Morphy wrote on Apr 30^th, 2012 at 1:03am:

Ha!  Me too.
And the Browncoats never fell, I don't know what you're talking about, Mas...

Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Apr 30^th, 2012 at 3:22pm:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Nice sling! I wonder how far you can throw that boat??????

HurlinThom wrote on Apr 30^th, 2012 at 3:40pm:


Thom, would you mind explaining in layman's terms what you mean by form going out the window and electronic scoring? I've always wished I had done fencing as a kid. It looks cool. I read this comment of yours and decided to look it up on youtube. Seems much different than I would have imagined.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKUEZIrDVT8

That is one thing I hate about the modern world. We take something and change it so much that it loses the entire spirit of what made that thing so cool to begin with. For example, the fencing in this video... It's suicidal. In reality the first guy to hit may score a mortal blow, but he's left himself totally open. The other guy, knowing he just gut stabbed with a sword would have no reason not to lunge forward and plow his sword into his opponent as well. He's going to die either way, might as well take his opponent with him.

Maybe I'm over simplifying things. That's how it appears to me though.

Morphy wrote on May 1^st, 2012 at 9:44pm:

The prob with electronic scoring in sabre (as I see it, having dropped out before that came into use) is that you don't need to deliver a "cut", just lay the blade onto the opponent's target area. There's a little bit of circuitry involved, blades being part of the circuit and a metallic lamé vest covering the target area being the other part. I'm not sure how the head area is wired, but there is obviously a way for that. No force involved, in other words, just contact. Another circuit, blade-to-blade, invalidates hits that are made while the blades are in contact.

Fencing involves a sense of distance, knowing when to launch an attack, telling from the opponent's stance what he's about to do, other intangibles on top of the basic attacks and parries. Sabre's "target" (area where hits are valid) is the head and torso above the hips, as with swordfighting on horseback. You have 5 basic parries, head, upper and lower inside (front) and flank. And there are standard cuts to those areas, plus you cah deliver hits with the point. 

The two guys involved in the photo are immobile, at least horizontally. The squatter is apparently making a cut at the leaper's feet, not good target, and the leaper is taking an opportunity cut at his opponent's back. No proper attack or defense is involved. Of course the photo can't show the action that led up to this scene, so there may have been some good stuff there, but this certainly isn't classical.

Back when I was competing, after meets we'd be changing into street clothes and would compare welts. One guy (Paul was his name) was known for delivering real whacks to the chest; he was about 6'3" and could really deal them.

The whole modern fencing thing is also discussed on various HEMA forums, such as Schola Gladiatoria. Without wishing to go too off-topic here and maybe better placed in the primitive weapons section, here is a link to it if anyone has the time and energy to go through it all.

http://www.fioredeiliberi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18387

K.

One from below