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Title
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II. Judging Foil Touches - Part 1
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Date
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March 24, 1936
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volume
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1
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issue
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7
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page start
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4
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page end
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4
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content
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en
II. JUDGING FOIL TOUCHES - Part 1
Now that I have you properly placed as a judge (see first article of this series) let us see how you should proceed in judging a foil bout.
You know, first of all, that the foil is only a thrusting weapon; therefore, a good hit must be scored with the point. Further, you know the limits of the foil target, so that a good hit generally must land on the trunk of the body. Hits which land outside the target with the point must be nullified by you also, because they technically stop the action.
Now, then, when you see a hit scored—whether fair or foul—you must call it to the attention of the director (I-D-4-d). The best method of so doing is to raise your hand immediately, clearly and decisively—as you probably used to do in school… when you knew the answer to teacher’s question (and fooled yourself as well).
Particularly, you MUST NOT CALL HALT when you see a touch. The rules allow you, as a judge, to call “halt” only in case of an accident. In any other case, the command of halt, like the command to play, is to be given only by the director.
The raising of the hand, in my opinion, is better than the calling aloud of “hit” or “touch” by the judge, for two reasons. Firstly, it is difficult for the director to recognize the judges' voices clearly when both yell “touch” almost simultaneously. If the difference in time is significant in the ultimate decision of the phrase, the director can do better by following the order of raised hands.
Secondly, the sound of the judges' voice interferes with the sequence of play, by causing the fencers to stop, and this may often operate to the disadvantage of one of the contestants. Suppose, for example, that there are four judges and a director, and you raise your hand to indicate that in your opinion Fencer A has hit Fencer B. The other judge who is watching does not raise his hand because in his opinion there was no touch. A, however, parries B’s riposte and scores cleanly on the counter-riposte so that you and your fellow judge agree that B has been hit. The whole action takes less than a second’s time.
Now, under the rules, A is clearly entitled to that touch—yet, if you had shouted “touch” on the first movement, the action would have stopped, and A would have lost the opportunity for a well-earned point when your fellow judge disagreed with you on the existence of a touch and the director had no positive opinion on the matter (see rules I-C-6-c and I-C-8). The same reasoning applies when there are only two judges and a director, because the director can overrule you if he has a positive opinion which disagrees with your own as to the materiality of a touch (I-C-E-b).
Now, then, let us follow the play. The rules tell us (II-E-1) that all touches which land squarely and clearly on the target shall count equally for one touch. Just by way of comparison, you will notice that in this respect fencing is different from a real duel, aside from the target limits, because with a sharp weapon there are varying degrees of injury which might be caused, depending on the place where the wound was inflicted.
From the judges’ angle, the important part of the rule is the requirement that the hit be square and clear. This does not mean that the hit must result in a badly bent or broken blade; nor does it mean that it must be so made that a blind man could see it. As fencing improves, and becomes faster, foilsmen especially are prone to make hits that lightly touch the jacket barely ahead of the defender’s parry. These hits require an expert eye to see, and yet they are the prettiest made, and the ones which you may expect frequently from advanced foilsmen. You will have to practice assiduously, in informal salle d’armes discussions, so that you will be able to call these hits correctly.
As a beginning, however, I would like to tell you about a rule which used to be found in the books for the guidance of the judge in determining when a touch was sufficient: If the weapon had been sharp, the hit must have caused a puncture in the jacket—otherwise it is not a good touch. This means, of course, that the point must touch with an appreciable amount of pressure, and not merely “tickle” the jacket. A point which reaches the target so that contact is made, but without pressure of any kind, obviously would not have produced a puncture if it had been sharp, and it is not a good touch.
My last suggestion is that you judge decisively and not in a wishy-washy manner. You must try to be as fair and accurate as is humanly possible, but you must not lose the confidence of the fencers by your inability to form a judgment quickly.
Of course, sometimes it is difficult to determine whether the point is good or not and at first you will make many honest mistakes. That is one of the hazards of judging, and I shall try to help you in later articles so that you may watch out for the more common pitfalls. For instance, in my next article, I shall take up with you the relation of good fencing form to the judging of touches. Until then, au revoir.
M. A. de C.
