What is a martial strike?

• Martial strikes may include cuts or thrusts. Scoring actions include but are not limited to martial strikes; such actions as pommel strikes, grapples and slices have their own rules about martiality (see the scoring actions section).

• A martial cut is a cut that has been made with at least 30 degrees of rotation, good edge alignment and with force sufficient to cause a serious wound, should the target be unarmored and should the weapon be sharp.

• A martial thrust is a thrust that has traveled forward at speed before making contact with the target, with force sufficient to puncture should the target be unarmored and should the weapon’s tip be sharp.

• Decisions on a strike’s martiality shall be made at the discretion of the judging team.

• One handed strikes are allowed but are subject to all conditions regarding quality. A fencer may not remove one hand from their weapon for an extended period of time, such as holding a guard, except to grapple.

• All martial strikes may be assessed to determine excessive force, with an emphasis on one handed strikes due to their inherent lack of control.

A Note Regarding Tournament Staff Roles:

• Every match will be run by three officials: The director/lead judge, and two line judges. All staff roles including timekeeping and score recording will be carried out by these three staff members, with the exception of medical aid.

Scoring Exchanges:

• Any grapple will be allowed to continue for five seconds, with the director audibly counting the seconds (“One! Two! Three! Four! Five!”). At the end of the five seconds, the director will call “halt!” If any scoring actions were seen during the five seconds, the judges will call “point!” If not, the director will resume the match.

• When a judge or the director determines a scoring action has been made, they will loudly call “point!” The director will wait one second, and then loudly call “halt!” The fencers must stop fencing at the call of “halt!” not the call of “point!” The timekeeper will halt the clock at the call of “halt!”

• If a fencer determines a scoring action has been made on them that was not called by the judges, they will loudly call “point!” The ring director will call “halt!” immediately.

• Either fencer may self call a hit in ONLY the following ways:

  • A fencer may only call a hit during active fencing when they were the one hit.

  • A fencer may rule that they were hit when the judges rule no hit had been made.

  • A fencer may rule that a hit they struck was made without quality or that they did not hit at all.

• The ring director will have the final say as to whether to accept the fencer’s judgment.

• Should a fencer self call a hit, they must also announce the target of the hit to determine scoring.

• The fencers must return to their side of the ring at the call of “halt!”.

• If one of the judges called “point!”, the director will then ask all judges to indicate whether they saw contact in the following manner:

  • Each judge will indicate the fencer that struck the hit using the correspondingly colored baton held outwards towards said fencer.

  • If a judge did not see a hit, they will hold their batons downward in an x.

  • Double hits occur when both fencers strike each other at nearly the same time. Judges will indicate a double hit by pointing their batons outward at both fencers.

  • Afterblows are differentiated from double hits in that they do not occur at nearly the same time, but rather the afterblow hit begins its final motion towards the target after the first hit lands. Afterblows cannot occur after the call of “halt!” has been made by the director. Judges will indicate an afterblow by pointing their baton at the fencer that struck their hit first, and their other baton upwards.

• After the judges determine whether a hit has occurred, the director will instruct the judges to indicate the score:

  • The judges should score the highest scoring target that was struck prior to any afterblows or the director’s call of “halt!”.

  • Judges will keep the baton used to indicate who struck the hit in the same position for scoring, and indicate score using the other baton.

  • A baton held to a judge’s arm indicates one lost hit point (used for arm hits, leg hits, slices and pommel strikes).

  • A baton held to a judge’s upper chest or head indicates two lost hit points (used for head and body hits).

  • Both batons held by a judge downward in an x indicates no scoring action, either due to lack of hit or lack of quality.

  • Moving the off hand baton in a circular motion above the head of a judge indicates control, for controlled thrusts, cuts and grapples. Control may not be awarded in the case of a double hit or afterblow.

  • A judge will remain with both batons held outwards to indicate a double hit. Double hits do not change hit point totals, however, a match will end and both fencers will lose all hit points if three double hits occur in one match.

  • A judge will need to use their other baton to indicate score during an afterblow. An afterblow will score the first hit normally and subtract one hit point from the total of the fencer struck with the afterblow.

• The director acts as the final say in scoring the exchange, and will settle disagreement between judges:

  • If there is no disagreement on whether a type of hit has occurred or a majority of judges are in agreement, the director may determine contact based on the majority opinion.

