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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 The rulebook is outdated and simply cannot cover every circumstance due to the nature of the sport.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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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 10:20 |
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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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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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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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Liquid Communism posted: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. Sure, I understand. I'm well familiar with hobbies that attract assholes - I play 40K, listen to metal, etc. I wasn't trying to troll when I said that. I checked out the local HEMA school several years ago. Apparently they have a beginner's class; after that, they invite students to go further and do advanced training. I couldn't help but notice that everyone invited was white. They definitely had a "type." I just checked their website; they've dropped this and added statements of inclusion. I'd like to believe this is sincere, but it really left we with no desire whatsoever to have any association with that again.
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Jan 23, 2024 16:10
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 10:20 |
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Crazy Achmed posted:Cyrus explains his take on it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqgSFAQ-AcU The most fun I have had fencing was when a friend of mine and I would do what we called "Abre." That is, Sabre without the S, no Simultaneous attacks. If the initial move at "ready, fence" was even close to a simultaneous we'd just throw it out, instead doing cautious attacks, in-and-outs, etc., so as to make each point go to a bit of back-and-forth. It was great fun. I haven't watched the latest "Ponce de Leon" Youtube video yet, but I've heard they propose something similar - if simultaneous attacks don't count not only do you get rid of a lot of the boring predictability, but you also take out a LOT of the arbitrariness of judging, which would be a vast improvement. Crazy Achmed posted:I'm not 100% convinced about shorter timing being the key but hell, I'd be willing to give it a go if it makes things clearer for both the ref and the audience. In order to split calls in the middle 4m I'm told to look for commitment to the attack, which can come from either the hand or the feet. It's incredibly difficult - different fencers have different tells and styles that you have to pick up on, and everything happens incredibly quickly. And, bluntly, the problem is that there is zero consistency in how referees call this. The rules do not, and can not, adequately describe exactly what makes one fencer's attack more committed than another. I've been fencing sabre for four years and still have no idea what exactly refs are looking for, which is absurd.
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Apr 9, 2024 14:48
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