22 years later, a picture surfaces
on 02/12/2014 at 03:23 AM
So Drew, you fence?
Couldn’t quite tell from the pic, looks like epee? Certainly not sabre or foil. Did sabre once in college. Fleched him, as I went past he backhanded me with the flat of his blade. Ouch! Remind me to buy a three-weapon mask next time.
Um, the kids in the picture are wearing lames. Sleeveless lames. Thus, it’s foil. But they’re probably beginners, which explains the high blade position of the kid in blue pants. I have no idea why the kid on the left is standing akimbo, hand on hip sabre style. But you can do that in foil without much risk.
Fleche in sabre? You’re begging to have bits cut off. Getting KO’d in the back of the head with the blade is nearly a minor response. Fleche for me was a despicable move, as was the flick. When fleched in foil, I’d simply step back and to my left and extend my weapon arm, blade high. This was pretty much a physical block, with the bell of my foil/sabre coming at you like a punch in the mouth. They could avoid running into me by going out of bounds, which would cause a halt and they’d loose ground because of it. But they never did, because a proper fleche requires you to commit to it 100% and you can’t change it once launched. So as the little twit took the hit and collapsed at my feet, I’d bend down and quietly tell him not to do it again. When he did, as they always did (flechers think they’re just so shit hot with their dopey move), I’d drop into a sideways squat/lunge, kind of like the finish position in bowling: my left leg would sweep out into their path, and up came my punching stop hit, right in the nuts as they tripped over my leg and went face first into the ground. Sure, not the best sportsmanship on my part, and I was yellow carded several times, although my protest was that I had the right to be anywhere on my ground I wanted in order to defend it. Nothing was stopping my opponent from angling his attack to fleche on my blade hand side.
After a bloody face or two and a couple of mangled masks, no one ever, ever fleched me again. Nor did I ever lose those bouts.
Okay. So the answer is Yes?
