Shawn Burns writes:
>But even in pre-electric fencing (foil anyway), the point goes to the person
>who has "the line", who establishes or has priority in a sequence.
Of course. Well, sort of (and amounts to the same thing)
The point (in actual pre-electric fencing) goes to the one who made
the last non-suicidal attack. So attack-parry-remise (replacement of
the point) simultaneous with riposte will go to the defender (with a
riposte), not the attacker (who failed to deal with the defender's
response before finishing his or her attack), wheras
attack-parry(insufficient)-riposte will go to the attacker for obvious
reasons, and attack-parry-pause-instence of the attack-late riposte
could go either way (since neither has priority once the defender
fails to riposte immediately, and the attacker is valid in instistence
at that point). And an attack against an extended point will (and
should be) awarded against the attacker -- since the extended point,
not dealt with, established priority.
I tend to think of it as "the point goes against the one who made the
-last- mistake, causing a double-touch".
I'm told, however, that lazy (or with, shall we say, a different
interpretation of the rule) directors in modern (post electric)
fencing tend to give the point to the initial attacker in a sequence,
sometimes regardless of the phrase, which can go too fast to see, even
if, as you say, a stop hit landed (or was established) a time ahead
of, say, an attack with an unextended arm.
>So the pereson who lunges will usually win the point against the
>person who stop-hits them at the same time, because the judge sees
>the attacker establishing the line first, regardless of which light
>comes on first.
And regardless of who actually established a valid attack (ie,
priority) first, true, though I get the impression it's gotten worse
since electric equipment became standard, for a number of reasons.
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme@(io.com, labcats.org)) |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
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