A to Z: Whites and Celebrate the Small Things

Whip-over: in sabre, a touch that results from the foible of the blade whipping over the opponent's guard or blade when parried.

Whites: fencing clothing.

Olympic Epee Fencers

 

What's with the whites?

 

 

Back in the olden days, before electrics (see that cord hanging off the back of their jackets), the end of each blade was red, and the judge could see the red tip/edge against the white jacket clearly. The entire match had to be judged/refereed with the human eye, and the red tips (on foils and epees) and red edges (on sabers) were much more visible against white. Epee fencers still fence in nearly all white, since the entire body is target area. 

 

However, these days, modern foil and saber fencers wear silver lames (pronounced lamays) over the target area for each blade. (remember, dull blades, not sharp)

 

Foil lame (the silver jacket over the white jacket)

 

The modern electrics are set up so that in foil and saber fencing the lights/buzzer only go off if the silver part is hit.

Foil target area is the torso.

 

Saber lame.

 

Saber target area is everything from the waist up. That means that a saber fencer wears a special glove, and a special helmet during competitions.

 

All of these extras are worn over the regular whites, not in place of them. The regular whites are better for sweating in (really) than the electric competition lames, mainly because those lames are lame to clean, nearly impossible actually.

 

Other fencing W terms:

Whip-over: in sabre, a touch that results from the foible of the blade whipping over the opponent's guard or blade when parried. (I wish I could find a video of this)

Terms from ARMA (The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts)

Ward - one of five to seven fighting postures, ready stances, or guards

Waster - a wooden stick used as a practice sword, also called a “bavin” (later a “cudgel” or “wiffle”)

 

 

 Hosted by the awesome VikLit!

 

1. My parents are recovering from their surgeries really quickly! This is awesome, huge news because I love them, and because it means I have less to do. (yes, it's totally selfish of me) My dad's fingers are up to the task of putting on both his prosthetic leg, and his leg brace (on the "good leg"), and my mom is able to bend over enough to empty out her dishwasher and so stuff like that. Yay!

 

2. I wrote a bit this week, and managed a 2 mile walk, and a 2 mile bike ride around a bunch of household craziness (some related to parents' surgeries and some not)

 

3. I love A to Z, but this year I'm also thankful that it's nearly the end.

 

4. I'm celebrating all the awesome A to Z hosts who make A to Z possible!

 Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Tina Downey at Life is Good, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude 2.0, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Matthew MacNish at The QQQE, Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Livia Peterson at Leave it to Livia, L. Diane Wolfe at Spunk on a Stick, and Nicole at The Madlab Post

 

5. I went to see Oblivion last Saturday night with my parents (pre-surgery, happy 75th party for my dad), my husband and our kids. We enjoyed it, and had fun talking about it afterwards, especially that last five minutes of the film.

 

 

Tomorrow, I'll highlight the eXception to whites, the men(and women) in black. Who are they? What are they hiding under their masks?

 

 

Happy A to Z!

Hope you have something awesome to celebrate today!