So am here on a Sunday morning to watch Dimmie fence. It’s her first tournament after taking up fencing this year, so decided to follow because I’m a busybody and because I’m curious.
What I’ve learnt so far is that fencing has 3 different kinds of competitions. Dimmie is taking part in the épée, which, in her own words, is “go in, stab, get point!” It’s the easiest of the three. The other two are the saber and the foil. For those two, there’s a rule called “right of way.” You basically need to get right of way to get a point.
Epée thus is like checkers. Some strategising but it’s fairly straightforward. Right now I’m waiting for her to take her turn. There’s only 8 fencers though, compared to I think 20 for the men earlier, so things should go faster? 😛
So right now we are waiting for the women to get started. The women got started at about 11am and it’s almost 12. There’s been at least 5 bouts apiece for each. The points and rules are simple.
Land a hit, score a point. First person to 5 wins. You have a 3 minute time limit. Most matches take about 1.5 to 2 minutes. So it’s been fairly quick matches.
One of the interesting observations I’ve seen is that there are really competitive women here. One participant, in the middle of a match with DImmie, remarked to bystanders that she “didn’t want to do this (fencing) anymore.” Talk about frustration.
Now we see whether we continue through lunch or if something else comes up.
Eh, foil fencing isn’t that hard. It’s ‘Go in, stab torso first, get point.’ Whoever’s hit lands first is the one with the point.
*Used to foil fence once upon a time*
Huh. My friend was telling me that there were also things like “Right of way” to be considered before you got a point.
TBH, all that means is ‘touch first, get point. Touch second, get nada.’ Foil’s supposedly based on duels where you went for the kill, hence the target being an area where any hit was killing/disabling.
Epee’s based on nonlethal duels that went to the touch, so the entire body’s a target and ‘who was stabbed first’ means less.
And epee fencers get cooler handguards.
Unless both hits land, in which case it comes down to whether there was a parry before the hit. If you weren’t the attacker you need to have parried before the hit otherwise it doesn’t count. Hence the ‘right of way’ rule.
Ah I see. That makes sense.