Premise 7: Learning to fence and further development into a successful competitor has been grounded in the lesson. And not just any old group lesson – if you are serious you have to be taking individual lessons from the hotest fencer from some other country that you can find (no…
Technique is how specific fencing actions are performed; tactics are how techniques are blended with the conditions on the strip and in the bout. Strategy is different – it is how the fencer defines goals for his or her performance and works to meet these goals over a period of…
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…
Fencing is a complicated sport. There is a lot to know – the current United States edition of the Rule Book runs to 210 pages, the Athlete’s Handbook another 143. Surely we should know all those rules and procedures? The history of the sport is long and rich. Shouldn’t we…
Being able to do things quickly seems like a critical part of a fencer’s skill set. It is a simple thing – you just exert more effort and you will go faster, right? Actually, not so much. Speed is complicated, so let’s spend some time thinking about how to be…
One of the ways to get hit in any sword or weapon sport is to be predictable. It is no different in fencing. You do the same thing the same way every time and even the opponent who is completely asleep on his or her feet will wake up and…
Several times a year we have a day in practice where the fencers are asked “what would you like to work on today?” The question is usually followed by people looking in every direction except at the trainer, shuffling their feet, and staying resolutely silent until they cannot stand it…
Today we maintain the fiction that winning is about superior blade actions not intended to score, offense, defense, and counteroffense. We define those actions by the blade work needed to score or avoid the touch: “I disengaged and hit him in 4th” or “I parried and riposted hitting her in…
Sometimes the range of things you can do with your weapon and your feet feels almost infinite. There are so many possibilities. Just looking at combinations of blade work, the Classical Academy of Arms’s list of classical fencing actions runs to 26 pages – and the Academy estimates that it…
So what is footwork? Seems like a simple question with a simple answer … work you do with your feet. But that is not quite correct. In fencing, footwork is a wide variety of one and multiple tempo technical and tactical actions, executed with the legs, that move you forward…