BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!

Subject: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 08:54 PM

Wow! I knew the US could do it, but didn't think they would. But the US Women's Sabeuristes took gold, silver, and bronze yesterday, making the US a world-class contender -- at least in women's saber.

So, all you young guys who want to meet chicks, take up saber...but don't say I didn't warn you.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: pdq
Date: 10 Aug 08 - 09:16 PM

And the Russians showed themselves best at rattling them.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 01:54 AM

Touché!

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 09:15 PM

I hope they get 'the point'

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 09:25 PM

They made some cutting remarks, I understand.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 05:58 AM

Sabre

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 09:57 AM

Saber.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Peace
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 10:01 AM

Sayburr.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Zen
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 11:01 AM

Sabre.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 11:04 AM

You could love them to the hilt.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: gnu
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 02:21 PM

Bravo! Wish I coulda seen some of it.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:23 PM

Saber.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:26 PM

(last picture on page)

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:30 PM

..burr

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 04:45 PM

Bugger me! Looks like even the USAF can't spel! LOL!

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Aug 08 - 05:22 PM

If all them UKers spell it "...re" they must've borrowed the spelling from the French.

Again.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 03:13 AM

Why was it the when we Brits originally went to America we forgot how to spell ?

The British army had ' cavalry ' long before the USA and the ones who did the fighting were and still are called ' sabre squadrons '

eric

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: GUEST,Joy Bringer
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 03:19 AM

Just watched the gymnastics there, the US didn't do so well against the Chinese who won the Gold.

Something I can't understand. If the Olympics is an amateur event, whay was the Scottish tennis player Andy Murray doing at it ? surely this guy is a professional ?

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 09:17 AM

Why are NBA professionals playing basketball for the US?

The Olympics are not an amateur event, at least in the televised sports, and haven't been for years.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:51 PM

This is, without a doubt, movie fencing. But having been an avid competitive fencer myself and a connoisseur of swordplay, I can say with some certainty that this is the best movie duel to appear on film so far.

The weapons used and the style of swordplay are anachronistic, because the period portrayed is the early 1800s, whereas the weapons used are modern, lightweight fencing sabers (you can buy ones like them from any fencing equipment catalog), and the form and technique are the modern Hungarian-Italian style. But what makes it very good indeed is that both of these actors are good fencers themselves, and they know what they're doing. Apart from the usual slipping on carpets and tripping over furniture, their form is good and the bladework is excellent.

And the villain gets his come-uppance!

Enjoy!

Saber.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 04:54 PM

Bearded Bruce, those are shlagers, the source of those fancy "Heidelburg" scars favored by the bad guys in so many old movies. The whole point of the excercise is to create the scars rather to simply fence as a sport.

What I find interesting about the three women who won in sabre is that they did not come from the New York area. The salle in New York was founded by one of the first Americans to medal in sabre in the modern Olympics [sometime in the 1980's, I believe] . He trained all of the Americans who won in 2004.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 05:46 PM

Sorry, that should have been directed to Rapaire.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 06:08 PM

Peter Westbrook, Bronze Medal, 1984.

A great man....

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 08:39 PM

"US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!"

Didn't even realise it was dirty!

Actually, The Princess Bride has some of the 'nicest' fencing on film.
QUOTE
Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin learned to fence (both left- and right-handed) for the film, reportedly spending all their free time during the production practicing with fencing instructor Bob Anderson (fencer) and and with each other. They performed all of the fencing in the swordfight scene; the only stunt doubles used were for the two somersaults. This amount of time spent practicing came in handy for Elwes, who later starred — and used his fencing skills — in the film Glory and in the Mel Brooks movie Robin Hood: Men In Tights, notably against Roger Rees, and even going so far as to call out, 'Parry, parry, thrust, thrust—good!'.
UNQUOTE

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 09:39 PM

Well, Don, that's pretty good screen fencing alright. In fact, it's a lot like fencing at my salle, except we also swing from chandeliers and jump over our opponents head. But they still haven't taken my suggestion: forget those wimpy, wussy, electric scoring things and sharpen the end of the weapons!

No doubt at all who won the match that way....

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 10:22 PM

Sorta like THIS, Rapaire?

(For period weapons that are supposed to have points but no cutting edges, they sure manage to do a heap of hackin' and hewin'!! And their propensity for trying to impress each other by standing out of distance and slashing. All those innocent air molecules they murdered!)

