Pembrokeshire Fencing Club

Training Tips

The smallest Changes

The smallest changes can make the biggest difference. Because the smallest changes are the ones you can repeat over and over again. The once-in-a-lifetime events are indeed impressive, and they certainly command your attention. Yet the routine, once-a-day actions can have a far greater impact because they are done again and again. Every few seconds, for example, you take a breath of air, and rarely do you ever even think about doing it. Yet this small, regularly repeated action literally sustains your life and makes all your other activities possible. When you want to make it big, think small. Find the small, easily accomplished actions that will steadily take you to your most ambitious goals. The biggest problems will almost always yield to the smallest changes. Because the smallest changes can be overwhelmingly relentless, like tiny drops of rain wearing away the most massive boulder. When you seek a big result, start with the small changes. They are the ones that will most reliably get you there.

-- Ralph Marston

Training Games

Black and White.

Two teams, one is black, the other white. They line up facing each other at a center line, on guard. Each has a rear line some distance back. Instructor shouts 'black' or 'white', then the team named must try to tag all the members of the opposing team before they make it over their rear line, using correct fencing footwork.

Chocolate Race (AKA 'The carrot and the stick')

Fencers pair up at one end of the strip/training area. One holds a small bag containing chocolates or other inducement (M&M's and Smarties last longer). They then retreat as the 2nd fencer pursues them down the strip, using whatever footwork has been approved. The chocolate-holder must not move their hand from the on-guard position, and must not cause the distance between them to increase substantially. The pursuer must attempt to grab the bag. If they succeed, they get to have a chocolate, if they reach the far end without success, the chocolate-holder gets one.
At the far end, the bag gets exchanged and now the 1st fencer pursues while the 2nd fencer retreats. If you want to use the fleche, the chocolate holder should be allowed some minimal arm movement to try and avoid the attack.

Simon Says (and other childrens games)

I think we all know the rules to this one. If Simon says it, you do it, if the coach says it, you don't. A darned cruel game in my opinion, but perhaps that's just because I'm bad at it. It's intended to make you think before you react.

A similar adaption is 'What's the time (Mr Wolf/Darth Vader/other Evil Person)'.
Traditionally this involves the group of kids shouting the above line, and Mr Wolf replying a certain time, say 6 o'clock, which sees everyone take 6 steps forward. When Mr Wolf decides they're close enough, he replies 'dinner time' and attempts to catch one of them.
So, substitute fencing footwork for the stepping forward/running away, and voila, instant fencing game.
If you want to be really clever, ask for fencing-time, and perform footwork equal to that timing.

Hand Fencing (1)

This is fencing without a weapon, a bit of fun that most fencers indulge in sometime when they're feeling jumpy and don't have a weapon close at hand. The aim is to hit you opponent according to whatever rules you've set up. Generally parries aren't allowed (after all, when is wrist hit a parry?) but everything is optional.
The trick is to use distance and footwork to overcome your shorter reach, particularly effective if you otherwise try to maintain normal fencing distance. Works well in conjunction with limited moves (see next section).

Hand Fencing (2)

Fencers face each other without weapons, hands held palm out. Using only footwork, they must attempt to slap the others hand while avoiding having their own slapped. Resisting the urge to move your arm is the hardest part of this game... Variations:

1. Use both hands.
2. Use feet (ie: try to stamp on the other persons leading foot).

Resistance footwork

This is intended to achieve the same thing as dragging a tyre around is supposed to achieve for runners. One fencer does their footwork, while another holds them back by some means or another. A towel around the waist apparently works, simply grabbing their waist is less than ideal (from personal experience).

Mask Game

One fencer holds a mask in front of them, the other places their hand lightly on the front mesh. The holder of the mask must then try to make their partner loose contact with the mask using only footwork (no arm movements allowed). This may include limiting how many steps can be taken in each direction.

