So, following on from my last post about sabre, I can assure my readers that turning up did not, in fact, guarantee me a medal.
Largely because four other people also turned up, and I managed to be worse than all of them.
Or, did I?
Out of the five of us, there was actually only one other competitor that had more experience with sabre than I did. I had a better idea of the moves and the rules. And I got most of the hits in most of my bouts.
The problem was that stupid right-of-way rule.
The right-of-way rule is a bit like the fencing equivalent of table tennis's rule against hitting a ball "on the full". With table tennis, you have to let the ball bounce on your side of the table before you can hit it back. Simple, straight forward, easy.
With fencing (in foil and sabre), you have to let the person who started the attack complete the move. Either their lead foot has to touch the floor, or their sword has to make contact with something. By parrying the attack, you make their sword touch your sword, so their move is over and it's your turn. Should be simple, but it's not.
It's really clear in table tennis when a ball is passing over the net, and once it makes contact with the table, you're sweet. But in fencing it all comes down to who's foot moved first, whether or not they put it down before their sword made contact (and if the other person manage to move their foot before or after they put their foot down), whether or not the sword still managed to touch the other person even if they parried, whether or not the judge thought you moved your hand the wrong way and cancelled your own attack... the list of considerations seems endless.
Time after time I was told my hits didn't count because the other person moved their foot a fraction before I moved mine, or my reposts were just a fraction out of time. So time and time again, I would hit them and get nothing, or they would hit me *after* I hit them, and they still got the point.
I tell you, if I had been fencing epee the way I'd been fencing sabre, I would be feeling pretty good about myself right now. Unfortunately I actually fenced epee rather poorly, so I didn't get very far in that competition either.
The right-of-way thing seems ridiculously archaic to me. It's supposed to make sure there's actually a bit of back-and-forth before someone makes a hit, and eliminate the "problem" of simultaneous hits (I had a number of those, too), but what it actually does is eliminate a lot of freedom of movement and flourish, and just encourage fencers to jump at each other in a blind panic and hope for the best.
If you don't "have the attack", you've pretty much got nothing. You can't evade their blade - you must parry (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless you're an epeeist by training and your first instinct is to stand your ground and counter-attack). And whether you've successfully reposted, reprised or remised is entirely down to whether you successfully stuck your arm or foot out far enough for the judge to notice you rather than the other person.
It all seems so much more arbitrary than it has to be. The person who would win the fight (if this were a real duel) doesn't win the bout, just because the other fencer has showier leg movements.
I can't help but feel a better solution would be to "eliminate" the problem of double hits by taking the opposite stand to epee. In epee, if you hit each other at the same time, you both get a point. In sabre, you could just say that nobody gets a point in a double hit. And if you want to improve the flow of the game, you could just include a "play-on" rule where the fencers keep at it until someone makes a clear point and the judge shouts "halt!"
And, if we really need an equivalent to the "on the full" rule, then it should only apply to jumps and lunges - and it should really be as simple as "you can't hit the attacker mid lunge or jump; they must land their foot or blade first". That's not too complicated, and the average joe should be able to keep track of that without years of experience or training.
Beyond that, it should be "whoever hits first gets the point".
That seems fair to me.
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