According to the current convention, certainly attaque au fer. According to rulebook however, cases can be made for point in line if the point is deflected out of the target area even for an instant moment. I have a similar debate once about the target area clause in foil, that is, off target point in line should not have priority because it doesn't continuously threaten the target area, hence no longer point in line, which someone points out that point in line must be explicitly deflected for it to lose priority, which devolves the debate into the nature of point in line itself. These examples of yours and mine make me realize that we have fundamental problems with our rules: we can't even apply terms into action axiomatically. I guess that's the reason why FIE doesn't even bother to use the rulebook, let alone updating it and use
@@christianalbertjahns2577 but this is my point: if we all agree that it is not called point in line, why is this exception still listed in the rules book?
Most referees would call it attack right in both of your examples, but it’s definitely a problem that the generally implemented rules don’t match the written ones. I would go further to say that the written rule itself is practically unenforceable. At full speed, most referees can’t consistently judge if a beat takes a point off line, because they’re judging by sound, and it’s virtually impossible to make that distinction if the beat is to side of the blade, rather than vertically like in your second example.
Honestly, this was a really good example to use, because it immediately made me angry. I am beyond appreciative of your efforts in this area though. If the only thing that comes from all of this is a clear rulebook, sabre would be infinitely better for it.
Couple of other examples for consideration. I've posted this about 100 times, but scoring a hit while falling is NEVER punished in sabre, despite it being a group 1 offence in the rules. Secondly, we have a wide disparity of the award of a yellow card for starting early. Some referees will call this for ANY twitch once engarde, some will warn you once and card second time. Sometimes you can get away with standing still to make it look like your opponent went early, sometimes you can get away with that if you pretend to not have head the allez command. Sometimes the discretion of the referee to want to avoid settling the bout with a red card is strong enough to make them change their interpretation. Thirdly I'll give you the disparity between the call of attack-no when a foot lands before the hit. Just how many milliseconds is OK if a) the opponent just moves back, or b) is deceived into making a parry? None of this is defined in the rules either, it's all variable judgement and convention.
I believe the rule book uses (or used to use) the term "a mere grazing of the blade is insufficient"...I've never seen that applied, however. Not in 52 years of fencing.
I've noticed almost the same set of issues in foil but more with determining whose beat attack it is or, put another way, is it a beat attack from the person with right of way or is it a beat / parry-repost from the person who is defending? Any time the blades meet, it seems up to interpretation what counts as a beat from which side or a parry-repost. I also have the impression that especially in DEs, sometimes a ref kind of decides that one fencer is going to win anyway, so the marginal calls all start going to that fencer in part to speed up a large event. The problem for me is that this puts fencers in the awkward position of having to sus out each ref and then adjust what we are doing to communicate clearly with that ref. Sometimes that takes several actions and that can be the difference in a bout.
Just happened to me. Foil. I'm a good fencer and against another coach/A He attacks blade is low line I am in 8 pick it up with a circle 6 and hit. "beat attack" to my opponent. Plus he said "he picked up the blade" I said no I picked up the blade, C-6 and riposte. "I didn't see that". And yes now all of a sudden no matter how blades touch if you're coming forward you get the best attack. Seems there's just no party given- and they are not beats in the true sense either - moving the blade out of the way. It is very frustrating to have to fence and think about the interpretations of actions all the time Sure. aim for one light but when it isn't I don't want a coin toss either.
@@diamondlenasan I'm a very mediocre fencer but my daughter is quite good and I watch most of her tournament bouts. One-light hits are great but VERY difficult to get against any kind of a decent fencer. I have several friends who switched to epee because they got tired of keeping up with the fashions of foil referreeing. A few years ago it was "you stopped" if there was any hesitation in forward progress on the piste. Now it seems to be crossed blades always favors the person who already had right of way. It's a bit sad cause I love foil.
Hi Andrew. Hope all is well with you. It is ironic that some rules in the rule book are considered absolute truth (e.g. length of the blade) but the right of way rules are are absolute. Therefore, the right of ways "rule" section should be renamed to something like "suggestions and guidelines subject to interpretations". I just checked the FIE rule book and the right of way sections for each weapon is called "Conventions". So, perhaps we are interpreting the written "conventions" as "rules" when it really isn't. I agree that the current sabre situation is too flawed where there are no clear rules and therefore too much subject to the whims of the referees.