  • In the event that the judges disagree evenly, the director will act as a tiebreaker to determine how contact was made. The director may also wash the exchange if the action is unclear, or make a decision on the contact based on their view of the action.

  • In the event that the judges reach an agreement that hit points should be lost by one fencer but differ on the target, the director will act as the tiebreaker to determine lost hit points. If the director is unsure about the target, they will use the lowest value target to determine value.

• After making a determination of lost hit points, the director will announce the value of hit points lost using the following wording: “Red/Blue fencer loses 1/2/4 hit points!”

• The scorekeeper will then record the score privately on the score sheet.

• Once all potential scoring actions have been resolved, the director will resume the match with a call of “fence!” and the timekeeper will resume the clock.

Structure of the Tournament

Pool Match Composition:

• Competitors shall be divided as evenly as possible into pools of four, five or six fencers.

• Each fencer will fence every other fencer in their pool for one match.

• Prior to the beginning of each pool, the event organizers shall determine the order of matches, and ensure that each fencer fences in as few back to back matches as possible.

Round Protocol:

• The rules shall be carried out in the pools phase the same way as in all subsequent phases, unless noted differently by the event staff or ruleset.

• Each fencer will begin the match on opposing sides of the ring at designated start points.

• The match will begin with the ring director ordering the fencers to come to the center of the ring to touch the flats of their weapons together, after which the fencers will return to their start points.

• The ring director will look to the two line judges and ask if they are ready, not continuing until a verbal affirmation. They will then ask both competitors.

• The ring director will then motion for the match to begin, accompanied with the command “fence!” The fencers must begin fencing immediately at this command.

• The ring director will call “halt!” as necessary to stop the motion of the fencers to issue points, warnings, or any other needed commands.

Time and End Criteria:

• Each fencer will begin a match with 9 hit points. The match will end should either fencer lose all 9 hit points, or if one fencer has 6 or more hit points than their opponent. A fencer cannot lose more than 9 hit points in a match.

• Should a fencer lose based on the “lead of 6 hit points” criteria, they will be considered to have lost all 9 of their hit points.

• After three double hits in a match, the match will end and both fencers will be considered to have lost all 9 of their hit points.

• Each match will be fought to a time limit of 300 seconds (5 minutes), counting cumulatively from when the ring director issues a “fence!” command, until a “halt!” command. The clock stops when fencing is not in progress.

• Should neither fencer drop to 0 hit points in the 300 second period, both fencers will be considered to have lost all 9 of their hit points.

  • Special exceptions may be made to the time limit at the Director’s discretion.

• Should a match end before any of these criteria have been met, the number of hit points each fencer will be considered to have lost for the match will be equal to the number of hit points they have lost in the match up to that point.

Elimination rounds:

• Fencers shall be seeded based on the average number of hit points lost per match while in the pools, with the lowest average being the top seed.

• In the event of a tie, the tiebreak criteria are as follows:

  1: Matches won (normalized to pool size).

  2: Average amount of hit point loss inflicted on opponents per match. (higher wins)

  3: Total number of warnings received, normalized to pool size. (lower wins)

  4: Random measure. (such as a coin flip)

• A fencer who receives a red card during the initial set of pools will be ineligible for progression to elimination rounds.

• The event staff will determine the manner in which fencers advance, either through a bracket or into another set of pools.

Brackets:

• In elimination brackets, fencers will begin the next match with the total of their doubles (but not afterblows) from the previous elimination bracket matches subtracted from their hit point totals. In other words, if four doubles occurred in a fencer’s previous matches, the fencer will begin the match with 5 hit points (9 initial minus 4 from doubles). If both fencers have received doubles in their previous matches, the fencer with the higher number of doubles will have the sum of their opponent’s doubles subtracted from their total, and the fencer with the lower number of doubles will begin as normal. (In other words, if fencer A had four doubles against them and fencer B had three, fencer A would start with one subtracted hit point and fencer B would start with no subtracted hit points).

• Should both fencers in an elimination bracket match reach 0 hit points at the same time, sudden death will occur:

  • In the event that an exchange is scored as an afterblow in a way that brings both fencers to 0 hit points, sudden death will occur.

  • The fencer that strikes the first clean hit in sudden death will advance. A hit with afterblow will not qualify to end the match.

  • Prior to the beginning of sudden death, the director will announce the win condition to clarify it for the fencers.

• When a fencer reaches 0 hit points before their opponent in an elimination bracket match, they are eliminated from the tournament.

