A chess game played at a two hundred kilometers per hour (66)

A chess game played at a two hundred kilometers per hour

That is how the sport of modern fencing is often portrayed by its practitioners, or, frankly, anyone with an inclination to dramatize. Often, in student fencing circles this phrase is used ironically to juxtapose how simple, pragmatic and brutal this sport can sometimes be. However, I am inclined to approach this phrase by visualizing its contents; fencing is indeed an ancient game, requiring wit and is supplemented with technology unimagined by previous generations. It really is a marriage cold calculation and passion. A passion which is shared by the previous blog exploring modern fencing technology, and which drives one to explore developments of fencing technology even deeper.

How Horses Became Formula 1

A common passerby would not think of modern slender, antenna-like blades as swords. And they would be completely right, none of the three fencing weapons (saber, foil and epee) are swords. Assuming the sole purpose of a sword is to maim another person; fencing weapons are the literal antithesis to that. Modern fencing is concerned with the act of fencing; harming fencers would reduce the number of actors and thus be counterproductive. Therefore, modern fencing distills the principles of martial combat into a game of scoring points. 

To properly stab something, one would require a rigid and a stiff blade, similarly, to slash with intent to separate requires a bit of heft in the weapon. The saber, a slashing weapon, begins and ends with a rectangular cross-section, while in the middle tapers into triangular cross-section with minimal possible material. Modern foils are designed with a fully rectangular cross-section, meaning both weapons can bend and twist in many angles. Paradoxically though, modern epees retain their full triangular cross-sectional blades, an echo of their ancestry – the smallsword. Using modern maraging steels, the same steel used to make jet engine turbines, modern weapons can withstand incredible amounts of fatigue and endure hundreds of times more duels than their ancestors forged from bronze, iron or even high carbon steel. All that is achieved without compromising weight; modern sabers and foils weight no more than half a kilogram – less than a modern police officer pistol. 

 

 
Comparing modern fencing swords to pistols leads to a second queer deviation of stabbing weapons from their originals: the pistol grip. It would be natural for modern people to think this grip came about from the gamification of fencing and an appeal to comfort, but here lies another twist – it actually came about from war. 

 

Modern fencing became popular in late 19th century France, where gentlemen would solve their disputes by figuring out who can draw blood first. As it turns out, the easiest target to bleed in an epee duel is the hand and, specifically, the fingers. Some believed fencing to hit the hand was a greater show of skill and therefore preferred having a smaller guard, however as the sport became more popular, people began prioritizing the game itself, rather than its bloody conclusion, which incentivized safety. Thus, epee guards became larger, culminating into a bell guard which covers the whole hand – and is still in use today. Furthermore, World War 1 introduced a quicker means of removing body parts from people who enjoy the sport. In 1906 a grip which would not require all fingers to hold was patented by a French surgeon Dr Eugene-Louis Doyen  – the first orthopedic grip. Naturally, in the years before the second world war, this grip became increasingly popular. Over time, it morphed into the current day pistol grip, and remains the most used grip in contemporary fencing.
  

The World Keeps Spinning

Considering the violent nature of the sport, it is no surprise that the regulations for fencing equipment are incredibly strict. However, fencing is a sport in which every detail matters, and if that detail can be optimized – it will. Such is a goal of British Leon Paul, a fencing equipment manufacturer with their APEX line apparel and PROJECT ZER0 line of weapons. Their dominance in the industry is explained by their focus on developing the lightest fencing equipment on the market. To achieve this, they introduce modern material science – like the use of carbon fiber to produce their epee French grip, nicknamed the Tennis Grip, as it bears a close resemblance to one. Their epee blades have a unique V-shape, as opposed to a traditional full triangular cross-section, and to maintain the same quality of strength – they are shot blasted with glass balls to create a hardened surface of the blade. As of today, the culmination of PROJECT ZER0 is the  SUB ZER0 2 metal 3D printed orthopedic grip, which is topologically optimized for structural rigidity while having a weight of only 38 grams. Given the competitive nature of innovation, similar additive manufacturing techniques are used by Chinese manufacturers to produce the Shark Fin grip, with a comparable weight of around 40 grams. This also goes to show how fencing is leaving its European roots and expanding to be an international, global phenomena
   

 

One is often inclined to be skeptical about technological developments, for instance, in 1997 when Gary Kasparov was beaten by Deep Blue in a chess game, there was no shortage of declarations about how chess has ended. As it turns out, today chess is the most popular it has ever been, and chess engines like Stockfish are used by grandmasters to deepen their knowledge of the game. Likewise, technology has made fencing fun, safe, addictive; it extracted the core elements of what is virtuous and admirable about it. Like chess being amplified with innovation, it still retains its soul, even at two hundred kilometers per hour.

 

-  Julius Urbonavičius, Mechanical Engineer and friend of New Phaistos