Yeah, the swordplay in "The Princess Bride" was quite good.

"My name Inigo Montoya. You keel my father! Now, prepare to die!"

But what made the duel scene in the 1940 "The Mark of Zorro" especially good was that Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone hadn't learned to fence for the movie. They had both been fencing for many years before the movie was filmed.

Tyrone Power's mother was a drama coach and a state fencing champion (Ohio, I think), and she started Tyrone off in both acting and fencing early on. The word was that he enjoyed fencing just for fun. He wielded various kinds of swords in numerous period movies, and, in fact, in 1958, he died of a massive heart attack while filming a duel scene (broadswords) with George Saunders.

In a 1953 movie called "The Mississippi Gambler," Power appears in a couple of scenes in a New Orleans fencing academy, wearing fencing whites and foil fencing with some of the pupils. Interesting to watch him without all the derring-do of a duel scene. Aldo Nadi he's not, but he wasn't bad. Later in the movie he does fight a formal duel, but it's not with swords, it's with pistols.

Basil Rathbone also took up fencing when he was quite young, as an adjunct to his acting, but enjoyed fencing for recreation. Fred Cavens, fencing coach and Hollywood fight director, once commented that Rathbone was one of the best fencers he had ever worked with in the movies, and that if he ever decided to go into competitive fencing, he would be formidable indeed.

Errol Flynn looked flashy, and slashed a lot of air, as the villain in a couple of Flynn movies, part of Basil Rathbone's job was to try to make Flynn look good.

Flynn is very athletic and he looks ferocious, but his lunges are kind of wimpy, not all-out like Power's and Rathbone's. Whenever Flynn lunges, he usually does so with a bent right arm, and he lifts his right foot way too high, which both telegraphs the lunge and slows it down. He'd be a sucker for a quick stop-thrust or a fairly leisurely parry-riposte.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 11:03 PM

Shucks, Don. My small sword doesn't have an edge because I haven't taken the time to put one on. But it's still mostly a thrusting weapon. I wonder why, when both of the guys wore gloves, they didn't just grab the other guy's weapon, disarm him, and run the sucker through -- perfectly good and acceptable tactics, along with tripping, choking, throat cutting from behind, slashing up between the legs, mouth smashing with the knuckle guard, and other things the Olympic Committee frowns upon.

Those fellas sure were in good shape, to fence that way and never get out of breath except for that one guy right at the end.

By the way, that was filmed in my salle.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 11:20 PM

Went to my first Foil Electric Tourney after a few weeks training, "Yeah come, on, you don't have to be good - it's just good training/practice"

Never played with all the electric clobber before: finally got kitted up in borrowed gear.

The guy at the other end was tall and balding.

First few points - ZaP, Bang, Wow! - he was looking rather annoyed.

Break, whisper in my ear "Humphreys - Olympics..."

Oh Oh... never saw what hit me after that....

Anyway, kept trying - was going rather well with the younger others though, and they were also getting annoyed. Finally someone asked the dear little old white haired lady judge what was going on - she muttered something in French which apparently translated to "Attack with First Intention"... They then stopped trying all that fancy 'beat on my foible with their foible' stuff and started getting serious enough to start using their forte... didn't do much good after that.... :-(

I'm not making this up, you know... :-P

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 08 - 11:40 PM

I checked YouTube to see if any film from the Olympics was up yet. Apparently not. I did find this, however:    CLICKY #1.

Modern sport fencing with electrical scoring equipment (don't bother with defense, or any kind of interplay—as would happen in a real duel with sharp weapons [such events tend to focus the mind]—just hit your opponent 1/25th of a second before he or she hits you) reminds me a bit of this:    CLICKY #2.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 01:23 AM

Sorry! I goofed. Clicky #1 was supposed to be THIS.
.
Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 11:07 AM

Grumble, grumble. If that's the best that a college fencing coach can produce, it's not any wonder we are not making it to the medal rounds in epee. There's no finesse there. It's all thrust and damn little blocking and response. The rest of the world is being taught differently and we are not adapting. The foil and epee people show the same approach: right of way rules all, even though there is no right of way in epee.

The movie's fencing is better, in that there seems to be actual fencing going on. Unfortunately, both participants seem to be fencing rather than dueling. The fact that both duelists ignored obvious weaknesses on their opponent's part suggest that someone made sure that the duel/match took up a certain time in the movie. It also presaged the final walkaway from a duel supposedly to the death between the hero and a murderous villain.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 02:24 PM

Jeez! I hate it when I blow a punch-line like that! But you get my point.

