PhD, Associate Professor G.K. Biserova¹
N.G. Gayfullina^1
1Elabuga Institute of Kazan Federal University, Elabuga

Keywords: simple sensorimotor response, personal aggression, 8-10 year-old fencers, training bout.

Background. Modern fencing may be defined as the sport discipline including three competitive scenes (foil, epee, and saber) with the rivals competing in swordsmanship [4] i.e. in the art of offense (to stab the opponent) and defense (to fend off the opponent’s stabs). Modern fencing is often ranked among the non-aggressive intellectual sports that require excellent physical fitness, success motivations, good willpower, strategic thinking and perfect mental controls for success. Some national researchers, however (Ilyin, 2016; Markelov, 2017), tend to rank controlled aggression among the key success factors for the modern competitive fencing. Sports psychologists commonly interpret aggression as the persistently attacking/ dominant behavioral style that may be highly beneficial and successful when well controlled and managed.

Sports as one of the social activity domains make it possible for the athletes to vent their natural aggression in a controlled and socially acceptable manner, with the aggression transformed by the sublimation, substitution and projection mechanisms to reinforce the athlete’s self-assertion and dominance agenda. The modern socially welcomed forms of the sports-limited aggression effectively contribute to and shape up the constructive competition-specific behavioral models [5].

Thus E.P. Ilyin rates aggression among the key progress components of the sporting lifestyles albeit argues that it should be encouraged only in forms of a healthy sporting fury – that he defines as the reasonably controlled form of competitive encounters geared to mobilize the individual mental and physiological resource for success. The sporting fury in this context may also be interpreted as the natural aggression management format tolerated by the sport discipline within the frame of the competitive rules, settings and traditions [3].

Y.V. Alexandrov, N.S. Sigal, V.A. Shtykh (2014), K. Krishnaveni and A. Shahin (2014) offer a different definition for the sporting aggression. They believe that aggression cannot be ranked among the competitive performance boosting factors since it normally overexcites the athlete and may be of distractive, defocusing effect on the performance with the potential ‘non-constructive’/ uncontrolled outbursts, attacks and even injuries. Such unsportsmanlike behaviors quite common for some psychological types should under no circumstances be tolerated by the sport communities [1, 2]. It should be mentioned that sporting aggression tend to change with age, with junior immature/ uncontrolled aggression being transformed with age and growing experience into well-controlled sporting fury (healthy fighting spirit) driven by the must-win mindset.

We believe that modern fencing as a close-contact sport discipline offers excellent opportunities for the immature junior personal aggression to be timely and safely transformed into the constructive sporting fury. This progress will be facilitated by the sport culture that  favors cool-blooded swordsmanship equally successful in offense and defense, with the blade action often being bullet-fast and precise for success. A successful fencer should demonstrate good strategy to timely and effectively respond to every fight situation by the best solution and tool from the highly versatile individual skill set. It should also be emphasized that the sensorimotor response rate tends to slow down with age, with the primary school period (7-11 years of age) known to be the most sensitive and favorable time for the response speed trainings, with many children making progress in such trainings [6].

Objective of the study was to rate correlations between the personal aggression and response rate in the 8-10 year old beginner (first-year) fencers – proceeding from the assumption that it is natural for this age group to rely on the immature uncontrolled personal aggression rather than on the still growing tactical skills.

Methods and structure of the study. We run our experimental study at the Kazan Federal University’s Elabuga Institute under Children's University Project that sponsors a beginner fencing group at Secondary School #39 in Naberezhnye Chelny city. We sampled the 8-10 years-old (8.7 years on average) beginner (first-year) fencers (n=38). The children’s proneness to uncontrolled aggression was tested by the T.N. Kurbatova’s version of the E. Wagner's Hand Test run on an individual post-training basis.

The simple sensorimotor response was rated by an online Response Test & Trainer system, with the subjects pressing a button as soon as possible in response to the color signal on the screen. Each tests were run prior to and after the training bouts, with five attempts given to every subject to fix the response and compute the average response rate in milliseconds (ms).

Results and discussion. The T.N. Kurbatova’s version of the E. Wagner's Hand Test rated the average aggression of the sample at 10.97 points, with the average standard deviation of 7.7.

The pre- training bout simple sensorimotor response averaged 333.63 ms with the mean standard deviation of 41.52 ms; and the pre- versus post-training bout simple sensorimotor response difference was found statistically insignificant (p=0.23).

