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Hazzard posted:Look at the hand being thrown out behind the right fencer. That is in manuals, I don't have a source to hand, this was removed from the style before we get lots of images. But this is something in my manuals, seen lots of the best fencers do, both HEMA and MOF, so there's probably something to it. So I'm trying it more. This is a big part of Enzo Lefort's fencing; watch how he pulls back his right hand and attacks with an almost punch-like motion. Link. This is bit odd to me as he's a foil fencer. You see sabre fencers do it because their wrist and arm is a valid target, so keeping it back is more important than foil, where hitting the wrist only results in "off target."
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Aug 29, 2022 15:11
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Cessna posted:This is a big part of Enzo Lefort's fencing; watch how he pulls back his right hand and attacks with an almost punch-like motion. Link. I would guess he's trying to deny the opponent his blade, stopping them from either taking priority, or doing a beat action to displace Lefort's blade. Both of which could get him hit. And what he does with his left hand looks like it's helping him balance. You can see him clearly throw his off-hand behind him on a couple of lunges, which I think helps with balance. I do it a lot more with heavier swords, like my 1.3 kg basket-hilt. 
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Sep 13, 2022 10:22
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Yeah, I do that almost subconsciously on slightly off-line lunges with my broadsword. Off arm comes up off the hip to counterbalance the momentum of the sword and keep my center of balance over the middle of my lead foot to recover.
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Sep 13, 2022 23:26
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Hazzard posted:I would guess he's trying to deny the opponent his blade, stopping them from either taking priority, or doing a beat action to displace Lefort's blade. Both of which could get him hit. And what he does with his left hand looks like it's helping him balance. You can see him clearly throw his off-hand behind him on a couple of lunges, which I think helps with balance. I do it a lot more with heavier swords, like my 1.3 kg basket-hilt. Agreed, as a foilist this is to keep the blade where it's difficult to find and parry, so he doesn't reveal his real line of attack until it's too late. Varying your hand position on the approach can also screw up your opponent's sense of distance - I like to change the length of my en garde position from point to point, and quite often it lets me creep in close enough to get a fast attack off that my opponent thought was going to fall short. That's also a very nice looking sword!
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Sep 23, 2022 08:11
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Crazy Achmed posted:Agreed, as a foilist this is to keep the blade where it's difficult to find and parry, so he doesn't reveal his real line of attack until it's too late. Varying your hand position on the approach can also screw up your opponent's sense of distance - I like to change the length of my en garde position from point to point, and quite often it lets me creep in close enough to get a fast attack off that my opponent thought was going to fall short. I love it, my only problem is that it's a got a little too much weight in the blade, but that's a minor gripe. I just wish I could use it more often. And I had a good experience with the smith who made it as well. https://balefireblades.com/ My blade broke within warranty, which was a year. And he'd extended all of his warranties to the end of covid, so they didn't count until people told him they were using them. I sent the sword back, they replaced the blade and then sent it back to me without charging me postage. They took about 6 months longer than they said, but that's just what smiths are like. You don't get really good swords unless they're someone who is making it themselves to send to you. That's why he doesn't make sparring swords unless you pay him a lot more. He wants to make the expensive custom swords for people, it makes a lot more money and is more fun.
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Sep 23, 2022 23:54
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Hazzard posted:I love it, my only problem is that it's a got a little too much weight in the blade, but that's a minor gripe. I just wish I could use it more often. And I had a good experience with the smith who made it as well. There is a very pretty saber on that site just mocking me. I don't even like sabers! (Not in particular at least, like they're fine I'm not saber-racist.)
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Sep 24, 2022 04:49
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Xiahou Dun posted:There is a very pretty saber on that site just mocking me. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated and dissatisfied with sabre and am seriously considering switching to foil.
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Sep 26, 2022 16:44
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Oh, what's frustrating it about it? I find it fun for a change every so often, but I'm just not fit enough to keep up in the 4m.
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Sep 27, 2022 08:21
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Crazy Achmed posted:Oh, what's frustrating it about it? I find it fun for a change every so often, but I'm just not fit enough to keep up in the 4m. 80%+ of the points take place entirely in the box. It's "ready, fence" and a game of quick-draw rock-paper-scissors that's resolved by the ref looking at distinctions ("your elbow was just slightly less extended") that are so fine that I can't meaningfully correct them when I move; as a result, it feels like a succession of coin-flips that I usually lose to 14 year old kids with xBox trained reflexes who the ref likes better. At least in foil there's back-and-forth. It feels like I'm actually doing something as opposed to just launching into a coin-toss. Edit: And I don't think it's "fitness" in the box. I'm in good shape; I think it's just raw reflexes, which aren't something you can practically train.
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Sep 27, 2022 14:57
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I really want to like sabre, but it's just too silly. And often you can ask 4 different referees and get 4 different opinions.
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Sep 27, 2022 18:26
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Exactly, yes. When you go to video review and review frame by frame still can't get anywhere near a consistent call with multiple refs reviewing it (as happened to me at a recent tournament) I think you've reached the point where the sport is meaningless. I'm hard pressed to think of another sport like this. It's like playing baseball where there's no defined strike zone at all and the call is based on whether the ump thinks you could have hit the ball or not. It could be really fun, but it's just too arbitrary.
