Bright shoes and Epee foot hits

[kingkenny]

After watching a few matches in Epee during the Olympics I noticed that fencers wearing a bright colored fencing shoes got more foot hits attempted at them. I have also seen this at the US events where quite a few fencers have the bright Nike shoes. Has anyone else noticed this or am I going crazy.

I am thinking of the very bright shoes like the Yellow Volt Nike or the big Red or black adidas shoes.

If you see a bright target on a foot do you find yourself more inclined to try a foot hit?

Obviously this could be both an advantage or a disadvantage if you were used to wearing them so I am not trying to annoy people that have bright colored shoes in Epee.

[max]

As someone who was called a schweinhund by a German fencer after 2 foot hits in quick succession I can honestly say that colour, even size, of shoe does not influence my decision to go for the foot. In fact, I have no idea what prompts me to do it, it's now become instinctive under the right circumstances.

[andylymn]

After watching a few matches in Epee during the Olympics I noticed that fencers wearing a bright colored fencing shoes got more foot hits attempted at them. I have also seen this at the US events where quite a few fencers have the bright Nike shoes. Has anyone else noticed this or am I going crazy.

I am thinking of the very bright shoes like the Yellow Volt Nike or the big Red or black adidas shoes.

If you see a bright target on a foot do you find yourself more inclined to try a foot hit?

Obviously this could be both an advantage or a disadvantage if you were used to wearing them so I am not trying to annoy people that have bright colored shoes in Epee.

One of the lads at the club has the Red Addidas boots. It seems that those who are good at foot hits attempt even more and with reasonable success. Bit of a beacon...?

[Honeybadger]

There might be something in this. I tried foot hits for the first time recently to give my struggling opponent a couple of easy stop-hits to make him feel better (and managed to lose us the match by doing so - didnt know the scores were so close). Thinking back on it, he was wearing bright yellow shoes.

I vote we petition British fencing to give us a research grant to look into this further.

[n_freebody]

Bright shoes might make it a more tempting target but should by no means make them easier to hit. If your good at foothits and do them properly youshouldnt need to look at the foot. One of my old coaches used to make me practice foothits with my eyes closed.

[Aramis]

If you see a bright target on a foot do you find yourself more inclined to try a foot hit?

No.

[cesh_fencing]

If you see a bright target on a foot do you find yourself more inclined to try a foot hit?

I personally found that bright shoes make it easier to see attacks coming, especially when fencers have a habit of kicking thier foot our early (slow or bent arm attacks). So it is likely to trigger me to counter attack more effectively.

In addition bright shoes make a foot seem more obvious and arguably bigger, so is a tempting target.

It is said that the visor masks help fencers with their vision as they improve the amount of light getting to your eyes, surely therefore bright shoes surely makes the foot easier to see as they will be easier to target.

Personally I would never advise one of my fencers to have bright shoes..

[jahl]

There is one very small fencer I can think of Chris that you'd like to have large brightly coloured shoes on when you try to hit her feet.... instead of very small fast ones that get out of your way!