Seatle International Veteran's Cup

Report on today's tournament, Seatle International Veteran's Cup, Men's Epee.

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=20737&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=85305

During the DEs. I'm just off the left edge here, about to fence the guy in the black headband, Jonathan Jefferies.

I came in 19th out of 34, which is better than I expected given all the great fencers.
My pre-tournament seeding (based on letter ranks and point standings): 30 out of 34(or about 22% from the bottom, if that makes sense).

My seeding after pools, for DE: 18 out of 34 (47% from bottom). Not bad.

In the pools I won 3, lost 3; scored 23 touches, received 24 touches (indicator of -1, and came in 4th place out of 7). This made my DE seed just one above Aaron Page and one below Mark Blom. All three of us won 3 and lost 3 and had indicators of -1. We differed only in touches scored and received (TS/TR): Aaron 22/23, me 23/24, Mark, 24/25. Apparently that is how they determine seeding when victory percentage and indicators are tied. There's some mechanism for dealing with total ties, but it hasn't happened to me yet.

Since I lost my first DE my experience was mainly that of the pools, which I enjoyed a lot and feel like I learned from—fencing mostly people I didn't know (excepting Don, and Michael Chin, who I've only fenced a couple times). Results, in the order I fenced, if I remember right:


Fencer V/D Score Fencer's V/TS/TR/Ind/Pl
Chin, Michael D 3-5 4 26/21 5 2
Penner, Don V 5-3 0 17/30 -13 4
Ameli, Sean D 1-5 6 30/14 16 1
Lipp, Robert D 3-5 4 24/21 3 3
Leonardini, Barry  V 5-2 1 20/27 -7 6
Baldwin, Bob V 5-4 3 24/27 -3 5


Details:
Michael Chin (a "B") is strong and fast, as I knew from before. Usually a foilist, he unfortunately avoided displayed foil habits that are bad in epee. I remember a practice bout with him once where he did a lot of foil-type "mistakes" and I hit him in the arm a lot. Alas, he's learned!

Don I know quite well from practice fencing. He's over 70, very experienced and has taught me a lot. So much I knew how to avoid his tricks and sneak through his defenses. Felt a bit bad about winning though. He's currently a "D", but was once an "A", I think.

Sean Ameli (an "A") is among the best epeeists in the country and one of the very best veteran epeeists. I think his current national standing for veteran epee is #2. He was the top seed going into the tournament, the 3rd seed after the pools, and came in 3rd at the end. He's left-handed and has lots of bouncing speed, and is just all around excellent. Great ability to land arm hits on the outside. Well, I managed *one* point against him. Good enough!

Robert Lipp (an "A"), seeded 10th before the start and 12th after the pools. For some reason I can't recall the details of this bout too well. I did my best, but on at least a couple of occassions my ripostes or remises just barely missed. At one point he launched a fast fleche and I leapt back, retreating so fast I nearly fell down, but managed to land a hit while avoiding his point. That was a nice moment. I was definitely putting my all into it.

Barry Leonardini (a "U") was an interesting, unorthodox fencer. An older guy (over 60 at least, maybe 70 or near it?), his fencing "stance" was "walking around", more or less. He tended to wander back and forth on the strip, often half off the edge and sometimes all the way off. He used a french grip and during my bout with him he switched several times from pommelling and holding it closer to the guard. Whenever I saw him start to pommell I starting using hard beats and he'd soon switch back to a closer grip. At one point I noticed he had rotated the grip so that the wide part of the bell guard was "wrong"—facing up and inside. I figured this was useful for some unorthodox attack, perhaps a very pronated and/or angulated attack? In any case, I won fairly handily, but he was very interesting to fence.

Bob Baldwin (a "D") I fenced last and enjoyed the most. He got the first point or two, then I caught up a bit, then he was up by 2. If I remember right, we were at 2-3, then scored a double, making it 3-4. In a bout to 5 it is quite uncomfortable to find yourself at 3-4. One of my main goals in this tournament was keeping calm, with a relaxed upper body (and hard working legs), avoiding nervousness and making every effort to *enjoy* it all. I also made efforts to be patient, which is harder when you are down in points. All these came together very nicely in this bout. I waited for the right moment—which ended up in somewhat ungraceful close combat, but I managed to land a remise and got a single light hit, making it 4-4. Then the need for calm, relaxed, hard working, patient focus was just as great. After some probing we clashed—a double touch, thrown out because 4-4. Then some more manuevering and presto, I scored a single light with a parry-riposte.

