How it used to be.

Many fencers today do not realize that this tournament format we use now is; A. Not the way if has always been done, of B. Not the only way you are allowed to do it even now.

When I started fencing, and for many years after that, the standard format for tournaments was pools. A round, of pools, followed by another round of pools, followed by another round of pools. In each round the a percentage of the fencers were dropped. For example, if you started an event with 30 fencers the first round would be either six pools of five, or five pools of six. You were required to advance at least 50% from each round so in either case the top three from each pool (probably) would advance to the second round. ( I say probably because they could decide to advance 4 people from each pool if they wished, or even 5 from the pools of six although that would be pretty extreme.) Who advanced was determined by results of the pool. Victories of course were counted first, than indicators, then fewer touches received, then touches scored.
(At the time it was considered more important to have not been hit than it was to hit.) (To really confuse you, when I started fencing, scores were not kept by how many times you hit your opponent, but by how many times you got hit. First person to five lost. But we will leave that out of the explanation for now)
Fencers in those days kept a close eye on their indicators. I recall sitting by the strip cheering for a guy to score at least three points but not win so that I would advance due to indicators over his opponent. Once you figured out how things worked you paid attention to every point.

So in our thirty person event, we’ll say there were five pools of six, three advance. So the second round will have three pools of five. If you advanced three from this round you would have nine which is awkward, so you would probably advance four people into two pools of six into a final of six. At the end of the day the person with the best record in the final pool wins. First place though could not be decided by indicators, only by victories, so if there were a tie in victories the two (or three, or four) fencers who were tied would have to fence off for the victory. (it was conceivable that if there was a five person pool they could each win two bouts and have to fence the pool over in the barrage for first place) When I said “at the end of the day” I meant it. Events like this took a L O N G time to fence. There were events that would start early in the morning, eight to ten AM, and end early in the morning, one to two AM. Think you are tired now when you make the finals? Wait until you have been fencing for twelve hours and you are in your fifth pool and each pool has been harder than the one before it. Conditioning was an issue. But, if you were good enough, you got a LOT more fencing for your money.

This format is still acceptable. We could hold tournaments doing it now. But people are scared of the time factor. But it is still practical for a smaller event, say less than thirty fencers. It should be used as it will give especially the top fencers more quality bouts. Instead of burning through some cannon fodder before getting a hard bout in the round of eight, or four, when you make the final pool you get to fence five bouts against the top five fencers of the day. Not a bad way to finish off if you ask me.

Things in the head....

I have never seen a Twilight movie. Never really been interested. I read the first book back when it came out after I read an interview with the author where she told about how she wrote it from a dream she had. I thought the book was ok but nothing to get really excited about. But as I see the previews for this latest movie I confess I am tempted. (Trust me folks, this will work its way around to fencing, just be patient.) The first reason I am tempted is because the werewolves are just too cool looking. I know they probably show all the really good scenes in the trailer and the rest blows but damn, they just look cool. I thought that when I saw the previews for the last movie too but there are more cool wolf scenes in this one. (Can anyone explain why the chick didn’t go for the werewolf instead of the effeminate whiny rich kid vampire? Oh wait, tormented, rich and brooding, that seems to be the thing ever since Buffy came out, got it.) The other reason I am tempted to see this is because in these previews I keep getting glimpses of a red headed vampire. And here is where Stephanie Meyers and I sort of karmicly come together. You see many many, years ago I had a dream that featured a red headed female vampire. Now understand this was way before the current vampire craze got started. This was in the late 80s or early 90s. But in my dream, this red headed vampire showed up and wanted to learn to fence. She always showed up late or arranged lessons after dark. I recall being really frustrated in the dream that she would never go to tournaments. Somehow I eventually figured out that she was a vampire and in the dream I remember that moment. The light comes on in my head so to speak and I grab a wooden chair and smash it on the floor so I have one leg that is long and comes to a sharp point and assume an en guarde position and say something really stupid like “Just try it, I can hit your heart with a lunge.” (My dreams obviously need better dialogue coaches) The vampire just laughs and says “If I wanted to kill you I could have done it ages ago. But then I wouldn’t have a fencing coach.” So we worked it out, she kept taking lessons and no one (that I knew at least) got bitten. There was one point in the dream where she commented that even if she could find a night time tournament she probably wouldn’t go because she didn’t think it would be fair fencing humans when she had the extra physical capabilities of a vampire. As I recall I said something like “Don’t be ridiculous, some people have better and faster reflexes too, fence with what you have.” At any rate, the redhead in the Twilight previews looks like the one in my long ago dream. (See, it got around to fencing)

I have of course had other fencing dreams. None of me winning major events, or becoming a champion or anything of the sort. In fact, usually the main thrust of the dream is something else and the fencing is going on sort of in the back ground. These dreams reflect my background in fencing too in that they never seem to take place in large fancy salles or arenas. Instead they are almost always in crowded school gyms or dimly lit decrepit clubs. I n one dream I recall the building was flooded, and the fencers had all piled their equipment bags around the strips to form dikes. The strips were wet but off the strip you were standing in three or four inches of cold water. I recall some discussion about the possibility of being electrocuted by the scoring equipment if you were fencing in puddles. So yes folks, I literally do fence in my sleep too.

So, do any of you have fencing dreams?