One Touch Epee
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Title
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One Touch Epee
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Date
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April 1940
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volume
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5
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issue
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2
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page start
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8
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page end
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9
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content
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en
One Touch Epee
The soft thuds that you hear at the various fencing salles throughout the country come from the fainting professionals who have just learned that the A. F. L. A. is conducting a mail vote among the members of the Board of Governors to determine whether or not American fencing will return to the one touch epee.
For many years we fenced the one touch epee. The professionals howled. “One touch epee is only a matter of luck. We work hard all year with an epee pupil, send him into a championship and then watch him get beaten by a man with less than half his training. Phooey!” On the basis of this and other arguments, the one touch epee came to an end in 1931 and three touch epee was substituted.
Unfortunately, the three touch epee introduced double-touching, which is the art of hitch-hiking upon an opponent's initiative. As soon as one epeeist achieved a single touch lead, he endeavored to coast along, risk as few threats as possible and double-touch upon the opponent's threat. Double-touching, something that no duellist would consider, was developed into an art in epee, the sport which is intended to simulate a duel. Bouts which formerly ended with what the professionals claimed were in many cases lucky touches continued to end with that same lucky touch plus some double-touches. The only difference was scores of 3-2 instead of 1-0.
The three touch epee bout resembles the one touch epee bout in target and weapon, the foil bout in attitude and duration and has no equal in boredom to spectators, jury and contestants. The current theme song is, “The Thrill Is Gone but the Memory Lingers On.”
Now if the epeeists themselves were having a good time we'd go along like the mother who said, “Don't the children have a lovely time breaking up the furniture in the playroom?” It is their sport and they should be allowed to have it the way they want it. However, this article was not written without first having asked at least a dozen of the leading epeeists around these parts as to their preference. We were amazed to find all but one vehemently in favor of one touch epee. We do not know how epeeists in other parts of the country feel, that is true, but with such a preponderance on one side here indicates to us the strong probability that at least a majority in the country at large would likewise favor the one touch epee.
The original arguments against one touch epee might still be used against it but a new factor has entered the picture which eliminates some of its original opposition. That factor is the electrical epee machine. This apparatus took many years in development but has now been perfected to a point where epeeists "cry for it." Unfortunately, however, with at least nine years precedent for multi-touch epee, the machine with its "knows all, sees all, tells all" ability is not used today for uni-touch bouts. The epeeists are hooked up to their wires and sent for the longer trolley ride with only the occasional thrill of a short circuit.
The electrical epee is an expensive weapon. It is also delicate. Sturdy enough for any normal competition for one touch, this epee tends to cease functioning after the beating it receives in multi-touch competition. This means that each epeeist must own about three electrical weapons to last through any competition. In other words, a fencer must have about $30 worth of epees to enjoy the luxury of electrical epee competition. Isn't that a pretty steep equipment requirement on many of the young men who otherwise would enjoy the sport? Have not the so-called advantages of three touch epee and those of the electrical epee counteracted each other to the detriment of the sport itself?
Look in on an epee match today. The fencing is the poorest in years. The reason, I believe, is the lack of young fencers coming into the major competitions. The epee fields are the smallest in fencing. With the introduction of the electrical epee it was hoped that errors would be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, they are not. The fencers used to blame the judges for error, now they blame the epee. The weapon just cannot take the beating it receives in a long multi-touch competition. It fails and time is lost in fiddling around to repair it. Its owner finally and grudgingly gets his second or third best weapon and starts again. After this has happened to several different fencers, the audience of three gets up and leaves. The younger fencers who have shown promise in early competition and who have come out to watch the champions in action lose interest in open competition and drift away.
Why will one touch epee induce them to enter electrical epee competition? With one touch the fencing is more cautious, resulting in more humane treatment of the weapon. Instead of having to fence for a total of possibly five touches per bout, he fences for one touch which may mean that his epee is only being used for one-third or one-quarter of the time necessary for a three touch bout. Less wear and tear on the epee. In a three touch bout many fencers enter with two and three epees and wind up the competition by borrowing one from their friends or renting one from the A. F. L. A. With one touch it should be a rare occasion when a man would have to use more than one weapon. The result would be that young fencers of promise who could afford one epee would enter the open competitions making for better development of our epee men.
You say again that one touch is all a matter of luck. Not all, but there must be some. If you want to fence a game where winning is almost purely a matter of technique and training, take up foil or sabre. The epee is not an academic weapon. It is a fighting weapon. It means that when two men meet, no matter how great a difference there is in their ability, the weaker must have some kind of a fighting chance. If I were to take my foil or sabre and meet the world champion in a five touch bout, it is as sure as death and taxes that I must lose. But give me an epee, let me meet the champion for one touch, and it no longer becomes a mathematical certainty. The odds would still be very much in his favor but I would have a chance—not very much perhaps, but still some chance.
The epee was not intended as a technical weapon. There are no rules governing its use. It was and should be a practical adaptation of a man's foil training. He should be able by accuracy, smartness and quick wit to outguess and defeat an opponent of greater skill. He could do this for one touch, but not for a multiplicity of touches. And I claim that multi-touch epee is no longer true epee.
When you eliminate the luck element in epee, you take away the thrill of it. It becomes an ungraceful, illegitimate foil bout. It is like taking away the knockout in boxing. When two boxers meet, one being greatly superior to the other in skill, the thing that makes it at all interesting is the possibility of the less-skillful fighter landing a lucky punch and winning by a K. O. Take this away and boxing would be uninteresting except where both men were equal in skill. So too is epee dead with the elimination of luck.
With the electrical epee, the old boogey-man of the ink days, the double touch, is dead. Then, when two fencers were hit, if it was at all close, the stock decision was, "Double Touch." Now the electrical epee overcomes this. With large pools with at least 50% of the fencers qualifying, we would cut the time element of the competition, reduce the amount that luck has in determining the ultimate result of the competition, but keep in the luck and the thrill of giving every man, no matter how poor a fencer, at least some chance of winning in every bout that he fences. No man could go through a competition on luck alone. He would have to have something more than just that.
When we had to train our fencers for International competition, it was necessary to keep to the rules of the F. I. E. The F. I. E. is in a dormant state today, awaiting peace in the world for a resumption of its activities. International fencing is at least four or more years off. Why not use this time to experiment, to change our rules to our needs and to attempt to bring out and develop the young fencers we so need. A man trained to win bouts in championships for one touch can adapt himself to more touches with a little training, when the times comes. I do not believe that the reverse of this statement is true.
I believe that the A. F. L. A. is using foresight in its present suggestion. I believe that one touch epee will revive interest in the weapon. I believe that one touch epee is adaptable to the American temperament and that this is an opportunity to prove it. I hope that the vote will pass and that we can test the case in fact rather than in discussion.
—W. D.
