The Art of Fencing – A brief account to the sport
Fencing is more like a physical chess, played against an individual opponent. It is equally famous among men and women around the world. The best fencers are known for fascinating their opponent by making a few movements like overstepping, leaving oneself
open, ready for a counter attack or cornering their opponent. Such an intense play makes its more appealing and fun to play as well as to look at.
The game is played on a special marked long strip, called the 'piste'. The fencer is just allowed to move either forward or backward along the piste. If one of the players succeeds to corner the opponent past the last line on the track, he gets a point.
A fencing fight simply consists of the best-of-three bouts (round), with each bout being played for the best-of-five-points. Before starting a bout, the two fencers stand in the middle of the fencing strip. Both stand far apart that if they entirely straighten
their sword arm, the tips of the swords are almost touching.
The standing posture of the fencer is such that the sword-arm and foot are at front whereas the other foot should be placed at 90 degree angle of the front foot such that both the heels are touching each other. Fencing is considered to be a disciplined sport,
therefore, etiquette is the key. Each bout starts with a salute by both the fencers towards each other and then the guest of honour and the audience.
For moving forward in fencing, one always moves the front foot first, then follows with his back foot. For moving backward, the back foot is moved first then the front foot follows accordingly.
An attacking move made by a fencer is called a 'lunge'. For executing a lunge, the sword-arm is fully extended and a step is taken forward, aiming the sword towards the opponent. The back foot stays at its place. After the attack, fencer needs to return
to the default position, to resist a counter attack that possibly can immediately rebound from the opponent, called a 'riposte'.
The defensive position of the fencer is called 'parry'. Only the blade needs to be moved, keeping the arm as straight and firm as possible. As soon as the attack is defeated, fencer needs to return to the former position. After the parry, a counter
attack can be made before the attacker returns to his position, hence, scoring a point in hand.
In fencing, there are a few named positions of holding and moving the sword for a hit or a parry. These are eight namely
prime, seconde, tierce, quarte, quinte, sixte, septime and octave. Prime is when blade is to the lower left, tip downwards and palm facing the ground. Seconde is when blade is to the lower right, tip downwards and palm facing the ground. Tierce
is when blade is to the upper right, tip upwards and fist little tilted downwards. Quarte is when blade is to the upper left, tip up and the palm turned upwards. Quinte is when the blade is to the upper left, tip up but the palm facing down. Sixte is when
blade is upper right, tip upwards and palm facing up too. Septime is when blade is to the lower left, tip facing down but palm facing up. Lastly, octave is when the blade is moved to the lower right, tip facing down but the palm is facing upwards.
In the International Fencing Federation (FIE) recognised events, fencing is always judged by an electronic score-board system. However, at lower level championships, fencing bout can be arbitrated with a total of five referees. One is the President and the
rest are divided into two groups assigned to each player. On a valid hit, the referee will
halt (command to immediately stop) the match. Voting is done regarding who won the point in which each referee has a single vote, but the President has a vote of one and a half weight. The vote is either ‘yes’, ‘no’ or an ‘abstain’, meaning it was
not clear enough to determine if there was a point.
The FIE conducts fencing in three weapon disciplines namely epee, foil and sabre, each carrying a different posture and target area for point-scoring. All the three weapon events are held in both male and female of different age groups.
The new-comers are named cadets, followed by juniors, seniors and the most experienced ones are called veterans of fencing.
One of the delicate elements of fencing is that for both offense and defence, proper distance needs to be kept by a fencer with his opponent during a bout. Moreover, the distance must be enough to escape ones opponent's hit yet enough to reach ones opponent
with a perfect lunge.
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