What's the Data Say?
This is probably a little deeper than most of my posts. Although I know that the “Fencing Is a Sexy Sport” series is pretty intellectually stimulating for sure. I digress…
I’m starting to do a lot more work with data analysis on matches and really think that for me to jump to from 16th in world (where I am right now) to the top-4 that it will take serious work data.
I had some questions I thought I’d throw out there.
Up until this year, I’ve really only looked at who scored the point, what action they did (tracking tendency of actions by a fencer) and where on the strip that touch occurred, but I’m realizing now that this is clearly an incomplete picture and I’m trying to figure out 1) what pieces of data to track and 2) How to track it . 3) how to then apply it to practice and competition to improve results
My current thinking is that to truly have effective data on a fencer I think you need to track 3 things:
1) What action the fencer does…(Step, lunge, parry)
2) The Time a fencer does an action (Time of the action from on-guard line.)
- Especially for analysis of what’s happening in the middle and determining pre-meditation or purely reaction.)
3) What distance a fencer does it at from their opponent(distance)
Immediate Questions: Since most videos are on youtube right now:
1) How does one slow down a youtube match?
2) How do you get a clock counter that shows milliseconds of time? (For closer time analysis)
More difficult:
3) How would you figure out distance of opponents from each other? (If not on youtube, what program would do this?)
I’m looking to really go deep on the data. Thoughts. I’m In Need of Help.
Anyone with expertise or ideas want to assist?
This is a big project with time urgency. I want to have this stuff figured out in 3-months in time to apply by New York World Cup, World championships and practice on a daily basis using video/data analysis to ensure consistency of fencing.
