Why are you so weirdly specific and focused about this topic in particular? Yesterday you posted about this same topic and deleted all your comments and the post itself.

It's... peculiar, to say the least.

Please stop. We've had our fill of belly stabbing posts.

I took a self defense class once that covered attackers with a knife. Most of the class was around defending against attacks on the belly, the instructor said it was the most obvious target. That makes sense too, it's high lethality, hurts like a bastard, isn't protected by bones, and it's in easy reach for most people.

In the context of fencing, I'd have to guess there's two things at play. First, if you're much shorter than your opponent, I'd guess the belly is roughly the same height as where you've been practicing striking people anyway. Second, if your opponent is especially tall, then strikes against the belly are further away from his perspective (his eyes are up here), and that might put them at a disadvantage.

I don't know much about fencing, so correct me where I'm wrong, but I imagine the belly is the physically lowest legal target to score a point? I'd think that technically anybody would be disadvantaged to defend the lowest point, but their height makes it more pronounced. If you're 5'2" your belly is something like two feet below your eyes, but if you're 6'3" it's like three feet. That's a pretty significant difference.

The belly is a big, soft target. If you aim for center of mass there's a good chance you hit a bone.

Fucking hell we're back to this shit? This is the worst Lemmy meme by far, I'd rather someone bring back the moths, or the beans, or the moths with beans in their mouths and when they bark they shoot beans at you out of their mouths

The Human Body "center of mass" is at or above the hips, it's where the majority of weight is and all movement is around this point: standing is holding this point up, walking is pushing this point from behind it, etc. It's generally a slower target than extremities and upper body.

That said, I think most fencers would aim for the arms or wherever their own shoulder height is.