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With the invention of the gun, and the consequent demise of armour, the sword became lighter and was used more for self-defence and for duelling than as a weapon of war. In 17th century Europe, the shortsword became popular, and the foil developed as a training weapon for this. It was tipped with a dull point, designed to bend when you hit your opponent, and the edge of the weapon was not used - it was important to hit with a thrust and to hit a vital part of the body. Consequently, when fencing foil, points can only be scored when hitting the opponent with the tip of the blade on the torso. It was considered that a hit on the arms or legs might well not be sufficient to stop your opponent from hitting you, and before the development of the fencing mask the head was not a suitable target to use in practice. Quaint rules have evolved from this, such as the point must arrive with a minimum of 500 grams of force to score: this was considered sufficient to achieve 10 centimetres penetration if the point was sharp, and therefore enough to pierce the heart.
Furthermore, the foil was developed and taught as a training weapon to instil good fencing practices (it is still normally the first weapon taught to new fencers). Since simply hitting your opponent a moment before he mortally wounds you gives scant satisfaction in a real fight, so if you are attacked it is not sufficient to simply try to stick your arm out faster than he does. The rules encourage good defensive play as well as attacking moves, by dictating that if attacked, a fencer must defend himself - or avoid being hit completely - before he can make a valid counter attack (a "riposte"). Thus, in a bout, the right to attack (the "right of way") may go backwards and forwards between the fencers like a Ping-Pong ball, only a lot faster. If both fencers hit each other at roughly the same time, the hit is scored by the fencer that had right of way.
If all this sounds rather static, remember that prior to this the two fencers will be moving up and down the piste, changing the distance between them until one decides this is the moment to attack. The attacker may be making one of a number of different attacks to different parts of the body. He may pretend to aim for one area then change mid-flight to another part of the target. He may be stepping or running forward to close the distance between the two fencers, or stepping back to draw the opponent in while preparing to attack. At the same time the other fencer may choose one of a number of different parries to the attacker's move, or simply step back out of the way: or duck, or close the distance so that the opponent can't get his point onto the target: Or counter attack into the opponent's move and gamble that this causes him to miss. Meantime, the attacker may have anticipated his opponent's move and moved his blade to avoid being parried: or let the opponent parry him with the intention of countering his riposte and so on. |
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