Just a few bouts, then a night of lessons. I'll be glad when the rest of the coaches are back from nationals/vacations. I vastly prefer being one of several coaches working at a club to the only coach working at a club. I like to fence, too.
Bouting:
14-15, 12-15, 15-13
Good Stuff:
Did 3 back to backs with a kid half my age and was able to keep up the whole way through. Kept a good cool head the entire time, even while making common errors for me against this opponent. Some nice parries. Some good long attacks. Some decent off the line work.
Not So Good Stuff:
Rushing off the line, most of the time. Rushing on long attacks -- over-closing early or without acceleration, mostly. Got a bit lazy on my footwork on defense. I can feel myself start to give up on defense when I start to tire, rather than focusing on drawing the attack to deal with it while I still have the ability to move. Laziness, mostly, and being used to not having enough stamina to deal with a long, athletic attack. A bit big on the hand, both in blade prep and parries. Attacking with lunge--I need to do a lot of dummy work and some focused bouting to get some good attacks with advance lunge or double advance lunge back. I've been slacking on that recently.
Lessons:
3 lessons, basic lesson format was:
From engagement, student cuts to opening line. First with extension, then with extension advance, then with advance with blade prep, advance with cut, then with advance with blade prep, advance lunge. Focusing on cutting early in the hitting footwork. Took the parry when I felt the acceleration of the lunge, so if the arm was late, my riposte, if the arm was early, student's attack.
Finished with some stop-hit + other defense work. Either stop-hit, riposte or stop-hit make short.
I'm finding that the more I give saber lessons, the more comfortable I'm getting with crisp cueing. I need to focus a bit more on my distance and when and how I leave/enter the space, but I think that will come with time. Also need to think about how I want to incorporate change or rhythm into my saber lessons.
As with my foil/epee, I teach an amalgam of several coaches' styles overlayed on the skeleton of my understanding of how fencing relates to initiative, reaction time, tempo, distance, and tactics (probably roughly in that order). My saber that I fence is really the combination of two styles, but as I find my own style as a saber coach, I'm certainly going to incorporate what I've learned from strong foil/epee coaches into what and how I teach.
As a side note, I think there is generally a divide between the pedagogies of saber and the perforating weapons among coaches. I think this is largely artificial. Anecdotally, most of our nationally/internationally strong saber coaches have had success in a perforating weapon at some time or another. I also know some primarily perforating weapon coaches who have something to offer dedicated saber fencers. I'm not sure why there is this divide. I just see a lot of foil coaches that teach epee and epee coaches that teach foil, but not a lot of saber coaches that teach either epee or foil, and few foil/epee coaches who teach saber well. I mean, it's all ultimately initiative, reaction, timing, rhythm, and distance. The rest is ultimately just geometry. Any coaches have thoughts on the divide?
07-21-2009 07:23 PM