Full night. Started with an individual lesson for a beginner, then the adult saber class, then fepee, then a couple of bouts.
Lesson:
The student has had a little bit of an intro, but not too much, so we started from the beginning. On guard, advance, retreat, lunge, recover. Did a bit of distance following, first matching distance, then with a distance bubble (only moving back when coach penetrated the bubble and only moving forward to fill the space once the coach left it). Then direct cuts to head, chest, and flank.
Student has good body awareness/control. Seems very intent on doing things right. Hope she'll stick with it.
Adult saber:
Started our first in a series on long actions to follow up our series on off the line actions.
Started with lines of footwork. Advancing down, retreating back. Then, with larger and smaller steps as called by the coach. Then, faster and slower.
Then a distance filling exercise with the advancer holding a bopper and the retreater presenting a backstop with their palm. Advancer advanced, without stopping or hitting the back stop while the retreater would retreat and wait (effectively producing an unevenly retreating target). After several times down and back, the retreater was allowed to become increasingly erratic in their retreat timing.
Then with both sides having boppers. The attacker could at any time attack with an accelerated advance lunge out of the advancing footwork. The defender could either make short, or stop hit. The focus was the attacker keeping attacking, then accelerating at a good time to hit. If they got to close, the defender could stop hit their arm. If they accelerated from out of distance, the defender could easily make them short.
Then to show another error on the defenders' side for the attacker to capitalize on, the defender would either present uneven distance, or attempt a stop hit from too long a distance. The attacker could either attack with accelerated advance lunge when the distance was good, or when they saw the out of distance stop hit.
After with boppers, the same drill with blades.
Next week we'll look at the situation from the defenders' point of view with actions set up off of false stop hit.
Fepee:
One foilist and one epeeist.
Warmed up with developmental beanbag exercises.
Then went through the fleche sequence.
Started with lines of footwork. Advance, forward cross-over. Focusing on proper footfall variation between advance and forward cross-over. Then advance, extend, forward cross-over. Then same, but focusing on landing in a deeper on guard at the end of the cross-over. Then same, but with a more powerful step in the cross-over and ending in a lower on guard.
Then suited up. Decision drill, which was a little weird as a mixed queued drill for both a foilist and an epeeist.
Student advances. If coach attacks, standing parry 4 riposte. If student finishes advance, and coach sweeps 4, disengage fleche. If coach does nothing, student retreats and restarts. I was timing the sweep on the students' back foot landing in the advance. Focuses were not making extra steps with the feet, making the extension/cross over in one motion, and making it an indirect thrust, rather than a disengage, thrust.
Finished with the fleche game.
Bouting:
Saber 15-3, 15-7, 15-8
Two bouts of 1-3-5-3-1 (Won the foil 3-0, epee 3-1) then a 5 touche epee (5-1).
Good stuff:
Felt like my attacks were not overcommitting in foil. Some nice set-ups in epee. Fleches were not hurting my hamstring. Flicks were decent in foil. Hit a few hand shots in epee. Some good sweep/hand threat set-ups in epee. Had some actual actions including and off of presses in epee, which I need to incorporate more into my epee. Since I'm a short epeeist, I need to be a bit more on the blade. Some good off the line in saber. Also some nice make short in saber.
Not so good stuff:
Rushing and prepping a lot in foil. Got a bit wide with my hand in foil. Rushing in epee and saber as well. Epee I tried to force too many long actions. Also rushed some ripostes resulting in flats. In saber, rushed my first step too much. Most of my parries were damn circular parries. A great way to get on-lit on remises.
Ok night. Now to pack for a trip to see family. No fencing for a week.
07-02-2009 12:32 AM