The Electric Fence

Last night was fencing class. R has been fencing for almost a year now. I've been fencing for about six months. And last night was our first experience using the electrics. I had a blast!

There were five of us in the class. I was the only adult; the other four ranged from ten to twelve in age. Though, one of those eleven year olds is a 5'9" girl who fences better than I do, So it was a good mix.

To fence electric foil, you run a wire down the sleeve of your fencing jacket. One end plugs into a socket on the electric foil, the other plugs into a cable that trails out the back of the jacket and back to a controller box at the end of the lane, Each fencer wears a jacket with metal mesh in it; each foil has a button switch on the end. Make contact with the jacket, and the electrics count a point successfully landed; push the button anywhere else NOT on the jacket, and the electrics ring an off-target hit, Brilliant!

Here's where it got different. Now that electronics were monitoring the touch, there's much less open to interpretation. I immediately figured out that I got credit for touches I'd previously passed on as short or insufficient. I also figured out that touches I'd tended to concede to my opponent often didn't ring as true on the electrics. Bonus!

I really enjoyed it. Really enjoyed it. Fencing with wires, I mean.

The teeny-boppers, though, didn't like it so much. Maybe its because they tend to do age appropriate things like argue over every point, and argue over every procedure, and argue over, well... arguing. You know what I mean:

"That last point didn't count because your foil <insert excuse/explanation/story here>"

"Will you please stop arguing about the last point and fence?

"I'm not arguing!"

Yeah. That sort of thing. Suddenly, with the impartial closing of an electrical circuit doing the counting, there's little to argue over. For a couple of the teeny-boppers, it frustrated them greatly. My son was one of the frustrated ones. He also learned that the electrics rang touches differently than he thought it would. Except in his case, he didn't get as many breaks toward points as he did before. See, what he normally claim as a touch ... didn't count all of a sudden.

Just for the record, it wasn't because the arguing was squelched that made electrics so enjoyable. Though squelching the argument was certainly a pleasant side-effect. Rather, it was just downright inspiring.

Did I mention I really liked it?