Firstly awesome video with a great analogy. Thing is with the first example, you can still see the point removed even if it is not deflected off target. And I think there's a loophole here - the rules don't specify deflected OFF TARGET which is likely how the current conventions could be justified. There's a visible deflection but the rules don't say I have to belt the blade into the ground, merely "deflect" it. It's an easy fix - either specify any visible deflection breaks line or specify deflected off target in the rules and call it accordingly.
I think it is a similar case with figure skating, where some movements (jumps and sequences I thinK?) are partially scored based on the goodness of execution, and then the rule book just said something like if it is a "good" jump or a high jump, it can get a high score for goodness of execution, but there weren't any specific defining lines to what is considered as "good" or how high would the "high" be enough.
You asked for more examples in other sports and I would have to say 1.) Basketball: traveling is frequently not called for all star/ high profile players. This is especially true when they make drives to the basket (this is convention). Do you feel that some fencers get preferential calls/treatment based on status (not corruption)? 2.) NFL: The ruling on what is a catch. This has been argued and debated so many times that the rule's wording has become as well defined as humanly possible. And this is still debated.
Also in basketball, I had the joy of watching Caitlin Clark play in Carver Hawkeye Arena for three years and there's no doubt at all that she got a lot of room from refs to put her arm out while driving. Of course she's not the only player with dispensations, but I have no qualms about saying that she got a dispensation on that arm.
To be fair -- because I'm seeing it get brought up a bunch with the NBA finals going on -- most examples people point to for travelling are legitimately not travelling in the rules. For example, Luka's step back 3 from game 2 or 3 against the Mavs. Most people just don't know what the rules are for gathering or a gather step. That said, another good basketball example (also Luka) is some of the foul baiting he does. NBA explicitly put up a video years ago explaining that the offensive player diving into the defensive player at an awkward angle would be an offensive foul... but a couple days ago, Luka got it as a defensive foul. And the worse thing about the NBA is that you don't get back successful challenges for some reason.
If it's a choice between "conventions" and the rules as written, just apply the rule. There's no advantage to the sport in letting sabre drift like foil by some sort of fashion among referees. Apply the rule until the FIE changes the rule. Take it out of the referee's grace and favour.
Interesting video. I completely agree that there is a huge divide between the rule book and what you call "conventions." On the other hand, I completely disagree with you in getting rid of uncomfortable rules that don't match the current interpretations. The rules are there for a reason. The sport exists for a reason and all of this is to be found in the great number of works written about fencing in the last 150 years or so if you want to limit yourself to the modern weapons. The people who wrote those rules had duelling in mind. The only reason the sport was included in the modern olympic movement is because learning how to use an epee, foil, or saber was a popular pastime and quite simply the culture that did it, did it a lot because it also permitted challenging someone to a duel with an epee, sabre or pistol. Evidence of this, is that there was literally pistol duelling at some of the first modern olympic games but I digress. You need to go to SKA swordplay books, buy Szabo's book "Fencing and the Master" and read pages 228 and 229. The original Hungarian version of this work was published in in 1977 but what he says there is still true today and now you have what you have; a cultural inheritance with a direct lineage dating back centuries, which due to its sportification and corruption of well thought out conventions based on real principles of fighting, is something that will ultimately cease to exist when it looses its place in the all important Olympic games. I apologize if I come across as condescending but this situation (saber mostly) is a result of losing sight of the reason the concept of priority ever existed in the first place and letting that ill-founded perversion of these rules to grow to what it has become.
I totally agree. A lot of the rules in the FIE book should be followed and are logical. It’s all based on the reason why priority exists in the first place. To preserve ones own life and not get awarded for being stupid. It really annoys me when people don’t understand the logic behind the rules. No… we shouldn’t be changing the rule to make any blade contact sufficient grounds for regaining priority. I’m afraid to say that’s a total degradation’ of fencing. What an idiotic reason to say that if it’s the way it’s being refereed right now means it’s right and should be codified as so.
