Sabre fencing, for those who don’t know, is a fast-paced sport, filled with snap decisions and movements that training makes second nature. The distance you know you have to be at to dodge another person’s attack, the amount of space and time you have after the beginning of a bout to establish an attack or set a trap — all of this has to be drilled into a fencer’s brain over countless hours of practice, so that when a fencer takes the strip at a tournament all they’re worrying about is what action they should make, not whether they have the skill to make an action. Of course, the way of fencing—and the way of sports in general—is that some people train better than others, and so are more comfortable with their actions. Oftentimes those people win, their reward for being more dedicated to their craft.
However, the FIE (International Fencing Federation) and USA Fencing have authorized a rule change that will throw everyone’s previous training out the window: fencers must now start with their back feet on the en garde line. Sounds like no big deal, right? So the fencer moves forward a few feet, so what. No. It is a huge deal. That tiny shift in the way a bout begins changes the entire complexion of sabre fencing, and not at all for the better.
Why do I say that? There are a few reasons, first and foremost being that tactically it dumbs sabre fencing down. When you have the extra 4 meters (roughly 13 feet) between fencers as allowed by the old en garde line rule, there is space to vary the form of attack you use — a big advance lunge to set up traps, a quick double advance lunge to establish attack, or a small appel lunge to cut into timing. When the space between fencers is roughly a meter (around three feet) as it is with the new en garde line rule, there’s no time to make a nuanced attack. A fencer has to go from zero to 60 in no time at all if they want to have any chance of taking the attack, so the advance lunge, maybe even the appel lunge, will become the order of the day for establishment, and a flat-bladed poking lunge will be the standard attack for going for preparation.
Traps also become different: whereas with the old en garde line rule a fencer had to move in a whole step to set their short trap, now they begin the bout within trapping distance. This will be great for fast fencers — they can wait for a split second, then fly backwards as the other person attacks to their en garde line and misses them. Once again, tactical nuance and skill is lost — no longer do fencers have to spend their hours practicing their short trap distance. It’s now served up to them on a silver platter. In addition to that, the second intention parry becomes much more difficult and verges on impossible. If a fencer steps in to take a parry, as they might have with the old en garde line rules, they’ll be right in the other fencer’s face, and the chances that they’ll get a parry at that close a distance are very slim.
Thus we see that the new en garde line rule has all but eliminated multiple tactics in a fencer’s arsenal. However, it poses a problem in another way: safety. Sabres are, after all, swords made of metal with heavy metal guards. Now the wielders of those sabres are starting mere feet away from each other in a tactical environment which, as explained above, encourages speed in the feet and fast extension in the arm. A flunge has the potential to bring a guard right into someone’s mask, as does an over-zealous attack in prep. A guard-to-guard action could lead to broken wrists all around.
The last and final point I have to make against the new en garde line rule is simple but important: when I fenced with it, it made fencing no fun. For perspective, I have never felt that way — not the time that I finished second-to-last in a Summer National, not the multiple times I choked away or lost bouts I should have won, not when my coach was upbraiding me for being an idiot with no ounce of tactical sense. Never. I have never been on the strip and consciously thought that fencing was no fun. Never, that is, until I fenced with the new en garde line rule. Why was it so terrible? It was frustrating, because everything about it went against what I’ve learned in six years of training. It was annoying, because tactical things that I know I can do didn’t work because the distance changed. Most of all, it was boring. The amount of actions I was able to do decreased, so there was less variety in the bout, and I was able to fence and win five straight touches without moving my back foot from the en garde line.
The new en garde line rule removes the flair and variety from sabre fencing: it reduces the actions a fencer can use successfully, thereby watering bouts down and making every action feel the same. Worst of all, however, it removes a lot of sabre fencing’s tactics, for which I condemn it as one of the dumber sporting rule changes I’ve encountered. Tactics serve to separate fencers — the experienced from the inexperienced, the daring from the scared, and the intelligent from the clueless. They allow less physically gifted fencers to compete against those who are wildly athletic, similarly to the way an old Peyton Manning or Tom Brady can nullify the physical advantages defenses have over them by calling audibles and exposing their weaknesses. By removing tactics from sabre fencing, this rule has the potential to hand the bout to the most athletic fencer, while at the same time exposing fast fencers to a greater chance of injury as the other person charges in and tries to match their speed. It’s a dumb rule, and come December it should get thrown on the trash heap where it truly belongs.
