In 2005 at an Oregon Fencing Alliance clinic Maitre Wang Yung made a comment to the effect that the sabre itself was relatively unimportant to sabre fencing – that you could achieve the same result with an electrified piece of spaghetti. The sabre has not yet been replaced by electrified…
There is a whole class of attacking actions termed “Takings of the Blade.” This suggests that you use your blade to take control of the opponent’s blade. European usage is to term these actions as “Transports.” I vacillate back and forth between the two terms because both are accurate descriptions…
Recently, in conversation with my colleague, Maitre Gil Pezza, I was introduced to the idea of lost time. It reminded me that I have long had an interest in real time in fencing and in the relationship between efficient use of time and the ability to hit. So in this…
Counterattacks pose a difficult problem. You are in the midst of an attack, which means that you are committed to going forward, and suddenly the opponent attacks into your attack. Your focus is on the successful completion of the attack, not on dealing with an attempt to hit you. You…
When we start to move beyond the very most basic actions to develop the ability to prepare our attacks, the beat becomes an important tool. To understand the beat, we must understand the whole idea of preparation. Unfortunately, preparation as a technique, has become muddled by the rules of the…
So there you are on the strip. It is a good day in the Salle except for one thing … you parry-riposte combination isn’t working. Or more correctly it is working just often enough to keep you using it and isn’t working just often enough to keep you losing touches.…
If you ask the average beginner or intermediate fencer what the purpose of a parry is, the standard reply is “to prevent the opponent’s attack landing as a hit.” From time to time you will hear “so I will get the right of way.” At various times in my life,…
In the big scheme of things, absent your opponent throwing himself or herself on your point, there are essentially two ways to hit him or her, with offense or with counteroffense. Offense is the whole family of attacks, ripostes, renewals and many of the second and fourth intention actions. Counteroffense…
If you buy a textbook on fencing, virtually any text, you will find either drawings or pictures of fencers perform the standard sets of parries for the various weapons. There they are, in a good guard position, with their arms and weapons properly positioned at just the right angle at…
Okay, sometimes I take a different view of fencing from the traditional understanding of strategy, tactics, and technique. But what does fencing have to do with a stovepipe? To answer that question we have to answer another: what is a stovepipe? I am not talking about the relatively narrow metal…