Elimination Pools:

• In elimination pools, fencers will be grouped into new pools of four based on their standings from the initial set of pools in a snake style, where pools are filled from the first seed to the last.

• Each fencer will fence everyone in their pool, and finals seeding will be determined based on standings from these matches, using the same tiebreaker logic as with the initial set of pools.

• Because average hit points will determine advancement, the rules regarding sudden death and doubles added as wounds will not apply.

Finals and Semifinals:

• As with the elimination brackets, finals fencers will begin the next match with the sum of their doubles from any previous finals matches subtracted from their total hit points.

• The semifinals and finals matches will have a 360 second (6 minute) time limit and fencers will begin with 12 hit points. A 30 second break will occur 180 seconds (3 minutes) through the match. In the event that time expires and each fencer has the same amount of hit points, sudden death occurs, where the first clean scoring action wins.

• All rules for sudden death from the eliminations phase apply to the finals and semifinals matches.

• After the two semifinals matches, the two winners of the semifinals will move on to the first place/second place finals match, while the two losers will move on to the third place/fourth place finals match.

Penalties/Disallowed Actions

Penalties System:

• The director may give penalties as they see fit, and are not limited to giving penalties for actions specifically mentioned in the restricted areas/disallowed actions list. However, directors will use the restricted areas/disallowed actions list as a framework to inform their issuance.

• Not all warnings are created equal, and some warnings may result in more severe penalties than others.

• The primary goal of warnings is to keep fencers safe. In an effort to avoid injury, the director may issue warnings more frequently or of more severity if continuous dangerous behavior is noted.

• A fencer’s second is considered an extension of the fencer, and the director may award penalties based on the actions of their second.

Restricted Areas/Disallowed Actions:

• The following are restricted areas that are not allowed to be struck:

  • From the top of the ankle downward.

  • The back of the head and neck.

  • Pommel strikes to any target except the mesh of the mask.

  • The spine, all the way down to the tailbone.

  • The groin.

  • Strikes made to these targets will not result in scoring actions.

  • Presenting any of these areas in a way that exposes them to strikes is also not allowed.

  • Points will be awarded at the director’s and judges’ discretion in the event that a fencer clearly demonstrates ability to strike to a disallowed target, but does not make contact.

• While one handed strikes are allowed, a fencer may not remove one hand from their weapon for an extended period of time, such as holding a guard, except to grapple.

• Takedowns are not allowed. Miming a takedown may be taken into consideration when determining whether a dominant position is achieved in a grapple, but the takedown should not occur. 

• Mordhau strikes are not allowed.

• Arm bars, joint locks, chokes or any grapples that may cause harm to fencers are not allowed.

• Any strikes made with excessive force are not allowed, and strikes that land with excessive force are not scoring actions. A strike made with excessive force does not need to hit its intended target to be deemed excessive. The determination of excessive force will be made by the director, and judges will still call “point!” when they see contact made.

• Safety penalties may also be issued for the following:

  • Strikes after a halt has been called.

  • Repeated small offenses.

  • Retaliation after a disallowed action.

  • Any other actions the director deems unsafe.

• Technical penalties may be issued for the following:

  • Arguing with the director.

  • Repeatedly or intentionally exiting the ring.

  • Striking the ground.

  • Breaches of the code of conduct.

  • Any other actions the director deems worthy of penalty.

Tiers of Penalization:

• • Technical warning (Blue Card):

    • Verbal warning, no consequence.

    • A blue card will be issued for actions that are not directly unsafe but are categorized as technical penalties. Blue cards may result in a red card in the case of excessive or egregious behavior.

• • Tier one (Yellow Card):

    • Verbal warning, no consequence.

    • Actions that may result in a yellow card are those deemed to be breaches of the safety guidelines that are not dangerous or excessive. Multiple yellow cards for the same offense may result in a red card.

  • Tier two (Red Card):

    • Loss of three hit points to the offending fencer.

    • If in pools, forfeiture of ability to progress to the elimination round.

    • Actions that may result in a red card are repeated blue card or yellow card actions (throughout a single match) or those that are potentially dangerous or excessive.

  • Tier three (Black Card):

    • Forfeiture of match, expulsion from the tournament.

    • Actions that may result in a black card are repeated red card actions (throughout the tournament), any actions that demonstrate a disregard for the code of conduct, or actions that injure an opponent.