A brief guide to understanding the rules of Foil Fencing. Feel free to leave your opinions in the comment section below, but be constructive with your criticism. Please. I do not own this music.
Thank you so much for this video. I took up epee fencing as an adult about five years ago. Now I was convinced by my boyfriend to try foil, too. The rules are quite confusing and it's very easy to make a mistake especially when used to epee fencing. This video has made it much easier for me to understand the main concepts of foil! My first love is epee, but I am finally starting to understand how beautiful and elegant foil fencing really is!
Great video, thanks for sharing. It's very useful for giving newcomers to the fencing sport a quick introduction on foil fencing. We have added it to our club webpage on fencing and the three weapons used.
Nice video but I'm confused, you said that point in line is only valid if you don't step forwards, but you can clearly see Ota taking a step to hit Cassara after backing off and establishing his line, in the original match it was only called Ota's after a video replay, so why didn't he lose his priority?
Dancing tuna Clarification; you cannot establish point in line with a step forward, only back as Ota does here. As you have pointed out it was a slightly controversial call (for Ota) but I think the referees interpreted that his movement forward wasn't enough to loose him priority. For example, if you have point in line (this isn't in this video I'm just describing a theoretical) and your opponent searches, you can disengage through their search and hit with a step forward. As long as you don't break the point in line, that is still your priority, despite the step. I think this is similar to what happened here.
Thanks for clarifying! I was really confused when I originally watched it. Really good video. Are you ever going to make another Athlete profile? They were pretty good.
@@henrymob2651 2 In order to judge the correctness of an attack the following points must be considered: a) The simple attack, direct or indirect (cf. t.10), is correctly executed when the straightening of the arm, the point threatening the valid target, precedes the initiation of the lunge or the flèche. b) The compound attack (cf.t.10) is correctly executed when the arm is straightened in the presentation of the first feint, with the point threatening the valid target, and the arm is not bent during the successive actions of the attack and the initiation of the lunge or the flèche. c) The attack with a step-forward-lunge or a step-forward-flèche is correctly executed when the straightening of the arm precedes the end of the step forward and the initiation of the lunge or the flèche. d) Actions, simple or compound, steps or feints which are executed with a bent arm, are not considered as attacks but as preparations, laying themselves open to the initiation of the offensive or defensive/offensive action of the opponent (cf. t.10-11).
Moving forward doesn't give you the priority, even aggressively, and the hand and arm matter a lot. What you are writing is not true. Anyway, the music is good ;-)
I'm sorry but these priority rules seem really stupid to me. Why should anyone gain a point if they both attack at the same time and hit each other. I mean they're both dead so why not just give both a point like they do in epeé. This makes everything more difficult to judge, harder to understand, it creates controversy, you have to invest a lot of time to understand priority before you can tell what's happening and thus it decreases the potential viewer base and on top of this horde of huge problems it doesn't even make any sence at all from both a sport and combat perspective. I mean seriously? I'm trying to like this sport, but all I can watch is epeé, which I really like but it only leaves me with a third of the tournaments to watch. I can't justify watching foil (or sabre) if I need a foil fencing degree before I can enjoy it which I might imagine is bad for the sport if every potential viewer faces an obstacle like this. I mean this made me stop wondering why I can't find any TV coverage.
Priority rules came from a time when foil was a training weapon for dueling. With priority, it encouraged the fencers to play smart, because any attack from the opponent must be dealt with before riposting. Merely lunging into their attack would result in nastiness for both sides had it been a real duel.
Benny He Well then it doesn't work. You can see them lunging at each other all the time, they both get hit (they both die) and then one of them still gets a point even though if it was a real duel no one would be a real winner. Just not giving them a point when this happens would be much more effective in my eyes. And you could get rid of priority which would make the sport much more understandable, viewer friendly but no less interesting. I just cannot see any good reasons why priority should even exist.
I disagree. Foil has a very long lockout time (300ms vs epee's 40ms). Most of those double hits you see would not have been simultaneous in a real duel. If one had been struck with a real sword, they wouldn't be able to continue their attack like they do in fencing. Also, I found the idea of right-of-way to be incredibly stupid when I fenced epee. But after trying foil, I have to say that it adds more thinking and requires a whole different mindset. Without it, foil would just be "epee lite".
Benny He In real life a thin blade like a smallsword or rapier actually has a very small chance of killing someone right away. There's actually a huge chance of there being an afterblow that kills you afterwards. When you're hit you don't just die right away. The adrenaline can keep you going for a few more seconds quite easily. Humans are made of tough stufff you know :D. Unless you hit the heart directly the other guy will get a chance to strike back. Also once the attack is started even if the guy dies there's still enough energy in the muscles to continue the motion and finish the attack.
Right, so you are going to lunge forward with a sword stuck in you. It already takes effort with modern foils and epees. It wouldn't be any easier with a real sword.
