Why close dry (or steam or standard)?

Today it is widely accepted that fencing without electrical scoring equipment, and especially holding tournaments without electrical scoring, is a waste of time. Such dry fencing (also called standard fencing, or by British steam, fencing) marks one as completely out of touch with actual fencing. Unfortunately, what is widely accepted is simply wrong and in many ways limits athletes’ training in all three weapons.

First, let me state that I believe electric scoring fencing in practice is a key part of preparing for competition. The balance and handling of an electric weapon is different, the supporting electrical equipment, especially the blade, imposes physiological loads on the fencer, the time needed to be successful in the three weapons is different. You have to electrically fence to prepare for the electrical competition.

However, this is not the full picture. For example, consider the hit. No one, to my knowledge, has investigated what percentage of successes in electrical proficiency in all three weapons is due to accidental factors that have little to do with the correct mechanical execution of the technique. For example, is the bump on the underlying body, or is it an accidental tag in a fold of clothing? If the percentage is 10 percent, accidental hits start to represent a significant cumulative number of hits in the competition. Electrical scoring training can result in a good enough location picture of the hit, good enough that it is significantly vulnerable to chance-based changes in outcome.

At the same time, because the fencer is concentrating on whether the scoring machine is registering a hit, there may be a tendency not to feel what a good hit feels like. In terms of developing good technique, this is probably not a good thing, especially if the fencer wants to develop good point placement. However, there is a more mundane, but very significant result. The fencer may be so confident in the reliability of electrical scoring that he is not aware that the weapon has failed when he does so in a match.

I have seen fencers fence up to 5 touches in a single elimination match without realizing that the hits were not registering because there was no point on their weapon: the hit was not solid enough, it must not have had enough time on the target , somehow hit outside the timing parameters of the marking machine, etc… any excuse was accepted rather than realizing on the first hit that there was a technical problem. Because dry fencing is a more tactile experience, it promotes a good understanding of what is a light hit that might not trigger a light, a solid hit that should light up the scoring machine, and a brush that should not result in a hit. . If we train for high probability shots, dry fencing can help that training.

Performance on the fencing floor is another issue. It is not unusual for an electrical match to spend as much time putting on equipment, testing, identifying and replacing equipment when it fails, etc., as actual fencing requires. If your goal is bouts for training, with more bouts imposing greater training overload on athletes, performance (the number of bouts per slot per hour) becomes an issue. Every year my Salle Fencing Fence Til You Drop, an informal, self-referred tournament on New Year’s Day, in which the aim is to fence the driest bouts in two hours – last year the two winning fencers fenced 52 bouts each, and that was with getting off the strip after every fight so others could fight.

Ultimately, the loss of judges has created a generation of shooters who do not have the building blocks to develop referee skills or an understanding of the referee’s task level. In the 1960s and 1970s and even during the last years of dry saber, fencers grew up judging and officiating in the pools in which they practiced fencing. We were familiar with the difficulty of seeing and describing the action, and while we harassed the referees, we had a certain level of sympathy for how hard the work is. More importantly, we learned why the referees marked actions the way they did by watching and listening, and we learned a lot about how to recognize opponents’ actions on the fringe.

Today, electrical scoring creates the impression that fencing is an objective sport. It is not: shooters compete in an environment dominated by the referees’ subjective interpretation of the facts. Dry tips have value in training specifically because they are even more subjective. Frustration over missed shots by the judges is not a bad thing if we want to develop the ability to stay focused on bad calls and adjust technique to the capabilities of the referee and the scoring system.

There are many good reasons to practice electric scoring fencing training matches: it is always desirable to practice the way you will fight in competition. However, there are also good reasons to keep training tips and internal competitions dry specifically as part of the training repertoire. Trainers and shooters must identify specific results for each type of activity, electric or dry, and use the most appropriate tool for the training task.