When I was fencing actively, I was forced because of polio-affected legs (minimal footwork) to play an essentially defensive game. Lure my opponent to attack me, then parry-riposte. I worked very hard to develop a strong defense (various combinations of parries that could be penetrated only by one specific combination attack) and a lightning fast riposte. I found the key to this in a brief chapter in Aldo Nadi's On Fencing (1943) entitled "Free Will in Defense." A revelation!

Granted I never won any championships, but I have a satisfactory collection of second and third place medals and trophies. On one occasion, I fenced in a nationally ranked competition, the Di Capriles Open Épée. Other entrants consisted of a three-time national épée champion and two members of the U. S. Olympic team. I tied for third, and after the fence-off, ended up fourth.

I was taking lesson from Hans Halberstadt in San Francisco at the time. I assumed I would never be able to compete because of my limited footwork, but Maestro Halberstadt insisted that I enter the Di Capriles competition. I was flabbergasted at the results, but the Maestro said, "See? It's in the hand and the head! Not the legs!" I went on to compete actively when I returned to the Pacific Northwest.

I would love to take on one of these modern electrified fencers—and just stand there and wait for their attack. I'm beginning to think they are not even aware of such things as parries.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 04:59 PM

From what I see at my salle, I'm inclined to agree. It's all attack, attack, attack -- no defense. I did some saber and destroyed my opponent because I used point as well as blade, and she was taught only the cut, not the thrust. When I had established myself as a point man I and she was starting to expect that, I switched to cut.

I think that electronic scoring is all well and good, but a flick (for example) scores a point as validly as a solid touch.

I suggested to the kiddies' coach last year that she have half her class stand against the wall and defend, only defend, against the other half. She's a nationally ranked foilist, but that idea never occurred to her.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 06:17 PM

The only time I have ever used electrical scoring equipment was in the Di Capriles épée. I had to borrow an épée because I didn't have an electrical weapon of my own. I haven't fenced since the late 1950s because I got so involved in folk music, performing, and then teaching guitar that I just didn't have time for it, more's the pity! I was always going to get back to it, but circumstances were such that I never managed to do so.

I think the electrical scoring equipment is a good idea because it does tend to solve the problem of blind judges. But 1/25th of a second? In my opinion, what needs to be done is change the interval to something   m  u  c  h     s  l  o  w  e  r    so it scores a major increase in simultaneous hits. And then score simultaneous hits as a double loss! That way, it puts a premium on hitting, not just first, but without being hit at all.

That, after all, is your goal if you find yourself in a real duel. There have undoubtedly been duels in which A pinks B, but a split second later B lethally wounds A. So A's "scoring" first makes for a pretty hollow victory!

Or they would both wind up laid out, as I'm sure would be the case if they just ran at each other and jabbed they way they do in sport fencing these days.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 14 Aug 08 - 10:14 PM

Well Don, that's why I want 'em to sharpen the points. But nobody listens to me.

Probably should do away with right-of-way, too.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:15 AM

As far as I used to know, 'Right of way' only existed in Foil, not épée or Sabre. My story was about foil - electric for the competition that day.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:27 AM

Answer: Say Burr!

Question: What could you say that would really piss off Alexander Hamilton?

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 08:58 AM

They now have right-of-way in both foil and sabER. Epee is the only "pure" weapon left, and that's only because these days everyone fleches. I saw a match where one guy did a fleche and tripped; his opponent simply retreated and left the flecher slide about two feet on his face, weapon and arm outstretched. Scratched the gym floor pretty bad and didn't do ANYTHING for the electrical cord.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: EBarnacle
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 10:16 AM

The idea about putting half the class against the wall seems pretty good. A few years ago when my mobility started to go West, I simply planted myself comfortably when working on epee with my son and his friends and let them come to me. It was amazing how poorly they had been taught--and how rarely they could reach me.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 01:04 PM

It's not a new idea. I swiped it from some 18th Century book on the art of fence.

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: olddude
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 08:19 PM

Pretty good at hockey also ... oops that is the Buffalo sabres
sorry, lost my train of thought, it happens with age

Subject: RE: BS: US Women Sweep Olympic Saber!
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Aug 08 - 08:51 PM

I'm older than you are, olddude. I never lose my train of thought. Sometimes it gets derailed, but it's never lost.