A Challenging Dilemma
Last week I was involved in a match that posed me quite a moral dilemma. To challenge the President's decision or not to challenge.... Let me explain further. Iwas fencing against another club colleague who I have known for years and was doing quite well against him. During the course of the match my opponent challenged (some would say prompted) the President when the President was unsure of the right of way, usually in the form of explaining to the President exactly what had just happened, obviously (but not really maliciously) to his own advantage. I for one decided to say nothing for a couple of reasons:
a) the President was a student of mine and I was interested to see how they would react to these situations
b) it didn't seem the right thing to do
It tended to result in a couple of decisions going against me but I made (and have) no complaint as these things tend to even up under fencing karma anyway. Perhaps I will go to fencing heaven! But it did get me thinking...
My opponent wasn't cheating as such as I'm sure he genuinely believed he had won all those ambiguous points. He felt his perception of the event was the right one and that no-one else could be correct. But that was just his view of the universe at that particular point; the President obviously didn't perceive it as a crystal clear point in my opponent's favour so was entitled to his opinion. It was just another example of how different perception of the same event causes problems. I don't believe in challenging the President any more (I did it a lot when I was a young hell-raiser) as to me, the next evolution of this behaviour is fencers taking their masks off and screaming at officials a la modern 'professional' footballers. I for one, hope we don't go down that route as sport should always have some random nature and room for error. Others would say you need to take every advantage you can. I'm not saying which is right but next time you mutter under your breath about a hit not given, just pause and reflect... Are you really so sure it was valid?
a) the President was a student of mine and I was interested to see how they would react to these situations
b) it didn't seem the right thing to do
It tended to result in a couple of decisions going against me but I made (and have) no complaint as these things tend to even up under fencing karma anyway. Perhaps I will go to fencing heaven! But it did get me thinking...
My opponent wasn't cheating as such as I'm sure he genuinely believed he had won all those ambiguous points. He felt his perception of the event was the right one and that no-one else could be correct. But that was just his view of the universe at that particular point; the President obviously didn't perceive it as a crystal clear point in my opponent's favour so was entitled to his opinion. It was just another example of how different perception of the same event causes problems. I don't believe in challenging the President any more (I did it a lot when I was a young hell-raiser) as to me, the next evolution of this behaviour is fencers taking their masks off and screaming at officials a la modern 'professional' footballers. I for one, hope we don't go down that route as sport should always have some random nature and room for error. Others would say you need to take every advantage you can. I'm not saying which is right but next time you mutter under your breath about a hit not given, just pause and reflect... Are you really so sure it was valid?
posted by Dave at
7:33 PM
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