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Sep 27, 2022 18:36
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Cessna posted:80%+ of the points take place entirely in the box. It's "ready, fence" and a game of quick-draw rock-paper-scissors that's resolved by the ref looking at distinctions ("your elbow was just slightly less extended") that are so fine that I can't meaningfully correct them when I move; as a result, it feels like a succession of coin-flips that I usually lose to 14 year old kids with xBox trained reflexes who the ref likes better. While I agree with you about sabre, you can train reflexes. Both physically and mentally. Drill helps. You don't need to train "reflexes" you need to train the appropriate reaction, and that is drillable.
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Sep 27, 2022 18:45
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Ravenfood posted:While I agree with you about sabre, you can train reflexes. Both physically and mentally. Drill helps. You don't need to train "reflexes" you need to train the appropriate reaction, and that is drillable. Maybe you can, but I'm having a tough time with it, enough to the point that I'm frustrated and feel like I'm making no progress or improvement. Cessna fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Sep 27, 2022 |
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Sep 27, 2022 19:37
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Cessna posted:Maybe you can, but I'm having a tough time with it, enough to the point that I'm frustrated and feel like I'm making no progress or improvement. the more pragmatic approach would be to simply cozy up to the ref it sounds like....
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Sep 28, 2022 15:23
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Checks cord connection, subtly slips ref a bottle of whiskey with a few bills stuck to the label.
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Sep 28, 2022 15:57
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Cessna posted:Checks cord connection, subtly slips ref a bottle of whiskey with a few bills stuck to the label. now yer fencing with yer brain!
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Sep 28, 2022 21:55
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Cessna posted:Maybe you can, but I'm having a tough time with it, enough to the point that I'm frustrated and feel like I'm making no progress or improvement. Well maybe a change will be fun, it doesn't have to be forever. Foil will always be my first love, i think, but it's nice to do a bit of the other weapons from time to time. Keeps me honest.
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Oct 4, 2022 06:42
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Good article from the LA Times on fencing when you're older, here. This lines up with my experiences.
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Dec 16, 2022 22:42
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Very cool. I've moved to a fencing wasteland and nearest club is 450kms away, with another 2-300km for an Epee club :/. (Kendo is also 450km and I get about 1 session per month now).
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Dec 17, 2022 00:12
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ImplicitAssembler posted:Very cool. I've moved to a fencing wasteland and nearest club is 450kms away, with another 2-300km for an Epee club :/. Just tell the boss you need to borrow the bird to build some hours
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Dec 17, 2022 01:04
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im back on my bull poo poo
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Feb 2, 2023 02:29
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Looking good! I should try epee.
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Feb 2, 2023 15:53
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If I want to own a real sabre (as in use-able) what are the reputable places to buy such? Is Museum Replicas good, bad, or other?
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Feb 6, 2023 21:27
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Are you planning to murder someone?
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Feb 7, 2023 16:18
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Not planning murder, but swords are rad and I'd prefer something functional over a gas station katana. They were cool when I was a teen though.
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Feb 7, 2023 17:54
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Oh hey, something I can weigh in on thanks to my little  sword collection. If you're in the US, Kult of Athena has a wide selection of generally decent manufacturers: https://www.kultofathena.com/product-category/swords/european-swords/As a rule of thumb, anything below ~$200 is probably going to be unusable trash, while $400+ usually (but not always) tends to be solidly made. In terms of specific manufacturers, I had good experiences with LKChen and Dynasty Forge. Windlass and Cold Steel tend to be overweight, but still generally serviceable. That's about all I know.
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Feb 7, 2023 21:38
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Perestroika posted:Oh hey, something I can weigh in on thanks to my little Thanks! I've been looking at Windlass sabers and wanted some internet people other than youtubers' opinions.
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Feb 8, 2023 18:18
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Mambo No. 5 posted:Thanks! I've been looking at Windlass sabers and wanted some internet people other than youtubers' opinions. Yeah chiming in that Museum Replica's quality is on the lower end. They make adequate wall hangers or display pieces though. Windlass is hit or miss. Gold standard is Albion Swords but they don't do anything remotely contemporary (wanna say they stop at the end of the renaissance), so if you could stomach a falchion/messer instead of a saber that could work.
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Feb 8, 2023 21:49
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Saw this grip at a tournament last weekend. It's 3d printed titanium: I didn't want to spend THAT much, so I bought this instead. It weighs 46 grams:  I love the applied technology.
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Feb 23, 2023 18:17
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Cessna posted:Saw this grip at a tournament last weekend. It's 3d printed titanium: Do you need to add a large weight to balance it? Or is that less of an issue with pistol grips?
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Feb 23, 2023 19:23
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ImplicitAssembler posted:Do you need to add a large weight to balance it? Or is that less of an issue with pistol grips? The printed grip was on an epee. I'm not really an epee fencer, but the blade is heavier than a foil blade - with practically nothing to balance it out it felt weird. I suspect that if I got used to it there wouldn't be a problem. The light grip on my foil feels great.
