So you have a plan for your bout – and that plan gets you to the strip, and drives your actions in the first phrase. When the referee calls “halt”, or the phrase stops, one of four things will have happened: 1 – You scored the first touch, and every…
There are many different ways to plan how you are going to fence a bout, ranging from “I am just going out and hit her” to a detailed consideration of a variety of factors leading to a specific plan for each touch. But why bother to plan in the first…
All my fencing life (I am now in my 53rd season), I have heard that fencing is physical chess. Perhaps you have also. There was even a fencing equipment company that used the term “physical chess” in its name. But it really is not true. Chess is a game of…
Not every attack arrives on target as a hit. We will dispense with the attacks that land off target in foil for this conversation. However, let’s look at the attack that is (1) parried by blade or (2) parried by distance (today commonly called a distance pull, although theoretically it…
Sorry to start out this post with higher order mathematics, but a good understanding of basic grade school math and of equally basic geometry goes a long way toward understanding fencing. I hope everyone understands the basic equation 1 + 1 = 2. In everyday life that is pretty much…
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 The sabre has not yet been replaced by electrified…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…