On The Strip
Typically, a fencer wears a body cord under their jacket. The wire is threaded through the sleeve of the weapon arm as it is being donned. Most gloves feature a small hole designed around the use of a body cord. In officially sanctioned tournaments, the plug that fits into the weapon must be secured with an additional device, usually a small clip.
The other end of the wire is connected to the reel, as well as a D-clip on the fencer's jacket to prevent it from disconnecting during a bout. In addition, foilists and saberists must connect their alligator clips to their lamés. Fencers are forced by regulation to attach the lamé clip to their weapon arm side to prevent accidental or intentional removal.
Regulation also stipulates that any fencer who brings a defective body cord to the strip be penalized with a yellow card. However, should one's body cord fail in the middle of a bout, no penalty is awarded. In both cases, the fencer is not allowed to disrobe to change cords. This leads to the common practice of replacing the body cord by tying the new cord around the defective cord and pulling it through the sleeve.
Read more about this topic: Body Cord
Famous quotes containing the word strip:
“Perfect present has no existence in our consciousness. As I said years ago in Erewhon, it lives but upon the sufferance of past and future. We are like men standing on a narrow footbridge over a railway. We can watch the future hurrying like an express train towards us, and then hurrying into the past, but in the narrow strip of present we cannot see it. Strange that that which is the most essential to our consciousness should be exactly that of which we are least definitely conscious.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)