Woody Cavenaugh

In a direct elimination match: "A fencer must always be allowed a rest period of ten minutes between two consecutive bouts." o.26 page 38 USFA Rule Book. Its right there in black and white. If you win a direct elimination bout you have ten minutes before you have to fence the next one.

Reality at the tournament. Your opponent watches you win the bout, he/she has to fence you next. They are supposed to give you ten minutes. Instead they step up and say something like "Ready to fence?" If you say something like "I would like my ten minutes" you might hear back, "Lets just get it over with, rest is for wussies." Yes, they might be impatient to finish but don't kid yourself, they are attempting to goad you into robbing yourself of a fair match. They don't want you to have ten minutes because if you are tired, they have that much more advantage over you in the bout. Don't fall for it. Don't fall for the "Be a man" talk, don't let them use your insecurities against you. Don't shortchange your own abilities. Sure, they might beat you anyway, but make sure they beat you honestly.

Its even worse when a referee does it, and they will. Either they are favoring the other fencer over you, or worse yet they don't give a crap one way or the other and just want to be in the bar drinking. You get ten minutes. The rules don't say anything about it being an optional 10 mintues. I checked.

I had been sitting on this for a week now in the hopes that I would be less angry about it when I finally put words to paper, but that isn't happening. This one doesn't get added to the Greensboro Fencing Website. Maybe when I stop being angry about this I will rewrite it up special for the website, but now I'm still fuming about my decision to take the high road and not beat the stuffing out of a certain referee who probably needs some good old fashioned corporal punishment.

Just remember this. You get ten minutes. They are yours and no one can take them away from you. If you are called to strip early, walk up and remind your referee that you get ten minutes between bouts. Even better if you took the time to note the time so you could tell them exactly how much time you had left.

You man win the bout, you may lose the bout, but no matter what make sure it was a fair bout for both sides.