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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5556403" data-attributes="member: 54877">First, you'll note that I already said that fencing was not actual combat, and was more advantageous to females in the comparison than real combat. Accordingly, if men have a physical advantage in fencing, that advantage surely exists in real combat. But on the facts of fencing, you have it backwards. Reach is only a big advantage in modern fencing when it is dramatic, and even then more in epee than in foil. In foil, it is practically non-existent. Movement and judging distance is so much more important. You don't get the guy to miss by 1 inch because he lacks reach. You get him to miss by 1 inch because you retreated just enough to make him miss with by that much with whatever reach he possesses, while still staying in your reach for a riposte or counter-attack. Fencing is done with the whole body, and a lot of the speed is in the legs. Because how you move that lower body determine when and where you get in reach and out again. Speed matters right up until it doesn't--which is the point where skills trumps a given speed. That is, when the speed mismatch is severe enough, it is decisive. Then as skill mounts, it rapidly reaches a point where it is not only not decisive, but the least important element, compared to timing and skill. A highly competive match between two fencers of roughly equal skill and speed is almost always decided by superior timing, but occasionally decided by tactics, cool, and wits. (Again, it varies by the blades.)  In contrast, you'll see high school and college kids, all really tall kids, sometimes fleche repeatedly, and use other such moves based on practically nothing but speed.  (Hint, they are setting themselves up to play the "bad school' in a Karate Kid movie.) Finally, have you actually observed the leg muscles of competitive fencers, females included? If you measured shoulder muscles, you'd fine similar though not as extreme development. It is just not as measurable to the naked eye.</blockquote>

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