<> This past weekend I participated in yet another of the innumerable fencing tournaments in the area I live. Yes, for anyone who hasn't read my profile on battle.net, I am a fencer, a special type of athlete not commonly perceived as one exhibiting sheer musculature. Instead, we're known the world over as scrawny, upper-crust individuals who probably spend their evenings having 'tea and crumpets' and for whatever reason believe that poking people with flimsy swords qualifies as a sport. Depth is there, however, for those who look. I'm a member of the USFA (United States Fencing Association) with an 'E' rank. The ranks go in order: U'E'D'C'B'A. Ranks are kept for two years after their initial earning. To earn better ranks, one must finish high enough at a tournament, obviously. Here's where it gets tricky: Based on the number of competitors and the rankings of the competitors involved, tournaments themselves receive different classifications. For example, in a U tournament, not only is everyone a U, but only the top-ranked fencer receives a rank, an E. On the other hand, at an A tournament with 64 people, most of them of high rank, fully the top 48 finishers receive E ranks. Of course, it's nearly impossible for a U to receive an 'E' rank at an 'A' tournament, so usually, if you want to earn your first ranking, U tournaments are the way to go. I fence foil, the most popular, and in my opinion, the most balanced weapon (the others are epée and sabre). Rules of right-of-way govern the actions, forcing one to throw caution to the winds and fence intelligently, as random, continued actions launched after the first attack fails are very infrequently successful. Equipment *The Foil is your weapon. In competition, they're electrically wired. Love it, live it, worship it. *The Glove: Holds the foil. Yay. *The Body cord is just a bunch of wires that jacks into your foil and connects you to a 'reel' at the end. This reel feeds into a scoring machine, which will light up with different colored lights whenever a foil's tip makes contact with something. *The jacket: Think of it as thick, cotton body armor. In foil, it's both an essential piece of safety and a denotation of target area. Optional under-arm protectors have Kevlar plates inside to prevent damage from broken foil blades. *The lamé (Pronounced 'lah-MAY'. Shut up.)- A metallic vest which covers the jacket in electrical bouting. Hooked up to the reel with an alligator clip (see it on the body cord?), it's conductive, which allows it to register touches. *The Mask. Wisecracks about Beekeepers aside, the mask is vital to protecting the face. Plus it'll pick up chicks. Yeah. *The box: All jokes about females aside, the scoring box registers touches by the use of colored lights. A Red light is an on-target for the fencer on one side, A Green light is on-target for the fencer on the opposite side. A White light is off-target. Yay for 20th century technology in an ancient sport! Put it all together, and what do you get? *The epitomy of sexiness, aka the Fencer. A few notes on Actions... 1. The Lunge: an offensive motion delivered with an extended sword arm, by throwing your front foot out and contorting your body into this very odd position. The main purpose of this is that you gain as much range with your sword arm as possible, while keeping the rest of your body relatively safe. Any offensive motion, whether delivered by a lunge or not, is simply called an 'attack'. 2. The parry: Defensive response to an attack. Knock your opponent's foil away, leaving them open for a riposte, which is simply an attack launched off of a successful parry. Regular parries, aka 'lateral parries' involve moving your foil sideways, to 'sweep' the opponent's foil out of line. 'Circle parries' involve making a small circle with your foil, picking up any offensive actions by your opponent and eventually tossing it aside. 3. Counter-attack: Merely responding to an attack with an attack of your own, aka 'Attacking into an attack.' 4. Attack into preparation: different from a counter attack, as the opponent has to be 'preparing' when you attack them. In other words, they have to be going forward too slowly, have their point out of line, or something of that sort. Anything which demonstrates that you aren't ready to attack makes your action a preparation. Unlike Counter-attacks, Attacks into preparation gain right-of-way preference (scroll down a bit if you're confused) ...and rules. Rules of right-of-way come into play when both fencers hit at about the same time, and referees use them to justify which fencer deserved the touch. Essentially, they're based on common sense in a 'real' swordfight; If an opposing fencer attacks you with a sharp blade, you're not going to attack him, are you? No, then you'd both be dead. Therefore, Counter-attacks always lose to attacks (unless the attack completely misses), and continuing an attack after having your blade parried always loses to a riposte (same thing). In addition, the only valid target area is the 'trunk' area: Chest and Stomach. A hit with the tip anywhere else is 'offtarget', and no points are scored from it. However, the touch functions just like an on-target point would, where right-of-way is concerned, so an off-target attacking fencer would still win against a counter attacker; he'd simply not receive a point for his effort. Hitting someone with the side of the foil counts as nothing. Boo-hoo.

