Hi,

I recommend that you use 4 judges, an assistant director if available, and a
director. Surely with that entourage it can be decided who got the touche' and
who had priority.

peace, cheers,

Joe Phillips
HM, Salle de Chevaliers MF
Columbus, Ohio

-----Original Message-----
From: classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of flanconade@...
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 1:42 PM
To: classicalfencing@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CFML] Thinking about Rules



Klassisches Fechten Soest (KFS) has been working out revisions of rules for
all foil engagements. Until recently, our rules closely resembled those of
Association for Historical Fencing (AHF). In fact, with one exception they
were drawn from the same and other, contemporaneous sources, and we also found
Walter Green’s compendium of early competition rules highly useful. Like
AHF, we work on a 20-foot strip, for instance, but have come to think that
differing circumstances require a rather wider one than three feet, and will
base
our final decision on observation and analysis, not historical authority.

Later this year, a formal statement of rules and their rationale will be
posted on our website. We will take a stronger position against disarms, and
do
so because—following 19th century French dueling thought (see below)—we
think they would actually be reckless in a real duel and irrationally
disadvantage their target in non-lethal bouts.

I should add I was (and still am) uncomfortable with a tendency to equate “
classical” fencing with rules, not theory, based on a very questionable
assumption that the two are harmonious when the former are demanded by the
apparent
failure of the latter. Worse yet, the rule-based definition is dependent on
rules developed for organized competition and for what seems to have been a
radical change in fencing’s constituency, a move begun in the late 19th
century from the duel and formal salle to the continuing failed effort to make
fencing a mass sport in an era of bureaucratically administered, nationalist
popular mobilization. That's the context of the FIE. The Olympics weren’t
just
about celebrating ancient Greece and sports. That nationalist-mobilization
era came to a close toward the end of the Cold War, precisely when a
“classical”
fencing movement appeared, and the Olympic endeavor became
semi-professionalized corporate-sponsored spectacle. That latter is the
context of current
FIE internal disputes and its persistent quest for a flashier show on TV.

So while we certainly make critical use of historical authorities, in
particular mid-19th century French theorists such as Prévost the Elder, who
sought
to eliminate the distinction between the jeu de fleuret and jeu de terrain,
we are proceeding from fencing theory, and view the post-1880 development of
rules as a response to uncertainty in competitive environments that has led to
dilution of the meaning and purpose of theory (yes, an implication of this
is that the director and judges, the scoring light, and the earlier point d’
arret—which we ban—are symptoms not causes). We have been deeply
influenced
by a mid-19th century French debate about abandonment of theory and technique
by romantics on one hand and too elaborate actions in the salle on the other.
Indeed, while not wishing to start a big argument here, an emphasis on
reconciling the paradoxical treatment of the double hit in the AHF rules
reflects not only the difficult problem we’re trying to solve today, but
also our
view that today's problems are a variation of those older ones. I’m with AHF
all the way in trying to resolve a very difficult problem. Maybe theirs
remains the best-so-far solution?

Our rules have emerged from training incentives to ensure that practice and
preaching are in conformity. The proper initiation of extension alone
resolves much uncertainty and should produce a bent foible. Neither
nullification
nor accommodation of the double in favor of one fencer, it seems to us
though, actually address the issues. We even have adopted with modifications
the
older Prévost’s simplification of doctrine to clarify things—anyone who
claims this is “sport fencing” hasn’t read him. Slavish imitation of the
past
isn’t “classicism,” it’s antiquarianism at best, decadence at worst.
But I don
’t claim total success, things ain’t perfect and we have a long way to go.

So, until the summer of 2006, we happily used rules of engagement that were
quite conventional despite persistence of ambiguity in foil assaults. Please
note KFS is at this writing only 20 months old, this shouldn’t be surprising
among a group of beginners, and I’ve seen and experienced the same problem
elsewhere and with highly trained opponents. When I introduced epee to the
group in mid-2006, however, sharp questions arose. This was not unexpected,
since our curriculum is based on analysis of the encounter with fundamentals
of
theory firmly in place and on step-by-step “problem solving” activities.
The
epee was rejected unanimously, by some as “too difficult” (contradicting
the
usual reaction), and our membership strongly expressed a determination to
focus on foil indefinitely.