Well I would say it's attaque au fer but parried, because you hit your opponent's guard as you finished. Taking us to another rule that's usually ignored these days. PS I don't exceed the speed limit when driving. It's not quite "everyone" who is always speeding. ; )
What do you mean, I was extremely careful NOT to hit the guard 🤣 Conventions exist for a reason: if you truly don't excede the speed limit when you're driving then a lot of people are probably getting annoyed with you because you're not allowing them to drive the way they are used to...
@@CyrusofChaos - they are and i don't care. My responsibility is to drive safely and within the law, not to aid and abet speeding and aggressive driving or to smooth things for those who feel that the laws don't apply to them and that they should be able to do whatever they want. PS Why does his guard and arm move when you hit him if you didn't hit the guard? And it sure sounds like blade on guard rather than just on mask!
@@oldschooljeremy8124 i could easily make the argument that by going against convention you're creating more problems than you're trying to solve. Anyone going below the speed limit on the highway is disrupting the normal flow of traffic, which is actually cited as an explicit example of what you're not supposed to do in many DMV manuals and drivers courses in the US. Here's an example out of the California DMV manual: "you should not block normal and reasonable traffic flow by driving too slowly". It isn't your job to decide how fast everyone gets to go. It's the police's job to do that i beat the blade extremely hard with my fingers in two of the four examples but at no point did I ever hit the guard. If we can't agree on that then I'm not sure we are going to agree on anything else because that objectively did not happen 🤷🏼♂️
@@CyrusofChaos - that's driving too slowly as in under the speed limit, not as in "not speeding like everyone else is". The "flow of traffic" argument never won a case in court if a motorist was cited for speeding. There are laws which appear to do just that for the #1/fast'"hammer" lane, where you are only supposed to be there to pass slower traffic, and in some jurisdictions the police do enforce that against slower vehicles sitting in the passing lane blocking vehicles behind them. But even that is not intended to enable or normalize speeding. I usually drive in the rightmost or "slow" lane anyway, yet I still get drivers roaring up behind me and being frustrated that I'm going the speed limit instead of faster, as in fast enough to suit them.
It’s very simple. All these right of way rules are logical. As long as the point in line points at valid target it should count. Why? Because someone going into it would be suicidal. The entire point of right of way rules is to reduce idiotic actions. Be my guest and attack into someone’s attack but don’t expect to get a point if both hit.
I understand the idea that walking onto a line in a duel would kill you, but that rule is very difficult to enforce and these days nobody calls it. This is no longer a sport where walking onto point in line kills you. If it was then by that logic, because I walked into the point in all of the example touches, all of them should be point in line 🤷🏼♂️
The rule as it stands in the FIE rules has not changed for 250+ years for a very good reason. The root of all priority rules is all about preservation of ones own life. If someone points that thing at me, to gain the priority I must destroy the threat by deviating the point away from my target area. Sure… someone might have been able to put the line back in time for a double touch but that wouldn’t be the logical move to make for the PILer. A lot of people start dismissing the martial roots but people still need to be reminded as to why priority rules exist in the first place. So many issues would be resolved if people followed and understood what are actually objective rules.
If the blade is beaten even slightly, there is no longer a straight line between shoulder, elbow, wrist, guard and point. So by definition it can't be Point In Line.
By this definition there's probably never been a truly correctly executed point in line. During disengages most people use their wrist, which, according to what you just said, would break the line
I think line should be nerfed even further. Specifically I think that you should not be able to take beat out of line. I.e. line must be withdrawn before you can make a beat, and I think that if there is any blade contact that you should have to withdraw and then reestablish line. Making those two changes would suck if you want to use line, but get rid of the rest of the stupid line edge-cases.
Poll question from the video: point in line or attack au fer?
Like for point in line, touch left
like for attack au fer, touch right
According to the current convention, certainly attaque au fer. According to rulebook however, cases can be made for point in line if the point is deflected out of the target area even for an instant moment.
I have a similar debate once about the target area clause in foil, that is, off target point in line should not have priority because it doesn't continuously threaten the target area, hence no longer point in line, which someone points out that point in line must be explicitly deflected for it to lose priority, which devolves the debate into the nature of point in line itself. These examples of yours and mine make me realize that we have fundamental problems with our rules: we can't even apply terms into action axiomatically. I guess that's the reason why FIE doesn't even bother to use the rulebook, let alone updating it and use
@@christianalbertjahns2577 but this is my point: if we all agree that it is not called point in line, why is this exception still listed in the rules book?