The tourney set-up!

There were 17 competitors here: for the first round, each competitor is placed in one of 3 pools. After a solid hour of fencing, I qualified for the second round: 2 pools of the 12 top fencers from the last round. Everyone in this round fences everyone in their pool, each match or bout fenced to 5. After that, we move to a round of 8, with long bouts of 15. You win? You go on. You lose? You're out. Top 8 make a D. 2 Victories out of 5 bouts are necessary in the second round to assure making the top 8.

Begin Round!

Electronic Scoring Machine: Check. Electrified Weapon: Check. Electrified Scoring Vest: Check.

The first bout was me vs. 20-Something Woman. I sized her up physically, although that's notoriously inaccurate when judging someone's fencing ability. Unfortunately, I didn't have the opportunity to check out her style before fencing her, so I went into this blind.

At the start, I immediately began with what's become my favorite opening: A measured advance with my foil down, assuming a passive manner. She immediately took a defensive posture, slowly retreating from my advance, but unaware to the sudden danger my lure had. The distance collapsed as I increased the tempo of my advance, while suddenly exploding into a lunge. She reacts with a wide lateral parry, but…too slow. Her blade met mine at the instant of contact with her unprotected torso. Point for me. After this initial aggressive move, I switched to much slower, defensive footwork. I make several false movements toward her, but she's learned from our previous exchange, suddenly retreating far out of range every time I make the slightest motion forward. Suddenly, she catches me unawares, as I'm going forward straight into the glittering point of her foil. Point for her.

At the next on-guard, she begins asserting control of the action at the very start with a fast pace toward me.



I'm ready this time, though, as I make a near-perfect parry-riposte (attack after parrying an opponent's blade). Point me, as she's stuck with her blade hanging uselessly at its side.

The next touches were idiotic 'gimmies' caused by my distance stupidity, causing me to skewer myself not once, but twice on her counter-attacks. Score: 2-3.

At this point, I'm fencing very cautiously, not attempting anything radical, dangerous, or aggressive, but instead keeping distance. Basically I'm waiting for an opening of some kind: a bad weight shift that would bog her down temporarily, a tightening of the arm muscles that signaled that she'd likely be unable to land her next attack properly, anything. At first, she's not giving me anything to work with, pursuing nearly exactly the sort of passive/aggressive style that I had used so effectively at the start. But this was my favorite move, damnit! I mentally cycled through a list of proper counters in my head before choosing. Instead of 'playing it safe' and increase my backward foot speed, I slow down a bit, while keeping my weight firmly on my back foot. It's deceptive: The opponent thinks that I just made a horrendous error in my timing and footwork while actually I'm all set for a sudden burst of reverse speed. She closes distance, and the attack comes; I'm ready. I circle-parry the attack, leaving her blade off to the side, while bringing my point onto her flank. Before I can launch the lunge and seal the touch, however, she takes my blade back, a sudden and unexpected move. I quickly stab my point forward before pedaling backward, narrowly missing her extending blade before the director cries 'Halt!' This is not a textbook touch: What I'd done was remise (continue a failed attack) and then evade her counter-riposte. If she'd have hit me for merely a fraction of a second on the riposte, I'd have lost the touch, and badly.

The next touch is one of those that every fencer prays for: an exchange in which the referee screws up an action that's obviously against you, not only gipping your opponent out of a point but adding one to your tally. Here's what happened: Both of us go forward, while I make a beat-attack (Knocking aside her blade to free up target area.) She beats me back, and as thoughts of 'oh shit' are running through my head, we both land. The referee pauses a bit after seeing the lights on the machine. Hopefully, I look up to him… could he have possibly screwed up such an action? His judgment: 'Fencer on my left makes beat attack, touch.' In other words? I'd just beaten the system. 4-3.

When one is a single point away from defeat, everything seems magnified: the time, the opponent's motions, the closeness of their steel to your undefended chest. It's also the time when someone is most likely to try something blindingly desperate, ballsy, and stupid. Having been in this position many, many times myself, I advance forward cautiously, while paying as much attention to the distance as possible. The plan? A resumption of my previous idea: force them to go after me, and capitalize on mistakes. At this point, it is an especially useful move idea: my opponent must even the score before time runs out.

