Visualization of data generated by fencing matches: A case study - épée practice bouts
Colleagues/Friends/Fencers – Yes Fencers, especially those who participated in my experimentation {Insert laughs here} and gave their bodies to science. Ok, you were just fencing a number of bouts, but experimentation sounds more exciting for the audience.
Let’s talks about some of the components of my analysis:
Figure 1: The Fencing Piste
For this analysis, the fencing piste is divided into 5 regions. The area between the En Garde lines is referred to as the “Center”. The area between En garde line and the warning area is referred to as the “On guard”. There are 2 “On Guard” areas per fencing piste where the opposing fencers start at the beginning of each point. The last 2 meters at the end of each strip is referred to as the Warning area. There are 2 “Warning areas” per fencing piste.
Figure 2: épée fencer and épée (the highlighted region in red indicates valid target)
In this study, I have focused on the épée discipline of modern sport fencing. In épée, the entire body is target. One may only score (a score in fencing is called a touch) with the tip of the sword where the fencer must make the tip of his/her sword depress with a minimum force of 750 grams-force (7.4 Newton). If both fencers score with 40 milliseconds (1/25 of a second) of each other, then both fencers each score a touch.
Sample data & subjects: For this study, I had 9 épée fencers fence a variety of 5-touch, 10-touch, and 15-touch bouts where the score and the region of the strip they scored recorded and used as data to generate the results of this research. Between 11/14/2016 to 12/9/2016, 380 touches were scored and recorded. The following charts and results were generated based on these results.
Chart 1: Touches Scored and received by piste location
Based on the location of the strip a touch scored from a fencer’s 1st person perspective, fencing at the fencer’s own “On guard” area will be the most advantageous in both scoring a touch and avoiding a touch scored from your opponent. Most touches are scored in the “Center” region of the piste. The center region gets the opponent a slight advantage while fencing in this region. When attacking your opponent in their “On Guard” area, the attacking fencing is more likely to get hit.
The combat usually do not take place in the “Warning areas”. The limited amount of data that I collected suggests that both the attacking fencer (fencer in the 1st person perspective) and the defender (the opponent) have about the same chance to score or get hit by their opponent.
Chart 2: Current touch and the next touch by piste location
Based on Chart 2, there are strong connections between where a fencer scores on the strip and where the fencer will score the next touch. The largest frequencies of touches were observed for Current touch scored in the “Center”, and the Next touch scored in the “Center”. They are illustrated by the broken lines with the double arrow.
The strongest connections were found in the following pairs Current touch scored in the “Center” and Next touch scored in the “Center” (represented by the red ribbon with an arrow from the current touch to the next), and Current touch scored in the “On guard” area and Next touch scored in the “On guard” area (represented by the yellow ribbon with an arrow from the current touch to the next).
There are many more conclusions we can draw from using these data visualization techniques. I have prepared individualize analysis for each of my subjects that participated in my study. I will share this with them individually. My participants can use their analysis to work with their coaches on tactics and other areas they may want to improve on.
Thanks for reading!