The simple sensorimotor response to personal aggression correlation analysis found a strong positive correlation of the personal aggression with the post-training bout simple sensorimotor response (r=0.48) and a weaker (trend-level) positive correlation with the pre-training bout simple sensorimotor response (r= 0.36). The fact that the pre- and post-training bout simple sensorimotor response rates are fairly close may be explained by the still poor age-specific behavioral self-controls in the beginner (first-year) fencers at the very start of the response speed training process. We also found that the clear correlation of the personal aggression and simple sensorimotor response tend to grow with the training bout experience – and this finding confirms our prior assumption on the natural aggression being of facilitative effect on the simple sensorimotor response progress in the beginner groups. Generally the higher is the natural  aggression rate, the higher are the response rates in the beginner fencers.

This progress is apparently due to the training process format that encourages transformations in the nervous system performance including the excitation/ inhibition process control and balancing skills, with the clear benefits for the response speed. Progress in the simple sensorimotor response is secured by improved coordination of bodily functions with the growing synchronization of the timing and spacing processes and improved coincidence of excitation rhythms in the nerve cells [7]. The neurophysiological processes behind the response speed training are commonly explained using the notion of latent period i.e. the time between action triggering stimulus and the actual motor response [6]. Since the beginner fencers are still largely innocent and unskillful in the fight control techniques, they tend to offset this shortage by the response speed plus expressed uncontrolled aggression.

Conclusion. The study data and analysis showed a direct correlation of the expressly aggressive behavioral models with the response speed in the beginner (8-10 year-old first-year) fencers – that may be due to the age-specific emotional imbalances, particularly in the stressful competitive settings. The response speed mobilizing skills and fight tactics of this age group are still immature for the fully-fledged competitive performance with attacks, defenses, footwork, counterattacks and counter-defenses. These deficiencies and weaknesses cannot but provoke, as we believe, uncontrolled aggressive outbursts in the beginner fencing bouts; and we recommend the coaches keeping an eye on and controlling the personal aggression manifestations in the training bout to facilitate the aggression being transformed in the most healthy way for competitive progress. It is important to brief the beginner fencers in the trainings on the need to support the technical progress with the growing control of the natural personality aggression so as to develop a healthy ‘sporting fury’ (fighting spirit) combined with the response speed improvements for good competitive progress.

References

1. Aleksandrov Yu.V., Sigal N.S., Shtykh V.A. Aggression in the sports activities. Slobozhanskiy nauchno-sportivny vestnik, 2014, no. 3, pp. 86-89.
2. Bolgov V.N., Kamalov N.K., Tagirova N.P., Drobinina N.V. Computer program "Reactiomer" to study motor reaction of junior fencers. International scientific research journal, 2016. no. 10-3 (52). pp. 119-121.
3. Ilyin E.P. Sports Psychology. St. Petersburg: Piter publ., 2016.
4. Castle E. Schools and masters of fencing. The noble art of blade skills. Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf publ., 2007.
5. Markelov I.P. Problem of aggressive behavior in sports. Fizicheskaya kultura. Sport. Turizm. Dvigatelnaya rekreatsiya. 2017. v. 2. no. 2. pp. 121-125.

Corresponding author: galija62@gmal.com

Abstract

Objective of the study was to rate correlations between the personal aggression and response rate in the 8-10 year old beginner (first-year) fencers – proceeding from the assumption that it is natural for this age group to rely on the immature uncontrolled personal aggression rather than on the still growing tactical skills.

Methods and structure of the study. The experimental study was run at the Kazan Federal University’s Elabuga Institute under Children's University Project that sponsors a beginner fencing group at Secondary School #39 in Naberezhnye Chelny city. We sampled the 8-10 years-old (8.7 years on average) beginner (first-year) fencers (n=38). The children’s proneness to uncontrolled aggression was tested by the T.N. Kurbatova’s version of the E. Wagner's Hand Test run on an individual post-training basis.

Results and conclusions. The simple sensorimotor response to personal aggression correlation analysis found a strong positive correlation of the personal aggression with the post-training bout simple sensorimotor response (r=0.48) and a weaker (trend-level) positive correlation with the pre-training bout simple sensorimotor response (r= 0.36). The fact that the pre- and post-training bout simple sensorimotor response rates are fairly close may be explained by the still poor age-specific behavioral self-controls in the beginner (first-year) fencers at the very start of the response speed training process. We also found that the clear correlation of the personal aggression and simple sensorimotor response tend to grow with the training bout experience – and this finding confirms our prior assumption on the natural aggression being of facilitative effect on the simple sensorimotor response progress in the beginner groups. Generally the higher is the natural  aggression rate, the higher are the response rates in the beginner fencers.