Sydney Sabre

• Be clear, decisive, consistent.
  • You must make the call with absolute gut confidence. Don’t think about it it or even give the appearance of being swayed. Remember you are also playing to an audience as a totally impartial and authoritative referee, think poker face.
  • You should be cool, calm collected and have confidence in your calls.
  • If you don’t have confidence, fake it. If you appear weak, fencers will exploit this. Remember that the fencers will often be intimidating and quite forceful. Ambiguity is a big no-no.
• Calls are initiated before the fencers gave a chance to speak or call. The first hand gesture should be initiated before the fencers actions are completely finished.
  • You must make the same call regardless of the score, at 14-14 as at 7-4. 
• Do not be apologetic about giving out cards. Failing to give out a card means that you are being selective in your calls. It gives the appearance of favouritism.
• Always make hand signals so that the audience can understand the call without audio from behind you. Big, clear and simple gestures. Keep each gesture stationary for 1-2 seconds before moving to the next one.
  • Remember that hand signals have been standardised internationally. A fencer from another country who doesn’t speak English should be able to understand your call by hand signals alone. Learn them and apply them. 
  • Keep fingers together when making a call.
  • Fingers bent at 90 degrees to indicate the side inititating attack.
  • Closed fist and pull when indicating preparation.
• Keep the language simple. There is only attack, attack simultanie (pas des touché), attack-no, parry-riposte in the first instance, and takeover/beat in the second instance (attack au fer, or even just ‘attaque’). 
• What we are calling ‘attack in preparation’ should be either called simply ‘attack’ or split into two calls being ‘preparation…attack’ with appropriate hand signals.
• Competitive referees should be doing it in French. This will distinguish them from club referees.
• Calling halt is enforced very strictly.
• Line rules are enforced very strictly.
  • One foot over the side line is cause for an immediate halt.
  • Starting early off the line is an instantaneous yellow card. No warnings, even if potentially both are at fault. One person is always at fault.
  • The start of the bout is at the end of ‘allez’ or ‘fence’, not at the start of the word.
• You can card both fencers. Provocation – feinting start with shoulders but not feet also counts as a card able offense. (See Kovalev vs Bazadze DE).
• Do not get caught up with the timing of the hits themselves – even if there is a small delay between the hits landing if all other actions are the same it is still simultaneous.

• Attack-no reprise: if one person stops the attack but the other person keeps moving back, the attacker can initiate a reprise of the attack.
• If both fencers ‘stop’ (usually by an attack no and a pause in taking over by the fencer who was going back) then the action simply starts again in a way similar to the 4m; priority is up for grabs.
• Attacker can stop or even move backwards if the defender seeks counterattack or beat, while maintaining priority.
• Benefit of the doubt is given for attack au fer vs. beat takeover.
• Benefit of the doubt is given for beat takeover vs. parry by attacker.

• Deacceleration constitutes attack-no
  • Any hesitation after after first step then fast lunge is counterattack. Examples include step lunge, ballestra lunge. (Some Koreans were being caught out on this).
• Absence of acceleration, particularly hand, is preparation.
• Any attempt at opposition is a counterattack.
• Ballestras are always preparation.
• Attack-no is called as soon as the front foot touches the ground, but if the opponent searches for blade and does not get the parry, the remise of the attack is given priority over the riposte/counterattack.
• Absence of hand extension with acceleration is preparation.

Fencing notes

• Lots of compound parries being taken, especially from Quinte
• Quarte parry is preferred over Quinte when retreating
  • Quarte parry riposte is a single action
• Seconde is very common and taken from high line. Counterpart to circle tierce from low line. Sometimes seconde is taken with a jump.
  • Riposte from seconde is taken quickly and either to flank or belly (latter with opposition).
• The acceleration for advance lunge is very abrupt
• Guys like Kovalev and Szilagyi make a point of keeping their weight on the back foot even up to the lunge so that they can convert advance lunge to an additional advance for the march.
• Attack au fer is very common in all lines but particularly with beat and seconde.
• Hand is usually kept high even though most actions are to low line.
  • Personally need to watch out for dropping hand in the 4m which is called preparation.
• It is very common to see flat hits to flank and belly.
• Short guys flunge, with huge acceleration (no preparation). Especially from the fall short.
• Stances are very low and weight is on ball of back foot.
• Fall short is followed by pause, then very fast acceleration for advance lunge.
• Defence is very active and biased towards parry and stop cut rather than attack on preparation.
  • Some people step forward with the parry especially seconde.
• I don’t know if they are using peripheral vision or looking at the hand in the 4m, but the other fencers are very ready to take the parry from the start. My suspicion is that they use peripheral vision and always keep track of where the opponents blade is, with the intention to finish the attack but able to sense if the opponent is rushing or hesitating.
• Dudes are massively built in the torso and legs. I’m the same height but half the bulk of Daryl Homer.
• Hand is kept bent and very far back on the attack with lots of takes by the blade.
• Hand is extending but kept bent for the final extension in the 4m. Don’t drop and extend the arm.
• Hits are always leading with tip, even cuts to flank.
• Flat hits are surprisingly common, especially from high line to chest/belly (vs. through-cuts), or as stop cuts to the outside of the opponent’s arm.