There was also a question raised about the rationality of epee conventions.
I did not hide my delight at this. The double touch especially—since all KFS
fencers are imbued with the concept of right-of-way from the first lesson
even if it’s still imperfect in execution—seemed to make no sense if we
adhered to the ideas of “as if they were sharp,” and “hit and not be
hit,” which
we take very seriously, indeed. They rightly felt it would detract from
working on correct technique. (I wasn’t just delighted, I was thrilled.) But
just because it’s been around over a century as a legacy of sport fencing is
no
reason to keep the epee double by continuing to reward both fencers for it.
We agreed that the double should be penalized if ever we took up epee. But
this immediately put pressure on foil rules.

The details of these discussions, and the historical and philosophical
backgrounds, will be incorporated in a series on fencing theory and its
development in FQM. Health issues have delayed my working this series out
fully by
now.

Our rules will be even more minimalist than AHF’s laudably brief ones and in
clude departures from convention that some may find disturbing. Visitors to
our sessions will be expected to adhere to them, but they will not in any way
affect our conduct or technique on the road. If you visited us, you'd think
I was a broken record, always saying, "Immer fuehrst du mit deiner Spitze!"
("Always lead with your point!") The most important revisions will be: an
enforced requirement that a parry must be sufficient to be acknowledged but
also
its corollary, a penalty for both fencers in the event of double hits not
clearly and distinctly separated in fencing time. After all, if you cannot
attack or defend against a reckless or weak (e.g. presenting in tension)
opponent with sharps, or rather, do not deploy an adequate parry and riposte
leading a full extension with your point, both of you will bleed. This we
intend as
giving real meaning to the mantras “as if they were sharp” and “hit and
not
be hit,” and provide ample incentive to make a genuine parry and riposte,
beginning one’s extension before the advance. Our treatment of the stop and
time thrusts is identical to that of AHF.

For emphasis: That just properly leading with one’s extension before the
advance usually, but not always, produces clarity of action and a perceptibly
bending foible is still a fingers-crossed assumption without sanctions.
Basically, we hope to bring the foil encounter much closer to the actual duel
in the
spirit of misread or neglected--well, why not come out and say unread--19th
century French writers on foil concerned both with theory and with the duel
as fought with epée du combat.

It might not be possible to entirely eliminate that question, “Whose touch
is it?” as two fencers scratch their heads and a director conjures up a
narrative and then one of them shakes his head. But we’ll try. Our rules
also put
a heavy burden on training, certainly lengthening the period before a
beginner can consider facing real opponents in competition. “Beide sind
tot” (“
Both are dead.”) is now a very common call here, even as the reprise is very
diligently practiced—defense is the focus of our first two years of study:
But
there's more.

A third provision, that any designated observer can request either fencer to
explain how he or she gave or received a hit, will have an impact on the
juried bout, since a moment’s thought and it ought to be obvious our
intention
is to restore the second, getting rid of the cumbersome and often arbitrary
apparatus of director-president and judges at least in Soest (after all,
it’s a
legacy of organized competition’s uncertainty, and opportunism, too) and
encouraging fencers to think. This departure from the “rule of silence”
enforced by AHF has always been a part of our practice, and we intend to take
its
implications further.

Finally, I want to point out that fencing has never in its history been
without debate; a wonderful study could be based just on why it seems to have
always been a story of squabbling masters, and it could offer a case study of
resistance to change and maintenance of incoherence—such as that “Tower of
Babel,” as Maestro Gaugler calls it, of fencing terminology—but still has
in
fact always been in a state of change. Recall the fate of Guillaume Danet's
attempt in the 1760s to rationalize fencing terms, yet Danet's other ideas
laid
the groundwork for French fencing's development in the 19th century. Fencing
’s coherence is supplied by only fundamental theory, expressed by the parry
and riposte and that straight arm. There's nothing sacred about the
"standard model" of rules that emerged from almost three and a half decades of
controversy before Camille Prevost codified it for the Olympics on the eve of
World
War One. Appeals to some lost mystical virtue or some long-dead writer’s
doctrine as it's assumed to have been spring from the uninformed imagination.
That’s anything but “classical.” It’s romantic nostalgia for what the
great
Victorian historian of Greece, George Grote, writing about the first ancient
Olympics, called “a past which was never present.”
Bill Leckie
flanconade@...


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]