Talk:Grip (sport fencing)

I've suggested that three pages which cover various types of grips be merged here. The other pages each feature no more than a paragraph on the subject of the particular grip covered. None of thm provide an extensive or necessary amount of additional information with regard to what's provided here.


 * I tend to agree. The three articles could easily be covered by one. Epeeist smudge 19:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Spanish Grip
I have removed the following portion, as there are no references, and my personal experiecnce has been just the opposite.
 * (now illegal in FIE competition)

This is in reference to the Spanish grip, which I have never had trouble using at many large tournys (NAC, RYC, SRYC, NATS, etc...) If someone can find where this is specifically outlawed, please, for the love of god, tell me.-- digital_m  e  ( Talk  ) (  Contribs  ) 17:48, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

See USFA rules (translation of FIE) m.4, section 6. A Spanish grip violates this rule, since it has orthopaedic extensions, yet can be held in more than one position, like a French. (jsavit) 27 July 2006
 * So does the Italian grip, yet its use is still allowed. I have used a Spanish offset at multiple high-level competitions, including the recent summer nats, and I was always allowed to fence with it.  The officials can choose not to enforce rules, and I have never seen the rule you mention enforced in regard to the Spanish offset or the Italian.-- digital_m e (Talk•Contribs)  21:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Not so...the rule re legality of a grip is meaningless if you just apply the name...you have to look at the grip characteristics...ie. if it has prongs off the side AND a French pommel, it's illegal because you could post and still loop a finger around one of the projections, thus gaining more reach while NOT losing control. The most extreme example of this is the Gardere.

Lotsa luck doing that with an Italian. Besides, that rule is aimed at ortho grips...the Italian is NOT an ortho grip.

If a director let you fence with a grip with prongs AND and French pommel, he doesn't know or understand the rules. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.106.107.111 (talk) 23:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

the "Zivkovic grip" with link is a little much of an advertisement for this page —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.124.117.25 (talk) 09:00, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

The story of the Italian guy whose fingers were mangled and thus needed to invent the pistol grip is one of those 'see it everywhere on the web, no one has a cite' things. Is there any source for this? A book, anything? Baron ridiculous (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

This whole thing could use a re-write. The Italian and various quasi-legal Spanish/whatever are much too prominent, while the widely used grips are listed by name but not shown. The Brits and US fencers call the same grip by different names; maybe a chart showing a picture, followed by the name in various regions? Or something. As it is the article mostly focuses on weirdo grips used by .01% of fencers, and gives very short shrift to the vast majority of fencers. "What grip is this?/Where can I find a list of grips?" is a very common set of questions, right now the best thing to send someone to is the American Fencing catalog, which is ridiculous. Baron ridiculous (talk) 19:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the paragraph on the (illegal) Spanish grip, and changed the opening. There are only two kinds of grips in use in competitive sport fencing, pistol and french. If you think Italian is common or one of the other weirdo grips is legal, please provide a citation.

It would (still) be nice if we had a chart of various grips and what various places call them. 2601:2C2:4000:3CE6:DC4A:D05C:7816:37D (talk) 21:33, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

General edits and added pictures
I've done a general cleanup, and added and removed some material.

The story of the guy with mangled fingers is apocryphal. It was uncited here, and I've never seen a source. If you're going to re-add it please add a source also; if it's true I'd love to read more about it, but I think it's just one of those stories.

I took some pictures of the most common pistol grips and uploaded them with a brief description of each. I removed the previous pictures of grips. I'm not sure if they were antique grips or jewelry or something, but they were nothing like any real pistol grip used today.

I added two pictures of typical French grip setups on epees. There are a great variety of French grips available, but listing manufacturers and examples of each seemed excessive.

I left the Italian grip but removed mention of the Gardere, Dos Santos, Spanish, etc. No official rule calls them those names, and they are not well defined in any source I know of. They're mostly bandied about in internet arguments as examples of things that are or are not legal. The rule book and the referee discussion site I cited list characteristics of grips, not names. I don't think it's helpful to have names listed unless we're also going to list good pictures, and I don't have any good pictures of illegal grips lying around. Personally I very much doubt the notability of things that mostly exist in internet arguments.

I did my best on the formatting, but clearly I have a lot to learn about how to edit a wikipedia page. Sorry! The metadata rotated my pictures when I uploaded them, but I've submitted them to be rotated to the correct direction by the rotate bot.

One possible area of improvement would be to list the names of the common grips in the UK and in non-English speaking countries. I know the names vary some even between the US and the UK (the names I've listed are the US names for the grips).

Uaneill (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

The French grip is not straight
As a glance at any picture of one will show, the French grip is decidedly non-straight, it is undeniably crooked. It is ergonomically bent to fit into the palm and facilitate proper hand position. It is also 'handed', with mirror-image French grips available for right and left handed fencers. This is a gross error and throws everything else in the article into question.