Ratings

I've had little to write about recently so I decided to keep my mouth shut for the better part of a week. But this keeps coming up and I can't resist.

Whenever you gather groups of people together who do something, inevitably some well intentioned person decides to organize them. Preferably, this ranking system rewards skill and accomplishment. As is often the case, USFA's first attempt at this did not work.

In the before time, in the long, long ago, we referred to people as senior, junior, & novice fencers. These terms were so ridiculously vague that I will not go into them.

In the dark ages, people who had not fenced in 50 years were given B's & A's, despite a few being deceased. Further, if you got lucky and won your A at a tournament you kept it for life. You had no incentive to improve. You were suddenly king for life. But to make it fair, earning an A, B, or C involved a herculean effort. If memory serves correctly, A's were only awarded to winners of Div1, so the number of A's in the US was hilariously smaller than it is today. B's were only awarded in Div1 if you made it somewhere near the finals. The lowly C was passed out to any shmo who could win a regional tournament.

In the renaissance, USFA saw the advent of the D and E ratings. Upper management noticed that youth fencers were not motivated to continue fencing after two to three years without a rating. All they saw was 3 years of their life fighting tooth and nail against more experienced fencers with no real recognition or rank to show for it. So to appease people who like to see outward recognition for less than godly results, the USFA started handing out D & E ratings. That way, Billy so-and-so can finally see a bright new letter by their name. Furthermore, ratings now decayed at a rate of every 4 years. So your A suddenly felt shrinkage if you slacked off enough that you weren't able to renew it. All in all, this was a smart move by the USFA as it increased the value of ratings by putting a shelf life on them. It also increased the ability to seed accurately as an 'A2002' is worse than an 'A2004.' You're going to have to forgive the dates, I haven't met an A in about that long.

I believe we are currently operating under USFA rating system 2.5. We may be on the verge of going to a numerical system in a year or two, but there are equal signs of going either way.

The Fencing community as a whole is obsessed with ratings. Like any good subculture all of its participants dig on reputation and rank in some form or another. We like to see signs of our progress, which is a good thing in humanity. I am not here to rag on our desire to improve, far from it.

What I am here to rag on, is when people get weird about ratings. They use them as character judgments as opposed to seeding guides. It makes me slightly upset when someone gets all lordly with their rating. I've always seen a high rating in my opponent as a weakness to exploit just like everything else. It pumps my adrenaline like nothing else when I have a chance to lay out an A.

One of the funniest things I ever saw was a 15 year old Hungarian saber fencer fresh of the boat at DivIII. I had him in pools and thought something was a bit off. He ended up knocking me out in the round of 8, which was my first national medal (and to this day, one of my favorites). I was watching him fence for gold when I saw him whip out flying parry-2 followed by parry-8. For those of you that don't know what that means, he was playing with the poor kid. Viciously playing with him. I always wondered what happened to him because I never saw him again in the next 4 years. I hope he comes out of nowhere again, just so I can watch a good show.

Divisional Youth League

We're not doing this either. We talked it over & decided that it would be a bad idea to jump into a giant youth league that doesn't work.

Our two biggest problems as a division are lack of population and finances. Epee & Foil are overrepresented in the division as a whole, with MFA mostly competing in Saber. The rest of the division has older students on the whole while we mostly have middle school & Y12 fencers. I can see us going to a tournament and having NOBODY to fence. Further, the proposed league fees would just kill us on rent & waste money from the parent's perspective.

I think we should work toward a division-wide youth league after we have functional local ones. At that point we can all come to the discussion table with hard data on what works and doesn't work for each Montana city.

Further, I would like to make baby steps toward one that encompasses the whole division. We should probably divide up into two youth leagues, one that encompasses Spokane, Missoula, & Helena, and another with Bozeman, Butte, & Billings. That way nobody has to drive an insane distance to compete regularly.

Concerning a Losing Situation

Sometimes the survival instinct does not kick in for fencers who are losing. I've seen many people simply lean back and accept their fate as opposed to throwing everything they have at their opponent.

This is what you are supposed to do when you are losing:
It is your duty and expectation to go super saiyan whenever you are being beaten by Frieza or any other alien invader. It doesn't matter how badly you are getting beaten because the only way you will be able to beat people who are better is by going super saiyan. They don't care about you and will not let up, so take a hint from them and do the same.

Tournament this Weekend

The proud tradition of Zombie Saber continues this weekend with the second Zombie Invitational in Missoula, MT. 28 Days Later is awarded to first prize.

I also expect a healthy turnout for the saber section in Missoula's first youth tournament!

Demo #2 down

We just demonstrated today @ CS Porter Middle school to their entire class of 7th graders. I liked the audience and I hope the audience liked us. Carola gave me some excellent criticism to work off of and enlightened me to a few points that I was weak on. Rest assured, they will be addressed at the next assembly.

Thank you to Chris for the tip about getting the audience involved in making calls, my goodness did that ever work. Next time I would like enough Dedicated fencers in each weapon to showcase all 3 with our best foot forward. Sam will thank you in the future.

Q&A's worked better at the end this time, don't know how to scientifically gauge that outside of my gut (Stephen Colbert would be proud), but I'll find a way.

Also, I am officially past 50 posts. w00t.

Slight Change of Plans

We spent the better part of an hour yesterday discussing our options in creating a Missoula High School League. I have good news!

It's not gonna happen! No High School League, at least not yet. Instead, MFA is going to create a youth league that starts next month and will have a tournament once a month thereafter. All youth events will be open to all young fencers within the Inland Empire and the events will not be USFA sanctioned. We are not 100% on the schedule just yet, but we will be soon.

The reason we decided to abandon direct school affiliation is cost. We lack the overall resources to invest in a program with direct affiliation with the school system. We also think that our current method is more conducive to immediate growth within the division as opposed to the amount of time it would take for us to garner school approval. But not to worry, someday in the future we will have a high school league up and running, just not within the immediate future. This model can be changed or adopted elsewhere in Montana as well. We will have a meeting with Bozeman & Helena fencers this weekend about youth league set up and the like.

Y12, Y14, Cadet, & Junior events will be held at each tournament. We are also organizing a points list calculator on AskFred to keep track of individual fencers. At the end of the season, we will award one fencer in each age/blade category the cup for that season. We eventually hope to add a team bracket as well, but it may be a while before we can deliver that.

Keep Learning

It takes a long time to be considered a 'complete' fencer. That term is poor because it implies you know everything about how fencing works. Nobody knows everything about how fencing works; there are people that have good ideas in relation to fencing, but no one knows it perfectly. That aspect of the sport is so rewarding because it means you can do it your entire life and still be learning the entire time.

There are fencers that have a mature understanding of the sport, and by my reckoning that puts someone at 10 years + experience.

I don't understand it when fencers get stodgy about the rules or what you can & can't do. I know very few people who can afford to be 'old school,' & I am definitely not one of them. Competitors must constantly analyze and study the sport, listening to others of a higher understanding so that they may expand their perspective on fencing. Interestingly, listening to others of a lesser understanding can still bring great insight.