There are two principal aspects to assessing a fencing action - the quantitative (was a hit made) and the qualitative (was the hit good?).

It is a matter of ongoing grief for many fencers when their hits are not recognised on the opponent. Many believe more “objective” measures, such as applying chalk to the blade to leave a mark on the opponent when they are struck, or electric scoring methods, would relieve this problem.

We need to develop beyond the mentality that the physical occurence of a touch is the most useful thing in determining the outcome of a fencing exchange. To this end, more “objective” measures of the touch might prove extremely successful - finally people will stop arguing over what they believe they saw, and the focus can rest where it should be… On the decision making which lead to that point.

A fencing match is not a simulation of a real fight. It is an assessment of the decision making capabilities of a fencer. For example, in the chaos of a real fight, deliberately making a “double-hit” can very well be a risk which pays off for an individual. Objectively, we may well have survived an impalement and gained the advantage of cleaving the opponent’s head in half. But it is not a very intelligent decision to make, so we never reward that decision in a fencing match.

And that is what intent really is - decision making. It’s not often that we explain this - it is usually learned by example, with a junior referee observing a poor strike, hearing the senior referee call the action lacking in intent, and wrongly learn that the strike was not “hard” enough.

We ought to look to reward intentional actions. If a fencer #1 scores a thrust in opposition on her opponent, and the opponent #2’s blade slumps down on the fencer’s hands, this action lacks intentionality. It isn’t the point that the strike wasn’t “hard” enough - it’s that the action of #2 was not intentional. The thrust in opposition may not have been made perfectly - which is something a ruleset or training paradigm may or may not choose to recognise, but this was certainly not due to the actions of fencer #2, whos decision making was barely evident.

A strike landing stoutly can be indicative of intent, but it is certainly not the same thing as intent. To determine the intent of an attack, we would be better off asking the question: What was the fencer trying to do, and did they achieve this? If a fencer blindly undulates their weapon out in front of them, there is a decent chance it might touch part of their opponent. However, we should not reward it as an achievement on the part of that fencer.

We ought to do what we can to correct this. Not just referees, but every fencer needs to understand the meaning of the word intent. Nobody should be incentivised to hit harder to make their point. From a sporting perspective, we would also gain by focusing more on decision making than the simple observation of touch-or-no-touch.