If you have been around fencing for any length of time, you have heard a specific action, let’s say a disengage, described as either a strategy, tactic, or technique. Two of the three choices here for a disengage are wrong. Do you know which ones? If you have been around…
Parries form the preparation for a successful riposte. As a result the selection of the parry makes a significant difference to the progress of a bout, the final score, and to your indicators, just like the preparation of any successful attack does. The same basic rules apply to the parry…
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…
What do you do? The first, and possibly least often considered step, is to determine if you can attack. The key element here is whether or not you have the initiative and whether the rules and referees recognize that initiative. Initiative belongs to the individual who moves first. For example,…
The weekly blog supporting our lessons is back. We have completed a transition to a new internet service provider and after a long illness my mind is again clear and creative. Let’s review three basic definitions. First, one tempo is the time it takes to perform one simple fencing action.…
Timing is an important part of fencing. Everyone who is anyone, and even plenty of people who aren’t anyone, agree that is so. There are even words for it in other languages: scelta di tempo (Italian) and l’a propos (French). If everyone agrees this is a vital part of the…
Let’s review what we know about distance: (1) There are at least 5 definable distances: out of distance (beyond advance-lunge distance), long distance (advance-lunge distance), medium distance (lunge distance), short distance (extension distance), infighting distance (distance at which unconventional movements are required to position the blade to score). (2) These…
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…