Fencers Refused to Fight. Then Came the Rule That Changed the Sport
wsj.com
wsj.com
Now, if we could just enforce some speed in baseball, and bring the average game length down nearer two and a half hours.
It's interesting to see the power dynamic here. Here in the UK there would be riots if soccer games were broken for ads (I'm really not exaggerating). Over COVID, a short timeout was added in the middle of each half, and this was conditional on there being no ads in the UK.
That said, I watch a fair amount of NFL and with the intensity of play I'm quite grateful for the pauses. American ads are irrelevant to me anyway.
I sort of want to attend a match in person to find out, now.
There is no director, but there is a huge production team synchronizing everything and making sure that they squeeze in as many commercials as possible without missing any of the action.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-football-is-ev...
Once I got into more free flowing sports, like soccer and rugby, I can't really watch American football anymore.
Same goes for basketball, where the last few minutes of game time are stretched out by timeouts, free throws, and video reviews.
In the UK I've not watched a TV commercial in years (there are none on the BBC, Netflix, Prime or Disney+). All major sports events that are of importance are on the BBC. These are all paid-for subscriptions. I assume to watch Baseball on TV you would have to subscribe to cable? And to have ads on top of your paid subscription just seems greedy.
It only became boring when the stakes got very high and your entire career could be decided on a single engagement and people started overthinking it.
The rulebook says that they have to wear tight-fitting top and bikini bottom, which must not be more than 10cm (4 inches) on the sides.
Here's an incredible short documentary on one particularly notable match that's relevant.
I think you probably mean “fighting sport” rather than just fighting. Fighting in real life is over in seconds typically. Sports have rules around them that can be gamed, hence why there’s stalling to “win”
In real life if your defending yourself you want the confrontation over as quickly as possible or to exit the situation, delays only put you more in danger. I believe on average it’s something like over in 15 seconds, after that it typically ends up on the ground and even then it’s over in less than a minute.
Probably being pedantic, but people sometimes confuse UFC and other martial arts contests with real self defense/street fighting.
Here are the things that you can’t do in UFC for instance that would otherwise end a fight quickly:
1. parry
2. thrust
3. game over
Check out Akira Kurosawa’s films for some fairly accurate samurai fights.
Basically just before guns became popular armor was so good that sword fights usually turned into wrestling followed trying to stick a small knife into some small gap. Various hammers/clubs (or using the pommel of your sword as a hammer) were much more efficient weapons against a person in full plate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLLv8E2pWdk
It does seem like swords were more decorative than actual effective weapons...they do look cool when wielded though.
It's part of the modern Pentathlon.
Note, I'm a foil fencer.
These sorts of rules should be good for the sport, so long as they don't encourage excessive aggression and risk-taking. From what little epee I've actually done, defensive strategies (which to the camera might look like doing nothing), can be effective depending on the opponent's strategy.
1. Block the sword (parry) 2. Draw dagger 3. Stab opponent to death
For rapiers, I think the same applies. Meyer advocates the same with single-hand sword, with more emphasis on feinting. I studied Thibault for a few weeks and while I am no expert, his style focuses on geometrical relationship between your sword and body with the enemy's.
All are fun, though if the fight is lethal they would be horrendous to see.
This is also what I insisted on with my teen children. They were training since 4 years old and the rare times they got into a confrontation they said sorry and left. 10 minutes of humiliation is better than a life long death.
There were very rare cases when either me or them had no other way than fight (a total of maybe four cases). The fight was over after 3 or 5 seconds, with the adversary trying not to choke on his teeth and looking for his testicles while hopping.
It was fast, brutal and nobody was proud of that because it could have ended with a bad strike or a knife in the stomach.
Real fighting is dangerous.
MMA, is not itself a fighting technique, but the name of the sport. It is the official sport rules for using various martial arts techniques together in sporting competitions. UFC is the main organization that promotes the MMA sport.
But yes, if someone trained in kick boxing, judo, Jiu-jitsu etc was attacking me and didn’t use those techniques the fight would indeed end very quickly.
I train specifically to use those techniques first… (Krav Maga), to incapacitate the attacker as fast as possible, and then leave the situation. If for some reason I was unsuccessful, then my attempt would immediately cause the attacker to also attempt to use those techniques.
Either way it would end very fast. No matter how strong someone is, they can’t work out their eyes, grown, throat etc.
Krav Maga, btw can be used under the MMA sport rules, however it’s uncommon, since most of the techniques are banned.
> If you're interested in self defense, just learning the fundamentals of MMA makes the most sense
This is actually the misunderstanding. If you want to learn self defense then learn self defense, not a sport. If you’re focused on MMA your not going to learn how to deal with attackers with knives, guns, etc, or how to deal with attackers using the most incapacitating techniques. You’re also not going to learn how to end the confrontation as quickly as possible since MMA is all about entertainment and sport, meaning fights that last many rounds. Criminals and street fights are dirty by definition, and there’s no holding back.
The earliest MMA events were vale tudo/'anything goes' matches in Brazil where there were no illegal strikes, and yet solid MMA technique prevailed. Guys could attack the eyes, kick the groin, etc., yet the BJJ guys won! No one won because they were solely a Krav Maga eye gouger or something
You’re still talking about a sport. Vale Tudo was a circus attraction meaning it was about making money. Opponents were pre-determined. On top of that knowing you’re not going to die makes a hell of a lot of difference. And I’m not saying martial arts have zero practical value, they do. Just that TV, sports shows, circus attractions, in no way mimic real life.
