Premise 6: If the opponent’s blade is occupying the line you wish to attack (including the riposte) or counterattack, you have two choices. The first is to get to critical distance, the distance at which you can hit before the opponent can react, and then attack with a one-tempo action.…
How can you defeat an opponent? How can an opponent defeat you? There are a number of possibilities: (1) be faster, (2) be stronger, (3) be better known (yes, your reputation is worth touches in tight situations), (4) be taller, (5) have longer arms, (6) be more flexible, (7) know…
Recently a colleague (Chuck Alexander, a Prevot and very accomplished epee fencer) sent me a slide deck to review and comment on. As I read through the slides, I realized that it was perhaps important to review in this blog some thoughts on tempo and distance. First let me postulate…
The parry is a complex activity that can be described in a number of ways. Barbasetti defined the parry conceptually as an action which is aimed to defeat the opponent’s attack. That has come to be interpreted as a specific family of blade actions – blade contact by the blade…
(18) Question – what does the parry prepare? ANSWER – the riposte.
Question – from the referee’s perspective what is the difference between a beat and a parry?Answer – a beat is an offensive action that strikes the opponent’s blade on the outer two-thirds of its length from the guard. A parry is an action that defeats the opponent’s by interposing the inner one-third…
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…
QUESTION – what are the basic parries in each weapon? And what lines do they defend? ANSWER – FOIL AND EPEE – 6th outside high line, 4th inside high line, 7th inside low line, 8th outside low line ANSWER – SABRE – 3rd outside high line, 5th head and high…
In modern fencing we typically classify fencing actions as offense, defense, and counteroffense. The objective of offense is to hit – it includes the simple and compound attacks, the attacks on the blade and takings of the blade, the riposte, and the renewals of the attack. Defense attempts to prevent…
Envelopes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and are used to convey a wide variety of things. In this post we are talking about envelopes in fencing, specifically your tactical envelope, what it is made of, and how it is used. The concept of a tactical envelope is…