Suddenly, the distance collapses, and I instinctively begin to bring my sword to bear. Before the lunge, I pause for a split second-why would she make such a stupid, basic error? It had to be a trap. In the same second, I reverse my initial plan. I make feint deceive (a false attack and an evasion of the opponent's response), barely evading a parry I knew was coming. Unfortunately for me, what should have been a basic, easy bout to win at this point dodged me yet again; my foil missed the valid target area by an infinitesimal amount, ending wide above her shoulder. We both came to the conclusion as to what happened while I stepped in, picked up her attacking blade with less than a second to spare, and riposted. I looked back at the scoring machine: my touch. The score: 5-3. Bout. Salute, shake hands, and try to calm your raging nerves, as one more victory and you qualify for a D.

The next bout: an opponent I know by the nickname of 'Greasy Kid'. His darkish skin is covered by a shaggy mop of black hair, which waves in each and every direction as he tries futiley to hook up his electric equipment. It's important to note every manner of one's opponent, and this suggested to me his relative lack of experience. So, as we began our advances, I decided to take an aggressive strategy. When dealing with someone who isn't that experienced, taking an early lead is important to conserve energy for later bouts. Anyway, I immediately dart forward with a moderately fast and even pushing speed, aiming to either force him to commit a footwork error and attack when I gain distance, or convince him to counter-attack into my advance. Depending on my blade orientation and foot speed, I'd then either pick up the blade with a parry-riposte and nail him on the side, or launch an attack.

His response was to mirror my strategy. Ok, then. A copy cat. I can deal with this. I pause in the middle of my motion, attempting to convince him of a hesitation/distance error. He fell for the bait, as I easily whacked aside his lunge, and hit him on his flank with my riposte. Point me.

For the next point, I attempted the same thing as before, only to have him counter-parry (Parry a riposte) my blade and stab his foil into my open chest. Point him.

Both of us assumed our stances for a third time, and combat resumed. He immediately began advancing on me aggressively. I went through my options, and selected the 'fleche'. This move requires a little explanation: instead of the classical lunge, where you extend the back leg to move the upper body forward, fleching works completely differently. Basically, you quickly shift all of your body weight over the front leg, which results in an explosive blast forward, ending in a mad charge at the opponent and off the strip (as slamming into anyone at that speed tends to be painful). It's not my best move, but it caught him completely by surprise, hit on the side as his steel flew upwards in some frantic, futile defensive motion. Point, me.

I tried my best to look menacing after that last move, milking whatever psychological benefits I could gain. We return on guard, our blades crossed. I begin with my familiar measured push, to respond to his start of a fast retreat. He was unsure now;that last touch really did shake him up. I noticed, though, that he either wasn't keeping good enough track of the distance between us or he was planning something, because I was slowly but surely gaining on him. When I judged the distance to be close enough, I suddenly switched speed, catching him off guard with a fast advance-lunge, a classic accelerated attack. Should've been a textbook touch for me. Unfortunately, my handwork was so abysmal that I actually got stuck on his foil as I brought mine inline for the attack, giving him an excellent chance to nail me with a parry riposte. Thinking quickly, I reached into my bag of gadget plays (AKA 'OMFG WTFUX'), and did a quick esceeve - a counter-attack into an opponent's attack with a sneaky body slide to the left or right. Fencing strips don't have much room to maneuver in this manner, but they have enough. I looked up to the scoring machine in disbelief as it announced my point. Greasy-Haired Kid immediately realize what had happened, and cried out in disbelief that he'd fallen prey to such a simple trick. 'OWN3D!11one11' Indeed.

It's time to end this. He's got nothing I haven't seen and beaten numerous times before, while everything I do trashes his gameplan. I get on guard and do a simple fast-slow-fast step, giving me the range required to launch an advance lunge. The detached part of my mind looks on with glee as the sudden distance change cripples his feeble attempts at defense, with no further recourse but to blindly stick out his foil into me, a desperate prayer that I'll somehow miss him. But I hit, and the impact is solid. I look up with joy at the scoring machine…only to see his light on?! What the fuck?! I hit him! But there's nothing I can do change the unrelenting judge's mind, and it's touch, him.

Before getting on guard next time, I breathlessly ask for a quick, on-guard test. As expected, my light fails to go on. I look at my useless weapon in stunned disbelief: what the hell just happened?! It's a new blade, I just received in the past week! Whatever, I'll have time to sort it out later. I pull out my secondary weapon, something I always carry with me in case of something like this. Thankfully, I test my weapon against my opponent's lamé.

The light refuses to go on.

The blood begins pounding. Ok, I can deal with that. I've got yet another weapon…a spare-of-a-spare practice weapon. While it's clearly not up to an endurance test, surely it could manage a few points for me?

Then I remember just why it is a 'practice weapon'.