Fencing Hopscotch

You all know hopscotch, right? A lot of sqares that you hop along, jumping over a stone which you have to pick up on your way back. In fencing hopscotch the squares are bigger, and in a straight line, but otherwise essentially the same. Each square must be entered in a specific way, it might just be step-forward, or it might include balestra's, crossing-over, etc. Throw your rock/equivilent onto each square in turn. I think an example is needed at this point - Throw rock/equivilent on square 3 of 5. Step into 1, step into 2, lunge over 3, recovering forwards into 4, stept into 5, turn around. Lunge to pick up the stone in 3 recover backwards, step into 4, step into 3, 2, 1, finish. I'm not sure how you cope with a stone in 5, perhaps you're supposed to get bored and give up before then. Until someone corrects me, let's say you lunge from 3 on your way up.

How to Improve Your Fencing

The old analogy has fencing as 'physical chess', but really, this is shortchanging the sport. Teaching a computer to play chess isn't especially difficult if you take the brute force approach. There are a finite number of pieces; at any time, there are a large, but finite, number of possible sequences that will end the game. Your computer just has to work them all out, and pick the most favourable course at each turn.

Teaching it fencing on the other hand would be rather trickier. In theory, you still have a finite number of moves. You can put your hand in lot of positions and still call it a parry quarte, but in practice, it protects you, or it doesn't, a parry or a mal-parry.

There's also effectively a finite number of positions on the strip, though being continuous rather than discrete makes for some complications. The real problem comes when you start varying the timing. In a chess game, it doesn't matter if you move fast or slow, either way the move is identical in terms of game play. In fencing, both players move at once, and make as many moves as they like, so varying the speed of an action can change its results. When they write a computer program that can fence, then I'll be impressed. So this is what fencing tactics largely boils down to: position and timing.

Teaching you that 'when attacked, parry like this' is roughly equivalent to 'the knight moves like this'. Necessary to know if you're going to play the game, but of limited use all by itself. In your individual lessons you are taught some automatic responses, 'parry... then riposte!' which you can correlate with your set problems in chess. Useful if the situation arises, but not enough to win a game.

Using position and timing isn't anything you have not encountered before; you can more or less catch a ball right? For the novice fencer it is the alien positions, and sheer speed of the encounter that tend to be overwhelming. At first everything seems to happen at random, you are faced with unfamiliar patterns and before you have time to analyse them it is all over. This can be frustrating; many people will give up immediately. However, there is order in the chaos, everything that happens does so for a reason ­ even if the reason is that, 'my opponent is a hack who doesn't know what he's doing'.

Those who persist inevitably ask, 'How can I learn tactics?' and moan, 'I just can't see what's happening!' The answer is experience. It is not a very satisfying answer, I know, but it is the truth. You learnt to walk by trial and error; you pretty much do the same with fencing. Give yourself time, fence as much as possible against as many different people as you can, and let your brain rewire itself to recognise these alien patterns and figure out which ones are important. The good news is you can hurry the process along a bit.

First, think about what is happening when you fence. After each exchange stop and ask yourself 'what happened?'. At first, it might be a blurry 'I attacked, then ... something happened and I got hit', but just making the effort will help, and you'll find yourself following more of it as you go along. Next, watch others fence, and try to follow what they're doing. Once you are comfortable with the rules, referee bouts. The third thing to do is drill yourself in the physical movements until they become second nature.

It is easier to concentrate on your distance and timing if you don't have to think about how to walk or get your point on target. Getting back to thinking about things, many of the games and exercises you'll be put through to practice physical movements will also have valuable tactical practice for you as well, usually cleverly disguised as too obvious to think about. The mask game is as much about manipulating distance to your advantage as it is about practicing footwork.

Finally, just in case you didn't hear me the first time, fence regularly, fence often, and fence lots of different people. Go to competitions so you can fence complete strangers, get some of your bouts refereed, ask experienced fencers to watch you fence and give you feedback, you get the idea. If all this sounds like hard work, well I suppose it is, no one ever said fencing was easy (or at least, no one who knew anything about it). But you don't have to worry too much about it, no matter how fast you pick things up you'll still be learning new and better ways to respond to situations 60 years from now, so you might as well get used to it, relax, and enjoy the process.

Last Updated : July 4 2007 @ 11:21 pm