That bout felt great. Not only was I able to keep my cool, but we engaged in all kinds of manuevering and efforts to deceive, set up and break patterns, etc. Unlike with someone like Ameli, I felt I could perceive many of his tactics as they developed, and was able to employ my own, each of us with about equal success.

My first DE bout after the pools was against Jonathan Jefferies, a "B" fencer who I had never met or heard of before. He had seeded 15th, to my 18th, which looked promising. I got some advice from Jeff and Aaron, who had been in his pool. He fleches, they say, pay attention to distance, and give yourself extra. He's good at remises, so avoid direct attacks, Aaron said, try to draw him out with feints and second intentions. Well, I was fairly trounced, losing 4-10. His fleches were good. They were fast but not lightning fast, however he was able to bind up my blade as he fleches in ways I couldn't get out of and still don't quite understand. Ah well, as before I did my best, worked hard, kept calm, avoided nervousness, and enjoyed it.

The rest of the DEs included some exciting bouts. Jim Arrigoni won his first DE against Trip, then went up against Mike Perka—an "A" fencer and one of the best veterans in the region, if not the whole country. Mike would take the lead only to have Jim rally and tie it up, several times. As time was running down Jim was behind 6-7, but got a single light, tying it at 7-7. Time ran out and they went into sudden death. Mike got priority, and after a bit he scored and won. So close! Jim came in 10th overall, earning his "D" rating. Had he beaten Mike he would have come in 7th (assuming he lost the next DE), and earned a "C". Damn he's been getting better and better.

Then there were the DE bouts with Walter Dragonetti, who was 4th seed after the pools. First he fenced Jeff, winning 10-0. Afterward Jeff said "that was totally not fun" and "he was toying with me". Maybe, although watching "Dragon" in further bouts, his style tends to be something like John Varney's—retreating and retreating to his end of the strip, then making a hit. Sometimes that can feel very frustrating. Perhaps that is why some people do it. Anyway, after Jeff, Dragonetti beat Gareth Mason, who I don't know.

Then, in the Final 8 it was Dragonetti vs. Travis Exum (4th and 5th seeds). I *know* Travis is very good and I was very curious to see how he might deal with this "Dragon". Being both generally defensive, they got called for non-combativity and the bout went fairly quickly. I wasn't sure if Travis could beat him, but was surprised when he lost 7-1.

Travis (R) and Dragonetti (L)

After that, Dragonetti went up against another of my clubmates, the awesome Mikol Ryon (who had seeded 1st). This was a semifinal bout and up on the raised strip under the bright lights, with a sizable crowd watching. It was amazing to watch these elite guys. Dragonetti took the lead early on and I don't think Mikol ever managed to catch up. He lost 6-10. At one point they clashed hard and Mikol fell down in a way that looked strange, like he had been hurt. My flash thought of a broke blade passed as I saw both blades looking fine. Turned out his mask had jammed up hard on his chin, making his teeth smash together and chipping a couple. For a minute he stood, pulling bits of tooth out. Marshall asked "are you alright?" Mikol said "not really". Marshall asked if he wanted "ten minutes for medical" or a couple other options I didn't catch. Mikol said no, and after putting some bits of tooth in his pocket (!), said he would continue and put his mask back on. There was applause. I think most people in the club, Mikol's club, were really hoping he'd win, especially after that. There was applause after his hits, but little if any for Dragonetti. Nonetheless, "the dragon" won.

There was a minor upset in the other semifinal. David Jensen (7th seed) beat Sean Ameli (3rd). So the final bout would not be, as Trip had put it, "another Ameli-Dragonetti bout" (I didn't know this was a common occurence!). I kind of wanted to see someone put this dragon down, but thought Ameli was probably more likely to have done it than Jensen—although I knew next to nothing about Jensen. Anyway, as with other Dragonetti bouts, there was non-combativity and things went fast. Jensen did better than I expected, getting to a 4-4 tie before time ran out (veteran DE bouts are to 10 points, but these guys were being *very* cautious). So, sudden death overtime. Priority went to Jensen! Dragonetti used nearly the full minute of overtime before landing a hit and winning, 5-4. Man. "Dragon" indeed.

