New Timings

[rwrylsin]

Hi folks.

I had a chance to try out a scoring box with the new FIE timings on it last night and thought some of you might like to hear about it, even though I guess they won't make their way to Aus before next year.

New timings apply to foil and sabre, but obviously I only fenced sabre. ;D

My first bout was against a guy who also fences epee. He decided to try fencing with epee tactics - ie: lots of counter attacks and remises. I lost a lot of points because a counter attack can now block an otherwise perfectly legitimate attack from registering. The only way around it was a really strong parry and the fastest possible riposte I could manage, and a similar thing with beat-attacks. I've got some practice ahead if I ever want to be able to do a compound action again.

Two more bouts against Real Sabreurs doing Real Sabreur things were much more successful, although it turns out that getting in a good counter-attack isn't quite as easy as the epeeist made it look so I didn't manage to get as many cheat-points as he did.

So, those of you who like to counter-attack could be in for some fun. You'll probably want to practice your distance though, getting too close during an attack is really asking for trouble now.

[Ben]

Sounds intresting... will have to give some thought to that. Where did you get the info regarding the new systems?

[Steve]

Its a pretty hefty change, I'm not surprised it was more difficult to stop the counters... I found a little info on them. For comparison's sake, in Epee you have 40ms to get a double hit off...

Foil: Contact time goes from 1-5ms to 13-15ms, time for a double hit decreases from 700-800ms to 275-325ms.

Sabre: double hit time from 300-400ms to 110-130ms.

So now you don't have quite so long for that parry-riposte

Note: This change in the rules will probably not make it to australian fencing for a very long time (think years), at club level at least.

[rwrylsin]

I think the timings are technically in a 'trial' phase for the next 12 months, but with so many people updating their boxes it's unlikely they'll back them out unless there are real problems with them.
So I'd expect to see them showing up at AFF comps no later than the start of 2006, and the VAFA boxes will all be updated at the same time.

You should be able to get new chips for your boxes without too much trouble, someone will probably do a bulk order at some stage. Obviously no point doing it before VAFA does, but someone should probably ask them what their plans are for switching.

[Anthony]

If thats the case, we better recruit an electrical engineer, or hang onto Tim for an extra 2 years :-P,
but mmm, maybe just budget to buy a new box, always a good thing.
Anyway (as a side note about Timings, has anyone else noticed that the date on the fencing boad is now 1 day behind? (ie I'm posting on the 16th but it will say 15th at the top or on the day I poseted. or is it just me?)

At club level, we should definately be on par with the FF, maybe a tiny bit ahead, to give us a slight advantage going into the first comp.
I mean keeping in mind that we want to be all keen on going to comps and not moving to our own system, kind of like going to metric while somone important doesn't.

[rwrylsin]

I wouldn't worry too much about the switch, your boxes aren't unique in Victoria so what should happen at some point is:

1. VAFA say "we're ordering new chips from supplier X during the off-season, who else wants one at $Y?"

2. VAFA say "We have the chips, you can put them in yourselves, or we have someone doing ours that can do yours as well if you bring them in".

3. The boxes sit in someones garage for two years until they give up and send them to Germany and charge you for the postage and...
Oops, sorry, ignore flashback #3. ;D

Anyway, 1&2 are what ought to happen if people are organised and sensible.
Since we are talking about fencers it will be worthwhile to make sure someone is at VAFA meetings and actually asks them if this is what they will do.
Go to the AGM, and perhaps ask Peter O. in advance if it will be on the agenda.