Post by schlager7 on Jun 19, 2007 18:27:20 GMT -6
An exchange I picked up on a USFCA group...
Donald Edward James Badowski: In the latest issue of American Fencer Magazine, Jeff Bukantz makes the argument that long contact time (to illimintate the flick) and short closeout time (to reduce the number of two light situations for weak refs) has lead to foil becoming a game of displacing and covering target. By his thinking when we had the flick, there was nowhere to hide.
If the opponent dropped down and counterattacked, you could finish with a nice flick to the back.
Now the counterattacker has the advantage if the attacker didn't follow the opponent down with the point, because the short closeout time will prevent any change of direction from scoring.
So I'm going to ask a question of our members who were around in the pre-flick days of the '70s. Did the fencers do the Duck and Cover then, or is this just a recient development because of the short closeout time?
Dick Oles: Don, please.
Prior to the '70s you didn't look for ways to get around the rules... fencing was still a class act then. If your opponent fell down, you helped him up. In dry foil, if your opponent dropped his weapon, you would pick it up for him.
If he hit you but the judges abstained, you would acknowledge it, particularly at 4-4.
Even CONSIDERING the duck-and-cover bit was almost beneath contempt. And there was a penalty (still in existence?) which said that, if you covered target with shoulder , mask etc. and you got hit there (white light went on), the touch was automatically GOOD (ref's call).
Nowadays, most people consider class to be the acme of stupidity, because after all, it's all about yourself nowadays. You are your ideal.
Ah, well.
Donald Edward James Badowski: In the latest issue of American Fencer Magazine, Jeff Bukantz makes the argument that long contact time (to illimintate the flick) and short closeout time (to reduce the number of two light situations for weak refs) has lead to foil becoming a game of displacing and covering target. By his thinking when we had the flick, there was nowhere to hide.
If the opponent dropped down and counterattacked, you could finish with a nice flick to the back.
Now the counterattacker has the advantage if the attacker didn't follow the opponent down with the point, because the short closeout time will prevent any change of direction from scoring.
So I'm going to ask a question of our members who were around in the pre-flick days of the '70s. Did the fencers do the Duck and Cover then, or is this just a recient development because of the short closeout time?
Dick Oles: Don, please.
Prior to the '70s you didn't look for ways to get around the rules... fencing was still a class act then. If your opponent fell down, you helped him up. In dry foil, if your opponent dropped his weapon, you would pick it up for him.
If he hit you but the judges abstained, you would acknowledge it, particularly at 4-4.
Even CONSIDERING the duck-and-cover bit was almost beneath contempt. And there was a penalty (still in existence?) which said that, if you covered target with shoulder , mask etc. and you got hit there (white light went on), the touch was automatically GOOD (ref's call).
Nowadays, most people consider class to be the acme of stupidity, because after all, it's all about yourself nowadays. You are your ideal.
Ah, well.