Most referees would call it attack right in both of your examples, but it’s definitely a problem that the generally implemented rules don’t match the written ones.
I would go further to say that the written rule itself is practically unenforceable.
At full speed, most referees can’t consistently judge if a beat takes a point off line, because they’re judging by sound, and it’s virtually impossible to make that distinction if the beat is to side of the blade, rather than vertically like in your second example.
Honestly, this was a really good example to use, because it immediately made me angry. I am beyond appreciative of your efforts in this area though. If the only thing that comes from all of this is a clear rulebook, sabre would be infinitely better for it.
Me watching this and remembering all the point in lines I never got
Not Andrew starting off with the most Jersey allegory/anecdote possible
Slander. I started off with a Jedi mind trick to make you all more receptive to what I was about to say
That's a really good point Andrew
Thanks Andrew
Greatest explanation of fencing's problem I've ever heard!
Couple of other examples for consideration. I've posted this about 100 times, but scoring a hit while falling is NEVER punished in sabre, despite it being a group 1 offence in the rules. Secondly, we have a wide disparity of the award of a yellow card for starting early. Some referees will call this for ANY twitch once engarde, some will warn you once and card second time. Sometimes you can get away with standing still to make it look like your opponent went early, sometimes you can get away with that if you pretend to not have head the allez command. Sometimes the discretion of the referee to want to avoid settling the bout with a red card is strong enough to make them change their interpretation. Thirdly I'll give you the disparity between the call of attack-no when a foot lands before the hit. Just how many milliseconds is OK if a) the opponent just moves back, or b) is deceived into making a parry? None of this is defined in the rules either, it's all variable judgement and convention.
I believe the rule book uses (or used to use) the term "a mere grazing of the blade is insufficient"...I've never seen that applied, however. Not in 52 years of fencing.
I've noticed almost the same set of issues in foil but more with determining whose beat attack it is or, put another way, is it a beat attack from the person with right of way or is it a beat / parry-repost from the person who is defending? Any time the blades meet, it seems up to interpretation what counts as a beat from which side or a parry-repost. I also have the impression that especially in DEs, sometimes a ref kind of decides that one fencer is going to win anyway, so the marginal calls all start going to that fencer in part to speed up a large event. The problem for me is that this puts fencers in the awkward position of having to sus out each ref and then adjust what we are doing to communicate clearly with that ref. Sometimes that takes several actions and that can be the difference in a bout.
Just happened to me. Foil. I'm a good fencer and against another coach/A He attacks blade is low line I am in 8 pick it up with a circle 6 and hit. "beat attack" to my opponent. Plus he said "he picked up the blade" I said no I picked up the blade, C-6 and riposte. "I didn't see that". And yes now all of a sudden no matter how blades touch if you're coming forward you get the best attack. Seems there's just no party given- and they are not beats in the true sense either - moving the blade out of the way. It is very frustrating to have to fence and think about the interpretations of actions all the time Sure. aim for one light but when it isn't I don't want a coin toss either.
@@diamondlenasan I'm a very mediocre fencer but my daughter is quite good and I watch most of her tournament bouts. One-light hits are great but VERY difficult to get against any kind of a decent fencer. I have several friends who switched to epee because they got tired of keeping up with the fashions of foil referreeing. A few years ago it was "you stopped" if there was any hesitation in forward progress on the piste. Now it seems to be crossed blades always favors the person who already had right of way. It's a bit sad cause I love foil.
@@diamondlenasan By the way, great description of the action!
The word is spelled "riposte." The word "repost" refers to an internet situation where you post something for a second time.
@@paules3437 sorry! Thanks! I suck at spelling.
Hi Andrew. Hope all is well with you.
It is ironic that some rules in the rule book are considered absolute truth (e.g. length of the blade) but the right of way rules are are absolute. Therefore, the right of ways "rule" section should be renamed to something like "suggestions and guidelines subject to interpretations".
