“I Can’t Score!” – Foil and Saber
November 2023
Has this happened to you? In the pre-bout ritual to testing your ability to score, when you hit your opponent’s lame, you get a white, non-valid light in foil and no light in saber. What should you do?
Daniel Zhang vs. Ethan Um in the junior men’s foil final at the 2023 Fort Worth NAC. Photo: Serge Timacheff
The first thing you is to ascertain whether a problem exists with the lame is to try hitting another spot. If the second hit registers a colored, valid light, then there is a problem and the lame should be replaced. But, if you continue to get a white light, you should proceed to the next step: testing your opponent’s body cord, by hitting the clip attached to the lame. If a colored light illuminates, then you know the lame is bad, the clip has been attached to a section of bad lame or the clip is heavily corroded.
If you don’t get a colored, valid light when you hit the clip, you should go to your opponent’s three-prong plug. Remove it about halfway from the reel’s fencer end and hit the “A” pin (the pin closer to the middle pin). If your opponent’s body cord’s “A” line – the conductor connected to the clip – is bad, then you should get a valid light. If hitting the “A” pin continues to produce a non-valid light, then go to the rear of the reel and hit the “A” pin on the floor cable. If this produces a valid, colored light, then the reel is bad – but if it only produces a non-valid light, then you should test the “A” pin as it goes into the scoring machine.
If, when hitting the floor cord’s “A” pin as it enters the scoring machine, there is a non-valid signal, there are two possibilities: either the scoring machine is bad (today, a somewhat low possibility) or there may be a problem with your body cord and you reversed the “B” and “C” lines in your body cord when fixing it. To see if your body cord wires have been reversed, hold an untapped portion of your blade against your opponent’s lame and depress your tip. If the conductors have been reversed, you will now get a valid signal.
Remember, as a rule, the piece immediately in front of the piece that gives a valid light is most likely the piece that has gone bad.
Just to be safe, after you have replaced the defective part (e.g., weapon, body cord, reel, floor cord or machine), test the lame again. If you get a valid signal, all is well. But there is a possibility you may still have a problem, as another component of your opponent’s scoring circuit may be bad, and you’ll find it by repeating the tests above, starting with the lame.
The same procedure can be followed if the mask bib or its associated mask cord are suspected of being bad. First, hit the bib. If that doesn’t produce a valid signal, then hit the clip connecting the mask cord to the mask. You may find that the conductive tab on the mask, to which the mask cord is connected, has ceased to be conductive. If that doesn’t produce a valid signal, then you must suspect either the other clip, or the tab on the vest to which it is connected.
For saber, the testing procedure for not being able to score is much the same, although the pre-bout ritualistic test usually involves hitting the opponent’s mask as it is held away from contact with his lame. For troubleshooting purposes, the sequence should be mask, mask cord, jacket, body cord, reel, floor cord, machine. Or, in the case of a bad glove cuff or manchette: cuff, jacket, body cord, etc. Of course, when troubleshooting your inability to score, the problem may be that your body wire has a break in it. If the white break-indicator lights on the scoring machine are winking at you, you may have found the problem. I’m reminded of a world champion who insisted it couldn’t be his body cord that was preventing him from scoring because every time he tested, he would get a valid touch. The problem was that he was testing with a bent arm, but attacking with an extended arm, which caused the break to open. Or, there is the remote possibility there is some coating on your blade that is not electrically conductive.
Rather than randomly switching-out reels and scoring machines when you cannot score on your opponent, systematically diagnose exactly where the problem lies and replace that piece of equipment. Being able to properly diagnose an on-strip problem can help you get on with what you came to do: fence.