circle parries into a counter-attack without waiting to see if they picked up the blade on their parry". In effect, this looks like two fencers swirling their blades around each other once and then both attacking to the near shoulder/chest. So, if you want people to not do that, you put them on foil, which forces them to practice defending themselves rather than using defense-by-offense. Like, sure, at this point foil's morphed a lot from that because what constitutes a parry doesn't actually require you to effectively keep your opponent's line closed, but that's okay too: that means your opponent has to always be practicing "what happens if I am parried and will shortly be stabbed in the chest". Which is why foilists are much faster on the recovery and much, much less interested in remising that epeeists. In practice, I've set artificial rules to try to encourage behavior that will be beneficial for winning bouts as skill improves, even if the optimal behavior for winning now won't be changed. One of my favorite practice bout rulesets for epee is to let my opponent ban a certain type of action (either for both of us or for one of us, I change my mind on this) every few touches. That is, lets say I get three touches on my opponent. He can now say "alright, you're not allowed to score points off of a fleche". For the rest of the bout, any lights I get off of a fleche are ignored (yes, this does mean that I can halt the action with a fleche if I time him out, for the sport-fencers immediately looking to game the system). So then I get three more touches, and now I am not allowed to get points off of wrist touches or a fleche. The idea here is to force yourself to practice using techniques you aren't good at. For example: I'm pretty drat good at foot touches. Its epee, so they can't be used regularly or they'll get punished, but they are 100% my go-to for momentum-changing. If I've lost or gained a few points in quick succession, I'm going to seriously think about setting up a foot touch. So, what do I do against someone who I know is absolutely fantastic at punishing foot touches? Hell if I know, but a drill like the one I described lets me practice not having a tool available to me, which is a good skill to practice. As I hinted at, if you turned this drill into a sport, the rule that works for a drill would immediately be abused in a sport context, just like priority is so divorced from its original intent of "don't get killed because you're too dumb to parry Tybalt's attack." If you wanted to make a sport be more like an "actual" duel to first blood, I'd say you should do something like give a point for a touch anywhere on the body. Three points win the bout, but a fencer can withdraw from a bout early voluntarily, which enters them into some kind of repechage round, maybe double-elimination. Use epees with foil lockout timers. A touch on foil target area eliminates you from the tournament directly, as does losing a bout outright. I'm not sure what the penalty for hitting your opponent on the torso should be, but there should be one, because its kind of rude to kill your opponent in a duel to first blood. And, if we're trying to sportify duels to the death, why are we starting from fencing instead of something else in the first place? And on that note: HEMA folks who want to make HEMA a sport. Any rule you make will get stretched to the breaking point, and the more you make it a sport, and the more you practice trying to win in that sport, the less you'll be trying to study historical martial arts. You'll be practicing to win the sport based on historical martial arts, and this will necessarily be reflected in your technique. And you know what? That's cool. There's nothing wrong with that. But you will never, ever be able to make a sport that will result in identical techniques as described by Fiore or Lichtenauer or whichever text you're looking at. You might be able to get close, but my impression is that the closer your ruleset gets to that, the more it will rely on judges. Which is okay, but then you have all the bias of "well, I think my attack was executed with full intent and was controlled enough to count as a hit, but the judge disagreed, this is bullshit" (see BirdOfPlay getting grumpy at people not understanding that the rules of priority are very well defined and are very consistent across the world). Now that I have talked way too much, what are you saying? Because its apparently "well, think about this rule I am not suggesting be implemented, but you should think about it for reasons I won't say." This thread talks about HEMA more than sport fencing, most of the time. It might be a little more skewed towards sport because, well, the Olympics just happened. You've got a weird chip on your shoulder about this, but if it makes you feel better, I'll go back and clarify when I'm responding to you, KyloWinter, specifically, and when I'm responding to Matt Easton said in the video that you, KyloWinter, linked. And, if you're wondering why sometimes there's antagonism, well, just keep reading, because this guy basically shows up and starts preaching that sport fencing isn't fencing and isn't real. Which is kind of condescending and