The entire electrical electrical system is ripped out of the guard. All of it: Wires, Box, Screws; simply gone. There's no way I'm fencing with this weapon on six months, let alone now. Needless to say, the judge is furious. She gives me a Red card (Point against me), both for Willful Delay of Bout and Bringing a Broken Weapon onto the strip. Luckily, she dug up an old workhouse of a foil, so I'm still in contention. But any sembalance of 'strategy' or 'tactics' is utterly gone from my mind. I've become a desperate berserker, with the ominous score of 3-3 and an enraged referee hanging over my head.

I threateningly brandish the blade as I gallop at a scarily speed down the strip, racing toward my opponent. He attempts a parry, but I predict the timing and evade it, leaving invitingly wide open target area for me to pounce at. And I do. 4-3.

I can't think. Can't do anything but focus on the touch, and the touch means frantic movement. I cringe as I'm parried, try a half-hearted counter-parry, and feel the steel on my flank. 4-4. It all comes down to the next touch.

I accelerate, knowing full well how desperate both of us are. He attacks into preparation: I parry and am parried in turn. Blades clash, both of us sense openings and strike. But it's his light who goes on, his blade which hits me as I mine kisses the air above his back. Bout, him.

I'm devastated. So much that I forget that I have 3 bouts left. The first one is nothing more than a blur: This guy is good, and he knows it. Before I realize what's happening, his combination of invitation-parry-riposte and advance-lunges get 5 touches on me. The next one is much the same, with me getting destroyed 5-1. The last opponent of the day begins our bout in a scarily similar fashion: generally, me retreating frighteningly as his blade bears down on my back. He's up by 4 to my 2. Then I realize who this guy is.

None other than the same fencer who denied me an 'E' the first time I was on the verge of snagging one. I don't care if he's a better, more talented fencer, Goddamnit, I was going to give him a good scare. Plus, he's Asian, and we all know how much Asians generally kick our asses in everything. So I have quite the impetus to damage him.

The next attack opens with the exact same formula: Him advancing, slowly transferring from a meandering pace to a chasing one, with his hand raised in preparation for a flick (sort of foil's version of a slashing attack. You 'whip' the blade over the opponent's back, as if casting a fishing rod, and the flexible blade will actually bend over and smack them in the back, depressing the tip.). Well, fuck that: I half-retreat accelerate lunge into his advance, hitting him square in the chest with an attack into preparation while his hand hovers overhead, useless in both attack and defense (bonus points: I actually heard him go 'OOOF' as the foil depressed).

I pressed the momentary breathing space I gained with that last action, pursuing my favorite slow, steadily advancing pace as my opponent is forced to retreat backwards. I try to judge the distance, but before I can OhFuckHesAttacking I knock his foil aside with a quick parry and perform a lunge to close the gap. He's able to counter-parry my blade, but it's too little, too late. The score stands even.

The blood's pounding in my ears forces me to act, so I do. 'Fence!' yells the director, and I'm off on my last touch of the day. I advance forward aggressively, and he's not keeping pace. I deceive his slow parry, attack…only to have my blade parried uselessly to the side from his actual parry. The fucker tricked me with a false par--*BIZZZ*. Point him. Bout, 5-4.

Grrr. I came so agonizingly close to my next goal; for that day, it was again out of my grasp.

Lessons learned:

1. Never, under any circumstances, allow adrenaline to dictate your actions, instead, stay in control at all times. This is a major principle of any sport; The absolute worst time to lose you head, is, unfortunately, when every action you do has to be purposeful. Forgeting to think will usual kill your chances of winning in anything, even Starcraft ;)

2. Pay attention to any false actions made by the opponent.

3. Judge distance better.

4. Work on accuracy :(

A crapload of touches against me I lost on bullshit whiffs that should never have happened.

Thank you to the following people:

Mattzarella, for all-around sex machine powah.

Ender, for reading a later draft of this over, and describing Ling's undying hatred for the Center Tags :)

Alastor, for...well...being alastor.

Zerg~Ling, for reading over the last draft of the report and commenting on just why he despises those darn Center Tags so much. And for being a Badminton player, which is absolutely hilarious.

Finally, Desert Demon, for convincing me to write this report after I had come home crushed by the tournament result. Also helped me with major formating issues, and read over the earliest version of this report.

Everyone from NH: You might not have actually helped me, and...we'll leave it at that, ok? ^-_-^

Sitewise, I made the banners from flamingtext.com, snagged some of the images off of fencing.net's picture gallery, and got the equipment thumbnails from blue-gauntlet.com.

On a final note:

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed! Comment Here