I just checked the FIE rule book and the right of way sections for each weapon is called "Conventions". So, perhaps we are interpreting the written "conventions" as "rules" when it really isn't.
I agree that the current sabre situation is too flawed where there are no clear rules and therefore too much subject to the whims of the referees.
Firstly awesome video with a great analogy.
Thing is with the first example, you can still see the point removed even if it is not deflected off target. And I think there's a loophole here - the rules don't specify deflected OFF TARGET which is likely how the current conventions could be justified. There's a visible deflection but the rules don't say I have to belt the blade into the ground, merely "deflect" it.
It's an easy fix - either specify any visible deflection breaks line or specify deflected off target in the rules and call it accordingly.
Or just remove the need for interpretation entirely: blade contact breaks the line
I think it is a similar case with figure skating, where some movements (jumps and sequences I thinK?) are partially scored based on the goodness of execution, and then the rule book just said something like if it is a "good" jump or a high jump, it can get a high score for goodness of execution, but there weren't any specific defining lines to what is considered as "good" or how high would the "high" be enough.
Also, holding in usa football. Holding could be called on almost every play if strictly enforced.
You asked for more examples in other sports and I would have to say 1.) Basketball: traveling is frequently not called for all star/ high profile players. This is especially true when they make drives to the basket (this is convention). Do you feel that some fencers get preferential calls/treatment based on status (not corruption)? 2.) NFL: The ruling on what is a catch. This has been argued and debated so many times that the rule's wording has become as well defined as humanly possible. And this is still debated.
Also in basketball, I had the joy of watching Caitlin Clark play in Carver Hawkeye Arena for three years and there's no doubt at all that she got a lot of room from refs to put her arm out while driving. Of course she's not the only player with dispensations, but I have no qualms about saying that she got a dispensation on that arm.
To be fair -- because I'm seeing it get brought up a bunch with the NBA finals going on -- most examples people point to for travelling are legitimately not travelling in the rules. For example, Luka's step back 3 from game 2 or 3 against the Mavs. Most people just don't know what the rules are for gathering or a gather step.
That said, another good basketball example (also Luka) is some of the foul baiting he does. NBA explicitly put up a video years ago explaining that the offensive player diving into the defensive player at an awkward angle would be an offensive foul... but a couple days ago, Luka got it as a defensive foul. And the worse thing about the NBA is that you don't get back successful challenges for some reason.
If it's a choice between "conventions" and the rules as written, just apply the rule. There's no advantage to the sport in letting sabre drift like foil by some sort of fashion among referees. Apply the rule until the FIE changes the rule. Take it out of the referee's grace and favour.
FIE really should be clear on how the rule is conducted.
Interesting video.
I completely agree that there is a huge divide between the rule book and what you call "conventions."
On the other hand, I completely disagree with you in getting rid of uncomfortable rules that don't match the current interpretations. The rules are there for a reason. The sport exists for a reason and all of this is to be found in the great number of works written about fencing in the last 150 years or so if you want to limit yourself to the modern weapons. The people who wrote those rules had duelling in mind. The only reason the sport was included in the modern olympic movement is because learning how to use an epee, foil, or saber was a popular pastime and quite simply the culture that did it, did it a lot because it also permitted challenging someone to a duel with an epee, sabre or pistol. Evidence of this, is that there was literally pistol duelling at some of the first modern olympic games but I digress.
You need to go to SKA swordplay books, buy Szabo's book "Fencing and the Master" and read pages 228 and 229. The original Hungarian version of this work was published in in 1977 but what he says there is still true today and now you have what you have; a cultural inheritance with a direct lineage dating back centuries, which due to its sportification and corruption of well thought out conventions based on real principles of fighting, is something that will ultimately cease to exist when it looses its place in the all important Olympic games. I apologize if I come across as condescending but this situation (saber mostly) is a result of losing sight of the reason the concept of priority ever existed in the first place and letting that ill-founded perversion of these rules to grow to what it has become.
I totally agree. A lot of the rules in the FIE book should be followed and are logical. It’s all based on the reason why priority exists in the first place. To preserve ones own life and not get awarded for being stupid. It really annoys me when people don’t understand the logic behind the rules. No… we shouldn’t be changing the rule to make any blade contact sufficient grounds for regaining priority. I’m afraid to say that’s a total degradation’ of fencing. What an idiotic reason to say that if it’s the way it’s being refereed right now means it’s right and should be codified as so.
