Their are two systems for plugging in a foil or saber, (epee gets a reprieve from this fight) a 2-pin system & a bayonet system.
2pin
Aside from sounding like a midwestern rapper, 2-pin setups have little going for them. Yes I am laying on the bias RIGHT NOW! 2-pin setups function like soviet era cars such as the Skoda.
I'm going to use this opportunity to use my useless history degree to give you a lesson and comparison in soviet era politics and how they relate to modern fencing clubs.
In old Czechoslovakia, the most common car was the Skoda. This vehicle was imported from Russia (by force) and people drove it (little choice). Fun fact, "Skoda" in Czech means "no go." Another fun fact, the original Skoda was incredibly unreliable and broke down regularly in the use of bitter Czechs and Slovaks. With their amazing sense of humor, many of these eastern bloc people could be seen on the sides of the road, next to a smoking Skoda, throwing their hats on the ground and saying "SKODA!"
At the University of Montana (and MANY MANY other clubs) the only cord you can borrow is the 2-pin. So if you want to start competing you borrow a 2-pin (little choice) and the cord falls out of the weapon every 2 minutes (by gravitational force). Unfortunately this 2-pin dictatorship is universal and self-replicating like an apocalyptic nanite swarm of the future. People stuck in this system mock the bayonet without ever having tried it. People never see the western side of the Berlin wall with all the fancy flash and flair of western capitalism that is the bayonet socket.
Bayonet sockets look like this:
Wait, sorry. That was produced by one of the greatest men of all time.
This is what a bayonet socket looks like:
They are pretty, they are simple, and they never break. Their are plenty of detractors out there who claim that it is impossible or hard to fix one of these cords, but in all my years fencing I've never had one break. The entire electrical connector on the weapon is enclosed, preventing an errant stopcut/flick/whatever from destroying the entire setup. I have watched 2-pins crumple under the kind of pressure that my bayonets can endure.
So, 2-pin cords are like communism. Break down the wall & come on over.
+1 for Calvin & Hobbes!
ReplyDeleteTo tell you the truth, I've never had much problem with either system. I switched to two-prong after my bayonet cords broke in college. (I was the only one on my team who used bayonet; I got a lot of strange looks from my teammates and competitors for doing so.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, while I've got nothing against bayonet, I have to say I've rarely seen the kind of problems you describe with two-prong cords - I've never seen anyone have any problems with the cord staying in the socket, and I haven't noticed people having problems with the connections any more frequently than with bayonets (which, now that I'm fencing again with people who use bayonets, I actually see a fair amount).
So I don't know that one system is actually better than the other, although as you mention, it's annoying that because there are two systems it's not always easy to borrow sabers or cords from a teammate.
I still get strange looks for doing so. I've never had a cord break, but I have had them fail on occasion. The socket eventually got dust in it, so that also failed. But the aging process literally took years until my bayonets finally failed. I still use my first body cord to practice with.
ReplyDelete