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Essay about history of fencing
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Before I begin my discussion about how physics effects fencing and how fencers use physics for more effective fencing, I will briefly discuss the origins of the sport of fencing. The first two fencing manuals were created and published in 1471and 1474. These emerged from an attempt at developing a system to teach people how to weild a light sword more effectively inbattle and duels in Frankfurt, Germany. Over the years, two distinct styles emerge. They were French and Italian. The french style relied mostly on strategy while Itialian used mostly physical strenght(Roswell).
The first foils emerged during the seventeenth century for a more effective way of teaching students the "art" of dueling. In the eighteenth century, the rules were created for fencing as a sport. It is from these rules that today's rules for fencing were created(Roswell)
In fencing there are three types of weapons that are taught. They are the epee, foil, and sabre. For the sake of this paper, the weapon being demonstrated is foil and the style is modern Italian.
So without further ado.... Let us begin our discussion of physics with basic moves, and then move on to more advanced moves in fencing.
Basic Fencing
To begin with, we will discuss the effects of gravity on the body in the regular or "on garde" stance., and what forces are used during the "thrust" and the "lunge".
On Garde
Look at a picture of what a fencer looks like in the "on garde" position. As you can see, the larger arrow shows the pull of gravity. The smaller arrows show where gravity is pulling the limbs. Red being for the legs and yellow for the arms.
Lunge
Next, we will discuss the lunge. Below you will see two more images. First it is from the thrust position. Then the next image shows the lunge position. The lunge picture shows the forward momentum in the blue arrow. As in the previous pictures, the same colors are used for the same gravity applications, but the major difference is the effects of gravity on the legs. In this position, the effects of gravity are more severe because the legs are again further from the center mass of the body and therefore, more of the force of gravity is "pushing down" on the legs.
So that will conclude the discussion of basic stances and physics of them. Next, we will discuss the more advanced moves and how fencers use physics to their advantage with them.
Oatis C. (2009) Kinesiology: The Mechanics & Pathomechanics of Human Movement (Second ed.). Glenside, Pennsylvania: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
When one throws a baseball properly they are using there entire body to generate a large force to propel the baseball. A general throwing position starts with a person rotated 90 degrees from there target with there throwing arm 180 degrees from the target and parallel to the ground. The person then starts rotating their body back towards their target while there throwing arm starts bending until it is almost 90 degrees to their elbow, while the arm is bending at the elbow the throwing arm is rotating such that the arm rotates back almost 180 degrees from the target. Meanwhile the person is leaping forward with the leg that was initially pointed at the target while there other leg is planted into the ground. The person is bending at their waist and the other arm is rotating into their body. Around the point where the driving leg strikes the ground the throwing arm is rotating foreword at a tremendous angular speed and the person lets go of the ball. At the point where the ball is let go the persons body pulls the planted leg forward and the throwing arm finishes its motion towards the driving leg.
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Throughout literature countermovement jumps (CMJ) are seen to be higher in contrast to squat jumps (SJ) (Bobbert et al. 1996; Kubo et al. 1999; Bobbert et al. 2005). However present literature regarding the key potential mechanisms behind why greater muscle forces are seen accelerating the body upwards in CMJ in comparison to SJ is somewhat unclear. A CMJ can be defined as a positioning starting upright, beginning the descending motion in advance of the upward motion in contrast to a SJ where the start position is squatted with no preparatory countermovement (Akl 2013). The higher jump heights seen in CMJ in comparison to SJ are apparent even if at the start of propulsion phase the body configuration is identical (Bobbert et al. 1996). In past literature three main mechanisms have looked to provide an explanation for the greater muscle forces seen in CMJ than the SJ. The first plausible theory is that the muscle stretch in CMJ increases the production of force capability of the contractile machinery (Edman et al. 1978; Ettema et al. 1992; Herzog et al. 2003). Secondly the assumption that the muscle fibres are on the descending limb of their force–length relationship at the start of propulsion in the CMJ and SJ, however in CMJ the stretching of a chain of elastic components, they are not as far past optimum length therefore allowing a greater force over the initial phase of their shortening range, with the stretching of sequences of elastic components, this then causes the storage of elastic energy that is then reutilized in the propulsion phase (Ettema et al. 1992). The final explan...
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back leg (right) to the front leg (left) to get as much force on the