Well I would say it's attaque au fer but parried, because you hit your opponent's guard as you finished. Taking us to another rule that's usually ignored these days.
PS I don't exceed the speed limit when driving. It's not quite "everyone" who is always speeding. ; )
What do you mean, I was extremely careful NOT to hit the guard 🤣
Conventions exist for a reason: if you truly don't excede the speed limit when you're driving then a lot of people are probably getting annoyed with you because you're not allowing them to drive the way they are used to...
@@CyrusofChaos - they are and i don't care. My responsibility is to drive safely and within the law, not to aid and abet speeding and aggressive driving or to smooth things for those who feel that the laws don't apply to them and that they should be able to do whatever they want.
PS Why does his guard and arm move when you hit him if you didn't hit the guard? And it sure sounds like blade on guard rather than just on mask!
@@oldschooljeremy8124 i could easily make the argument that by going against convention you're creating more problems than you're trying to solve. Anyone going below the speed limit on the highway is disrupting the normal flow of traffic, which is actually cited as an explicit example of what you're not supposed to do in many DMV manuals and drivers courses in the US. Here's an example out of the California DMV manual: "you should not block normal and reasonable traffic flow by driving too slowly". It isn't your job to decide how fast everyone gets to go. It's the police's job to do that
i beat the blade extremely hard with my fingers in two of the four examples but at no point did I ever hit the guard. If we can't agree on that then I'm not sure we are going to agree on anything else because that objectively did not happen 🤷🏼♂️
@@CyrusofChaos - that's driving too slowly as in under the speed limit, not as in "not speeding like everyone else is". The "flow of traffic" argument never won a case in court if a motorist was cited for speeding.
There are laws which appear to do just that for the #1/fast'"hammer" lane, where you are only supposed to be there to pass slower traffic, and in some jurisdictions the police do enforce that against slower vehicles sitting in the passing lane blocking vehicles behind them. But even that is not intended to enable or normalize speeding. I usually drive in the rightmost or "slow" lane anyway, yet I still get drivers roaring up behind me and being frustrated that I'm going the speed limit instead of faster, as in fast enough to suit them.
It’s very simple. All these right of way rules are logical. As long as the point in line points at valid target it should count. Why? Because someone going into it would be suicidal. The entire point of right of way rules is to reduce idiotic actions. Be my guest and attack into someone’s attack but don’t expect to get a point if both hit.
I understand the idea that walking onto a line in a duel would kill you, but that rule is very difficult to enforce and these days nobody calls it. This is no longer a sport where walking onto point in line kills you. If it was then by that logic, because I walked into the point in all of the example touches, all of them should be point in line 🤷🏼♂️
The rule as it stands in the FIE rules has not changed for 250+ years for a very good reason. The root of all priority rules is all about preservation of ones own life. If someone points that thing at me, to gain the priority I must destroy the threat by deviating the point away from my target area. Sure… someone might have been able to put the line back in time for a double touch but that wouldn’t be the logical move to make for the PILer. A lot of people start dismissing the martial roots but people still need to be reminded as to why priority rules exist in the first place. So many issues would be resolved if people followed and understood what are actually objective rules.
If the blade is beaten even slightly, there is no longer a straight line between shoulder, elbow, wrist, guard and point. So by definition it can't be Point In Line.
By this definition there's probably never been a truly correctly executed point in line. During disengages most people use their wrist, which, according to what you just said, would break the line
I think line should be nerfed even further. Specifically I think that you should not be able to take beat out of line. I.e. line must be withdrawn before you can make a beat, and I think that if there is any blade contact that you should have to withdraw and then reestablish line.
Making those two changes would suck if you want to use line, but get rid of the rest of the stupid line edge-cases.
Remove right of way. No one who doesnt fence the specific weapon in current year understands it anyway. It's a huge barrier to the sport
You're welcome to go fence epee if you so desire
💀💀what is this take
@Dd-ue4ct if it continues this way epee will be all that's left in the future