What is a bout plan? It is a framework to guide how you will fight the phrases within the bout to achieve your goals for the bout and the tournament. Although no plan survives first contact with the opponent, having a plan provides a unifying theme to your bout on…
Tactics are the second of the broad categories of actions that govern fencing. Technique is the first order, the mechanical performance of footwork and bladework required to execute offense, defense, counteroffense, and actions not intended to score. Strategy is the third order, the planning and management of training and competition…
Note: This blog post draws heavily from Ziemowit Wojciechowski’s THIS IS FENCING, John O’Sullivan’s EVERY MOMENT MATTERS, two decades of watching Sumo Basho (especially the performance of Yokozuna (Grand Champions) and Kinboshi winners (lower ranked wrestlers who defeat a Yokozuna), and a wide variety of other writings about psychology in…
Fencers make decisions all the time. Some are relatively slow, for example “do I want to enter the Upper Noplace Open or not?” Some are made in advance, for example “what is my plan for this bout?” Some are made in the instant, for example “she is stepping into distance,…
QUESTION – what is preparation? ANSWER – any actions taken to create the conditions for a successful final action of an attack or counterattack
Normally when we talk about fencing we discuss techniques, less frequently tactics. We typically go technique, tactics, bout, tournament, season, quadrennium. But what happens if we went the other way? If we go quadrennium, season, tournament, bout … suddenly there is something missing. We admonish our students or our strip…
From time to time visioning has been mentioned in this blog, so it is time to review and add to what we know about this skill. Visioning is imagining the situation, the techniques and tactics, the opponent, the strip, and your and your opponent’s actions. Visioning is commonly used by…
QUESTION – what are the three standard hand positions applicable to all weapons? ANSWER – pronation (fingernails down), supination (fingernails up), and middle (thumb up)
QUESTION – what are the zones of the strip? ANSWER – the box between the on guard lines, the two maneuvering areas between the box and the warning area, and the two warning areas.
I have addressed distance a number of times over the years in this blog. Today I am going to summarize my current thinking and suggest how distance interfaces with tactics. First – distance is often defined in terms of how far one fencer is from another on the piste. The…