kind of pointless, respectively. As was your attitude. Also, I never mentioned HEMA either, you brought it up in your response to me. I was responding to you posting a video about a guy who decided he didn't like my sport and wanted to change it for reasons that he assumed were self-evident and they are not. I like most of the HEMA guys at my club, like I said earlier. I like HEMA. poo poo, I used to do HEMA before I really got into epee, and if there's no epee happening I've suited up for rapier and dagger with them because its fun and they're not condescendingly sneering about how I'm just "playing a game, not like us 'real' fencers". And I don't tell them how they should change their sport to suit what I think real fencing is because they're just silly nerds playing with swords unlike me, the real athlete. Unlike, say, this guy below. Verisimilidude posted:I disagree with your statement that all fencing is artificial. Tournaments are artificial. Fencing for points is artificial. Training isn't, and what you train for isn't, unless you are training specifically to get points or to win tournaments. Otherwise the same argument could be made that all martial arts are artificial unless you are in the middle of a street fight. Verisimilidude posted:As for hitting each other in the hands...what makes that boring? poo poo, make getting a hit in the face or torso worth more than a hit to the hands/legs. That would be rad. I personally find sport fencing to be incredibly boring to watch. I think it's mainly in the way it's presented, but even when it's explained to me it looks like flailing and then both fencers get hit and someone gets the point. At the bar recently while watching the olympics, patrons were straight up asking "wait, why did that person get the point when the other person hit him". Some really cool stuff happens from time to time, but the majority of what happens looks indecipherable. The sport has already become artificial, so why not add more artificiality in a direction of verisimilitude? Are we trying to go back to some platonic ideal? Maybe you should define it first instead of believing that we all agree with you. Are we trying to make it look cool to a complete layman? Should a fencer get bonus points based on how much like Errol Flynn or a Jedi they can look like? What do you even want? And with that. 
Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 14:56
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^My thoughts exactly.
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Aug 27, 2016 15:11
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I wasn't making the argument that because it's boring to watch it should be changed. You or someone else made the point that it would look boring if the rules were changed, all I was saying is it already does look boring. I get that you're very defensive about your sport, but sport fencing is already far removed from its roots, and you should acknowledge that. And that's all that I'm saying. Is it "real" fencing? Ehh. It has elements of "real" fencing. It has timing, distance management, and you're using a sword-like object, but once you start implementing tactics to take advantage of rules or electronic registration of hits you're removing yourself from what "real" fencing is. Saying "sport fencing is fencing" is inherently wrong. Sport fencing is just sport fencing. It is the artificial sport of a simulated fencing game.
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Aug 27, 2016 15:33
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Verisimilidude posted:I wasn't making the argument that because it's boring to watch it should be changed. You or someone else made the point that it would look boring if the rules were changed, all I was saying is it already does look boring. Why don't you define what "real" fencing is, then, since you're apparently using a different definition from the rest of the world. edit: Guys, marathon runners aren't real marathon runners because we didn't make all the participants fight a battle against spear-carrying Persians first, and when they cross the finish line they don't have to yell "nenikekamen" before dying. I'm just saying that so-called "marathon" runners should accept that they've divorced from their roots and are just doing a "sport". Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 15:52
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I'm on a hot take roll today, so here's one for you guys: The "reality" we glorify in HEMA is entirely invented based on fragmented scholarship, pop history and movies. I mean, when kit up for freeplay, I have no loving clue what sort of role I'm supposed to play. Am I getting jumped in a back alley? Am I trying to take this guy prisoner, or vice versa? Is this guy just being a huge poo poo and honor demands I stab him in the face? Isn't that kind of important when you consider what you're supposed to be doing? Haha no, it's just ~the duel~. The same duel I'd fight with a sidesword, sabre or one of those fabulous dueling shields. Whoever doesn't get hit wins. 
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Aug 27, 2016 15:57
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