Mikol (L) and Dragonetti (R)

Folks watching the semis and final bouts. (pictures posted to Facebook by Kundry)

Beginner to intermediate fencing

Been reading Epée Fencing, from Leon Paul. Subtitled A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Olympic Gold (With no guarantee you'll ever get anywhere near it). The book is divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced sections. The advanced section is aimed at world class fencers, so the intermediate section is more advanced than I usually would think, at least for my goals! It seems that I am still a beginner, but getting closer to intermediate, according to their definitions. There's a list of things you need to be able to answer "yes" to in order to be what they are calling an intermediate fencer. Rephrased from questions to statements (with comments about where I am now):

• Your hand automatically leads in an attack. (usually, working on it)
• When recovering from an attack, your arm is the last to fall into the on guard position. (not that often, got to work on this more)
• Can use stop hits with opposition. (I think so)
• Can stop hit to wrist with angulation. (yes)
• Can remise effectively. (yes)
• Your three parries (4, 6, 8) are technically perfect, and you riposte quickly and in-line. (my parries not technically perfect, but mostly good I think; ripostes less "perfect", especially from 8)
• Your disengages are very small, normally say only 20-30 centimetres in diameter [8-12 inches]. (I think so, "normally" anyway)
• You normally keep your feet moving at all times during a bout, and vary the tempo. ("normally", mostly yes, I think)
• You maintain a correct fencing distance and resist being lulled into a closer distance by a cunning opponent. (I think so, although maybe not as well with very cunning opponents; on the other hand, I seem to sometimes be able to lull opponents into coming too close...)
• Your lunges and flèches attract admiring comments from your coach and other club members. (not really, just the opposite for my flèches, sometimes)
• You are in good physical shape. (getting better, but...)
• You have been fencing two or three times a week for at least two years. (no, only one year, not counting the long long ago stuff).

That provides a list of things I could, or ought to be working on. The main things seem to be:

• Hand leads
• Arm last to recover
• Perfect parries 4, 6, and 8
• In-line ripostes from 4, 6, and 8 (especially 8!)
• Better flèching.

Put that way, it sounds quite manageable...

May things to work on

"Eyes open": When attacking or feinting, pause very slightly in order to see how opponent reacts and proceed appropriately. Like: Advance-extend to threaten inside wrist, pause very slightly and see how the opponent responds:

• Does nothing: Continue to wrist with advance or lunge.
• Counterattacks: Parry-ripsote (OR, stop hit into the counterattack?)
• Parries:
• Parry 4: Disengage and advance or lunge to the arm.
• Circle 6 parry: Counter-disengage and continue to wrist; OR
• Circle 6 parry-ripsote: Ceding parry to prime, riposte (ceding motion similar to counter-disengage: counter-clockwise)

"Low lines": A couple things:

• Older idea of making a low line feint or actual attempt at the hand and, if opponent counterattacks higher responding with a sharp upward beat then continuing to body.
• Doing a parry 8 expecting opponent to disengage out of and attack high, respond with a (ceding?) parry 1 and riposte.

"Appels": Both front and back foot appels. Back foot appel interesting: Make an advance slowly with the front foot, then quicker with the back, with an appel, then accelerating into an even faster lunge or advance-lunge, etc.

"Four-six": Advance while moving into a parry 4 position, encouraging an attack into 6. Advance again with a strong parry 6 riposte. A kind of one-two thing that sometimes works very nicely.

"Low-high fleche": Advance while threatening low, wrist pronated, then rapidly rotate wrist supine and fleche into 6. The whole smoothly as a "one-two" action.

Finally, as always, remembering to "lead with the arm", not the feet. And furthermore, when recovering keep the arm straight and threatening. Arm recovers last!

Sigh

My 4th "U" tournament. The first three I came in 3rd, 2nd, and 2nd. This time I came in 3rd. Well, it was fun, and I have another medal, but that E rating still eludes me.
http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?event_id=82655&seq=2&highlight_competitor_id=91067

Fencing practice with George

A video of George and me fencing last week. It was at the end of an evening of fencing, so we are both a bit tired and slow. Video was taken at a fairly large size and resolution, switch to HD!

Video from last tournament

George took this of Aaron and Jeramy's semifinal bout. The video starts after the first period. Video was taken at a fairly large size and resolution, switch to HD!