Today we maintain the fiction that winning is about superior blade actions not intended to score, offense, defense, and counteroffense. We define those actions by the blade work needed to score or avoid the touch: “I disengaged and hit him in 4th” or “I parried and riposted hitting her in…
Sometimes the range of things you can do with your weapon and your feet feels almost infinite. There are so many possibilities. Just looking at combinations of blade work, the Classical Academy of Arms’s list of classical fencing actions runs to 26 pages – and the Academy estimates that it…
Just like attacks can be simple or compound or prepared, parries can be simple or compound (also called composed because they are composed of two or more parts) or prepared. Let’s dispose of everything except simple parries at the start, so that we can focus. Compound parries are parries that…
What is a simple attack? This is something every fencer should know by heart as foundational knowledge in our sport. So, cover up the following lines of texts and see if you can come up with an accurate description of the simple attack. To help you, the following are the…
How does your point (in all three weapons) or your cutting edge (in sabre) get to the target? That is an easy question – you just stick your arm out, and there you are. But don’t you lunge or fleche or something else footworky? So maybe the point/edge to target…
The lunge is one of the most basic techniques of fencing, and has been done in one form or another since the 1600s. Millions of fencers have learned to lunge. Millions of fencers have fenced using the lunge. With all that lunging going on, you would think that perfection of…
So what is footwork? Seems like a simple question with a simple answer … work you do with your feet. But that is not quite correct. In fencing, footwork is a wide variety of one and multiple tempo technical and tactical actions, executed with the legs, that move you forward…
Okay, big word warning – synchronicity is the state of being synchronous … in other words, occurring in the same time period. I am using the term in the context of synchronized, events happening in an arranged manner in the same time period. If you are confused as to why…
We tend to think of things that are simple as, well … simple. They are easy to do. They do not require much thought. Anyone can do them. No assembly (translate as training and practice) is necessary. After all, you learn them in a beginner class, so how hard can…
In fencing when someone says “drill,” we all know what that means – boring stuff where lines of fencers poke at each other, some halfheartedly going through the motions, some working with determination to get better, some completely confused by the idea that an attack in 6th or 3rd is…