Guest Post by Annamaria Lu The past few weeks, this blog has published a few articles about refereeing. Mary Griffith also produced a post-Nationals write up. All of them have provided different perspectives on refereeing fencing. After Nationals ended, I contacted The Fencing Coach and offered to share my perspective as a new referee. I … Continue reading Growing Pains: Breaking into the Complex and Convoluted World of U.S. Refereeing (Guest Post) →

Diego Occhiuzzi is a really good saber fencer. He took a Silver Medal in the London 2012 Olympics. He is also the Luis Suarez of fencing. Here are my favorite Diego Occhiuzzi moments: Role model. This is how it's done.

A very simple post today to answer a very simple, trivial question: When a referee makes his/her "En Garde! Ready? Fence!" calls, should s/he very the cadence? For many of you, this is a "duh" answer, but for others, it might not be. Never hurts to clarify. I've heard multiple opinions from multiple referees, so … Continue reading Should a Referee Vary the Cadence of his/her Calls? →

Disclaimer, I'm not a statistician. Not even close. I'm so, so sorry to any of you who are for my lack of rigor. The prediction here is based on the commonly-used Elo system, which tracks competitor performance in other sports like baseball, soccer, and chess. I threw together a program to calculate the odds of … Continue reading Predicting The Men’s World Championship Field…With SCIENCE! (Guest Post by Todd Kozlowski) →

It's almost as easy to find refs kvetching about reffing as it is to find fencers kvetching about refs.  If you hang out with a lot of refs it's probably even easier.  And it's easy to quit reffing.  It's easy to see it as a thankless job - standing on concrete for 20 hours straight … Continue reading A Call for Optimism Among Referees (Guest Post by Kate Thomas) →

Dear Fencing Officials Commission: A new policy will be enacted on September 1, 2014 wherein referee ratings will be evaluated and altered according to national activity.  My referee ratings predate the cut-off years and are subject to degrading or rescinding.  Rather than be subject to a perfunctory system with which I do not agree, I … Continue reading Guest Post: A Referee’s Open Letter of Resignation →

(Disclaimer: There are three roles that fencers and referees have assumed, or may assume during their relationship with fencing: the fencer, the official, and the spectator. It is important to note that none of these are, or should be thought of as, similar or interchangeable for the other two. And, not being able to realize … Continue reading The Referee: Friend, or Foe? (Guest Post by James A. Weiss, Editor, The Fencing Coach) →