History
WHAT DOES FENCING MEAN?
In the broadest possible sense, fencing is the art of armed combat involving cutting, stabbing, or bludgeoning weapons directly manipulated by hand, rather than shot or thrown. Example weapons include swords, knives, bayonets, batons, clubs, and similar. In contemporary common usage, fencing tends to refer specifically to European schools of swordsmanship and to the modern Olympic sport that has evolved out of them. Fencing is one of the four sports that has been featured at every modern Olympic Games. The modern weapons for sport fencing are the foil, épée, and sabre.
HISTORY
The term 'Fencing' derives from the expression, "The Art of Defence", meaning the art of defending one's self in combat. The history of fencing starts back in the days of ancient
The fifteenth century brought the beginnings of modern fencing. Spain had the first true fencers, and the first fencing manuals were published in 1471. About 1500 the Italians began extensive use of the Rapier. The right hand held the weapon while the left hand held a dagger. Italian fencing masters invented the four fencing positions (prime, seconde, tierce, and quarte), and the lunge. The 16th century also brought a large increase in the popularity of dueling. New fencing masters were the first to classify and define fencing attacks and parries.
During the 17th century several major changes occured in fencing. The “fleuret”, or foil, was devoloped in
In the 18th century the heavier weapon called the Épeé became the popular weapon for dueling. The sabre, a weapon descended from the Oriental scimitar, became the national weapon of
1780 brought an extremely important development to fencing. The French fencing master La Boessiere invented the fencing mask, allowing a much safer bout. This sparked a lot of development in non-fatal technique and strategy.
Men’s Sabre and foil competitions were present in the first modern olympic games in 1896, and Men’s Épeé joined in 1900. Women’s foil joined the Olympics in 1924, but it was not until 1996 that Women’s Épeé joined.
AN OLYMPIC SPORT
Three weapons survive in modern competitive fencing: foil, épée, and sabre. The spadroon and the heavy cavalry-style sabre, both of which saw widespread competitive use in the 19th century, fell into disfavour in the early 20th century with the rising popularity of the lighter and faster weapon used today, based on the Italian duelling sabre. While the weapons fencers use differ in size and purpose, their basic construction remains similar across the disciplines. Every weapon has a blade and a hilt. The tip of the blade is generally referred to as the point. The hilt consists of a guard and a grip. The guard is a metal shell designed to protect the fingers. The grip is the weapon's actual handle. There are a number of commonly used variants. The more traditional kind tend to terminate with a pommel, a heavy nut intended to act as a counterweight for the blade. The more popular grip style used is the Visconti, more commonly referred to as a "pistol grip." It is said to be more ergonomical, contouring to the fencer's hand, and provides better tip control. Almost every fencing country has their own variant of the pistol grip.
The foil is a light and flexible weapon, originally developed in the mid 17th century as a training weapon for the court sword (a light one-handed sword designed almost exclusively for thrusting). It is the weapon that, traditionally, many students practice first. Hits can be scored only by hitting the valid target surface with the point of the weapon. The target area is restricted to the torso. A touch on an off-target area stops the bout, but does not score a point. There are "right of way" conventions or priority rules, whose basic idea is that the first person to create a viable threat or the last person to defend successfully receives a "right" to hit. If two hits arrive more or less simultaneously, only the fencer who had the "right of way" receives a point. If priority cannot be assigned unambiguously, no points are awarded. The basic idea behind the foil rules was, originally, to encourage the defence of one's vital areas, and to fence in a methodical way with initiative passing back and forth between the two fencers and no last-minute counter-attacks ---- which risk a double death.
In modern competitive fencing "electric" weapons are used. These have a push-button on the point of the blade, which allows hits to be registered by the electronic scoring apparatus. In order to register, the button must be depressed with a force of at least 4.90 newtons (500 grams-force) for at least 15 milliseconds (Originally 1-5 milliseconds, but changed in 2004, done to counter the popularity of the "flick attack"). Fencers wear conductive (lamé) jackets covering their target area, which allow the scoring apparatus to differentiate between on- and off-target hits.
Épée fencing was started at the beginning of the 16th century. While the use of two-handed longsword was declining and full suits of plate armour became less common, this new weapon was born in
Like the foil, the épée is a thrusting weapon: to score a valid hit, the fencer must fix the point of his weapon on his opponent's target. However, épée lacks the foil's most artificial conventions: the restricted target area and the priority rules. In épée, a hit can be scored by landing a hit anywhere on the opponent's body. The fencer whose hit lands first receives the point, irrespective of what happened in the preceding phrase. If two hits arrive simultaneously (within 40 milliseconds of each other), a double hit is recorded, and both fencers get a point (except for in modern pentathlon one-hit épée, where neither fencer receives a point).
In order for the scoring apparatus to register a hit, the push-button on the end of the weapon must remain fully depressed (tip must be depressed for a certain distance) for 2-10 milliseconds. To register, the hit must arrive with a force of at least 7.35 newtons (the equivalent of 750 grams of stationary mass) - a slightly higher threshold than the foil's 4.9 newtons (500 grams). All hits register as valid, unless they land on a grounded metal surface, such as a part of the opponent's weapon, in which case they do not register at all. At large events, grounded conductive pistes are often used in order to prevent the registration of hits against the floor. At smaller events and in club fencing, it is generally the responsibility of the referee to watch out for floor hits. These often happen by accident, when an épéeist tries to hit the opponent's foot and misses. In such cases, they are simply ignored. However, deliberate hits against the floor are treated as "dishonest fencing," and penalized accordingly.
The sabre is the "cutting" weapon, with a curved guard and a triangular blade. However, in modern electric scoring, a touch with any part of the sabre, point, flat or edge, as long as it is on target, will register a hit.
The modern sabre is commonly believed to have taken its origins and traditions from the cavalry sabre, but that has recently been exposed as a myth.[citation needed] It is believed that the Hungarians introduced sabre fencing in
The target area in sabre is everything from the waist up, except for the hands. A hit that lands off target will not register a light or stop the bout.
Like foil fencing, sabre fencing uses right of way rules. However, the definition of an "attack" is slightly different for the two weapons, and as a result, the right of way rules distinguish sabre and foil, though the basic concepts are the same. Sabre right of way rewards very fast fencing (on offence and defence), so sabre fencing tends to be more aggressive in style than the other weapons.