I'm not a swimming "fan" or anything...Follow

Let me guess. Kentucky?

Laugh away. I get to watch you all get upset at me

This has never, ever, happened, little buddy. It's cute that you think it has, though.

Not this time. It's a serious question. Since you're obviously spelling phonetically I hazarded a guess on where the phonetics originated.

I wouldn't know. I can only judge you by the words you use.

It would seem you cannot, in fact.

You're an effete epee snob though. ;)

No wonder you peaked in T-Ball.

Pshhaw.

Hah! My sister is left handed, and a national level fencer (As in: Qualified to compete at the nationals one year, so take that for what it is). I actually used to fence better against lefties than righties because of it. I really do think the advantage of fencing left handed disappears past about B level for most people. It's just that by that level there's a much higher percentage of people who do fence left handed (naturally or trained) that it gets perpetuated to higher levels within the sport.


Um... So I guess I'm just saying that as amusing to me as it would have been had your parents tied your right arm back as a child I don't think it would have helped much. Especially in your case... ;)

I really do think the advantage of fencing left handed disappears past about B level for most people. It's just that by that level there's a much higher percentage of people who do fence left handed (naturally or trained) that it gets perpetuated to higher levels within the sport.

So to sum up, you're arguing that more left handed fencers progress to higher ranks because it's an advantage against less skilled opponents, but this advantage is negligible among world class fencers and it's just more of a coincidence that so many of them are left handed?

Yeah, you're wrong :) It's an interesting argument, though. Take a look at the world rankings sometime, and note how many are left or right handed. While it's obviously not impossible to be the best in the world and be right handed, it's absolutely without question more difficult.

I'm a right handed dual wielder.

DW>epee

Let's just assume that he's right and being left-handed does help you against lower class opponents but that advantage disappears at high levels, well then you would still see what you see now, alot of left handed fencers because they trained themselves to be left handed for so many years and became great at it that they're not gonna switch even if it doesn't give them an advantage necessarily.

Yeah, I understand the point, and it's definitely part of it. You train to fence right handed people when you start out, and most people you fence are right handed, so fencing righty on righty is the "standard". Fencing left handed people as a righty is *literally* a separate skill set. It's not a just slightly different, it's like learning to type with your feet. You have to shut off all of this muscle memory you've developed through years of training, completely relearn reaction cues, the targets are in different places, it's a big deal. Again, don't get me wrong, it's not the end of the world, I've beaten more left handers than I can reasonably keep track of, hundreds easily. It's a slight advantage, but as you progress in skill, slight advantages matter more and more. In epee, for instance where you can score the whole body, left handed foot positioning and rotation makes scoring the foot different.

Matt Tagliariol is right handed, and he's hands down the best at epee in the world, at the moment, so clearly it's not decisive. It's just a pain in the ***.

Aww, **** it, I'm just bitter at the extra work from my childhood. Gbaji's close to right, but to admit so would rob me of some of my bitterness, and I just can't allow that to happen.

More importantantly could he poke Bruce DiCkinson in the eye a couple of times for me, barsteward deserves it for cancelling that consert in 88, fUcker.


Edited, Aug 15th 2008 7:36pm by tarv