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Feb 23, 2023 20:51
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Competitive sabre fencing has been melting down in crisis for the past week or so. Here's one of the things that lit the spark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiD3I008Xrg In VERY brief terms: Sabre fencing's rules are open to interpretation. The rulebook is outdated and simply cannot cover every circumstance due to the nature of the sport. Even with super slow-motion replays some actions are ambiguous - and video isn't used in early rounds of competitions. As a result, referees make calls and decisions that may seem arbitrary. And, naturally, corruption follows. This is video is calling it out at high levels. The person who made the video says they're a former Olympic fencer and I have no reason not to believe them. But as it is, I see this at the club level. I'm a mediocre fencer at best, but even in local competitions - well, I'll be blunt, the referees decide who wins the matches. If anything I feel vindicated by this. I've fenced for years and felt like maybe it was something I just didn't understand, maybe there was some sort of logic behind those contentious calls that left me bewildered. It turns out that yes, there is logic - but it's all favoritism and corruption.
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Jan 15, 2024 17:28
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Yeah, I saw that and I'm not surprised. When you can ask 3 different referees about a fairly basic judgement and get 3 different answers that are all legitimate, you got a problem and it was the biggest reason I didn't pick up saber. Love the dynamics of it, but the margins in scoring are just too small. Things I would like to see (Which may or may not be practical) - Cutting edge/point only. - Accelerometers as well as contact. - stiffer blades
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Jan 15, 2024 18:33
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ImplicitAssembler posted:- Cutting edge/point only. Wouldn't that just be foil with a slightly different target area? ImplicitAssembler posted:- Accelerometers as well as contact. I think they did this back in the 70s. I'll admit up front I don't know what the fix is myself. I've heard all kinds of ideas, like changing the lock-out time, but it seems like this is just swapping one problem for another. And it seems like sabre has been dealing with this sort of thing since, well forever - there have been all kinds of rules changes over time and none of them have ever resulted in a stable, easily interpreted sport.
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Jan 15, 2024 18:47
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ImplicitAssembler posted:Yeah, I saw that and I'm not surprised. It would mean that getting a light on would be slightly harder so possibly maybe could reduce some opportunities for ref fuckery, but not really.
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Jan 15, 2024 18:49
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Here's a response to the ongoing sabre kerfuffle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzsmF6tNiUg&t=371s For context, he's one of the top sabre referees in the US, if not the world. And I have to say, again, I feel like he's saying what I've been noticing for years. In brief, he looked at every point in every sabre match in the Olympics from 2008 to 2021 and found that attacks land over 70% of the time now. This has gone up from 2008, when it was about 50/50. This means that offense is the way to go - defense and parries aren't as effective, so you need to attack. As a result, at the start of a point - "ready, fence" - there's significant incentive to attack immediately. The upshot of this is that now 40%+ of points are simultaneous attacks. That is, "ready, fence," both fencers attack, both lights go on, and the referee makes the call on who had the best attack. And this is where the seemingly arbitrary decisions come in. When simultaneous attacks are so close that it comes down to distinctions like "it looked like your elbow was slightly more extended (like I could really compare a millisecond's difference without a replay), your point" or "I think your foot made contact with the ground before your sword made contact (even though there's no replay and there's no way to prove it), attack is no, their point." So, therefore, a match consists of a string of arbitrary decisions which means that the referees are essentially picking and choosing who wins based on personal preferences. I know his video is talking about high level matches and olympic qualifiers, but I see this every time I fence, even in friendly practices at the club. The upshot is that I have to fence differently depending on who is reffing - I know Greg looks for the angle of the sabre at the attack, so I'll stick it forward when he's reffing, but Jason watches footwork, so I'll hold my blade back and go more for parries, etc. And that - well, it's absurd that I have to do that. Imagine if you went out to play baseball and the ref said, "okay, both teams hit the ball over the fence, but their batter had better bat extension when he did it, so your run doesn't count." And then in the next game the ref said "I don't care about bat extension, you hit to left field, I like runs that go to right field, so your run doesn't count." I think I'm going to have a talk with my coach tonight; I may be done with sabre. Cessna fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 16, 2024 |
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Jan 16, 2024 18:49
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Right, so the idea with my suggestions was to make it slightly harder to actually make contact, which would (?) make the attacks (and/or parries) more obvious. I'm not a sabreur, though, just a meddling epeeist and not-so-meddling kendo-ist.
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Jan 17, 2024 00:16
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ImplicitAssembler posted:Yeah, I saw that and I'm not surprised. Gonna be a HEMA snob, but it's an issue of gear as much as judging. If the blade's an actual sabre blade and not a car antenna, edge alignment solves itself and action slows sufficiently to be judgeable.
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Jan 22, 2024 12:58
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Liquid Communism posted:Gonna be a HEMA snob, I would be a lot more interested in HEMA if it wasn't for the racism.
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Jan 22, 2024 17:11
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Cessna posted:I would be a lot more interested in HEMA if it wasn't for the racism. Like any hobby, curate the people you play with. There are shitheels in any niche, it's your option to tell them to gently caress off.
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Jan 23, 2024 01:46
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