> No one won because they were solely a Krav Maga eye gouger or something
Except when early matches were ended after someone broke an arm, lost teeth etc? Things which are now banned because it makes the sport less fun.
> If you are unarmed, there are literally no techniques that are effective against a knife- I feel like I shouldn't have to even mention guns.
This is simply untrue. Law enforcement, military, body guards etc routinely practice this stuff. You may get stabbed, but the idea is to end the confrontation, as quickly as possible. That means distractions or incapacitation and then disarming/leaving/running, etc.
Knives are almost always hidden and shielded during an attack. So most of self defense against knives is being aware of the situation. You’re not practicing martial art move sets… your practicing how to keep your wits about you and react quickly.
Here’s a great example. There’s no protracted fight, and is an excellent example of how to end a knife attack before it begins. You need to train not to escalate, to act like you don’t want any trouble so their guard is down, and then quickly end it.
And here’s a rundown of how knife attacks happen, the things good self defense teaches:
https://www.urbanfitandfearless.com/2016/09/self-defence-aga...
That seems reasonably accurate to me given the content of the article, which describes a growing trend of mutual non-agression in epee fencing and various rule changes targeted at putting an end to it.
Epee fencers refused to fight
Because yea, for decades an epee bout was like watching paint dry. Just bouncing around in place for 9 minutes, and then finishing with nobody getting above 10 touches.
> For a fencer’s fourth P-card sanction, the fencer receives a P-black card.
This is quite severe. It means that if you do nothing for half the match (or have other infractions), you are disqualified.
I have mixed feelings about the implementation of the rule, because as I understand it, it penalizes the person who's behind, which in epee can be tactically not great. Less of a problem in foil with the right of way rules.
It's worth noting that saber bouts used to finish in under one minute. Consistently. This is like pre 2000 I forget when. They had to change the rules in the opposite direction - by allowing a viable strategy other than "RUN STRAIGHT AT THEM AS FAST AS POSSIBLE RAAAAAAAAAAAA" (I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not a whole lot).
Foil had the non-combatant issue, but not nearly as bad.
Foil was not without its own brand of silliness too. A couple decades ago, top level foil was all about flicking people on the back. They changed the rules on that too. Probably a good thing, because it was truly ridiculous
Reminds me of anime where two swordmasters do their super special move and you don't find out who won until the loser levels over. Except over and over.
This is so distasteful to me that I haven't been able to watch much fencing. Fencing is fast enough that it would take a lot of viewing to really understand what's going on. So, this has really hampered my appreciation. Appropriate automated video editing could really help me out.
Do they scream like this at practice? Do they practice the screaming? It would be one thing if they vocalized as they struck, as in many martial arts. But this delayed "maybe I got a touch I guess I should ask the judge by screaming" just seems silly.
Not many people are super-cool in that situation.
But, admittedly, the shouting can be a bit of a meme in the fencing community.
But, do they have to take off their face shields after every point? Surely that gets at least as tiresome for experienced fencers as it does for relatively ignorant observers?
Yea it's terrible.
Now imagine going to summer nationals, or JOs, or any of other big circuit tournaments, and going near the saber section, where there's like 40+ consecutive bouts going on all at the same time, with each person yelling and screeching every 10 seconds.
> Do they scream like this at practice?
no
> Do they practice the screaming?
no
Fencing really is a terrible spectator sport. Second probably only to bullseye target shooting without electronic targets lol.
Most of us want to punch the yeller, but he's got a weapon. Oh wait, so do we!
I mean... yea I could see that, if you haven't fenced a lot.
It used to be so much worse though. Like a bout would literally be over in 45 seconds of match time, with a score of 15-10 or something.
The routine would be:
1. Allez!
2. Both fencers charge full tilt at each other, running
3. Some sword stuff as they pass like jousters
4. Both fencers turn around, look at the ref, and yell loudly
5. Ref tries to piece together what they think they saw
1-5 used to happen in like 1 second every time
Now 1-5 happen in like 5+ seconds, and importantly there's a rule that prohibits actual running.
Incentives matter.
The rule was primarily aimed at epee though, where there is no such thing as "counter attack point", since there's no right-of-way rules.
Unless I'm gravely misunderstanding your idea.
And what about subsequent attacks after that? They're just normal where the threat of the counter attack drags us back to fencers not doing anything for 2 minutes?
Or what if play is halted and restarted somewhere other than the centre en-garde lines?
Which, as a foil fencer in a prior life, I am totally on board with. But I don't see it happening lol.
Basically my understanding is that high-level competitive Jiu Jitsu (Gi) can be extremely dull to watch, because of the point system disincentiving taking any risks. So that's when No-Gi submission-only competitions became popular to watch. 20+ minute rounds without any points scorable for the first half.
https://academyoffencingmasters.com/blog/new-unwillingness-t...
The first is that top-level classical time-control matches are draw-ish; there's really no solution to that other than playing some other game. If neither player blunders, often chess is just a draw. Top computer chess engines of equal strength draw even more often.
The second is "grandmaster draws" at shorter time controls; the Champions Chess Tour has had dozens of draws with the exact same 14-move Berlin opening repetition. The solution there is pretty simple: 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw.
Or some different timing control that will force victories by timeout.