Technical Perfection

[JEC]

Most people define power as the maximum strength, which in the fencing world would be the strength of your parry against an opposition of the blade. If you are studying a movement, you divide it in the motions, and then the speed and strength of each individual motion for each muscle. If you combined them, you are still looking at the motion or movement. The arguments have been if one improves one of these aspects, which one would pay off the most. My point is that they are speed, precision, then strength.

[achilleus]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Helvetica, Arial">Originally posted by JEC:
<strong>Most people define power as the maximum strength, which in the fencing world would be the strength of your parry against an opposition of the blade. If you are studying a movement, you divide it in the motions, and then the speed and strength of each individual motion for each muscle. If you combined them, you are still looking at the motion or movement. The arguments have been if one improves one of these aspects, which one would pay off the most. My point is that they are speed, precision, then strength.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Helvetica, Arial">Weight training has gone far beyond just bulking up and strength training.

[Jason]

I think it's interesting how much discussion of weight-training goes on here.
Do you think <a href="http://www.weight-training.net" target="_blank">www.weight-training.net</a> has a discussion board about what fencing exercises are the best for improving their weight lifting?

<small>[ 08-30-2002, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: Jason ]</small>

[Inquartata]

Man, is this thread full of non sequiturs!

"If champion epee fencers jumped off bridges..."

"Do you think weighlifters talk about how fencing helps their weigh training?"

Come on, folks! Let's not resort to flip logical fallacies, eh? They prove absolutely nothing.

[peircer]

Actually, I'd like to come back to a point I think I saw in someone's earlier post. Some fencers lift weights to prevent injuries. That's me. My knees start to hurt when I don't lift regularly and I'm not exactly old.

[135711]

maybe the best way to find out, is to see which nations are fencing at the top consistantly and see what kind of training they go through

[Mo]

The US Open is finishing up today.

Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras are playing the men's finals right now. Agassi is old by tennis standards. He is 34. (I think) Pete Sampras is also an older player by today's standards.

Today in tennis AND in fencing, the younger players are taking over in many instances. The commentators during the entire open stressed over and over how when the bar is raised, or the games improve, conditioning, strength and overall stamina are the skills that will win the competitions. ALL the top players have personal trainers and their improvement is directly linked to how they work at conditioning as well as tennis.


It can be argued that an experienced fencer can use his or her skill to win but when competition improves, it takes more.
I know this thread has gotten into nit picking and the topic is weightlifting but weightlifting is a great way to improve strength.
(Lifting weights slowly so momentum is not helping is even better.)

It is an illusion to think that skills are the only requirement for a champion. Maybe in the past in fencing this was true as it was in tennis. It takes an athlete to win now, a conditioned, focused, in shape, hard core, athlete to win. Tennis also requires brains and strategy but it is not as crucial as with fencing.

There is no way in heck that a person in their upper 30-40s with years and years of fencing experience is going to maintain their lead without strenuous training and conditioning. (Including weight training)
As fencing gets more competitive, fencers will have to train a lot more to maintain their rankings. It is the way of sports. Once you are comfortable you are OUT!!!

[JEC]

Mo,
I think most of us agreed wholeheartedly with your point. However, the point that we were discussing was if you had one extra hour a week to improve your fencing, what type of training would you do to provide the most improvement. The Agassi - Sampras match also points out that "skill" and hard work conditioning beats just plain athleticism (i.e.: Hewitt). More discussion about this can be found at the training log thread too.
JEC

[WestCoastEpee]

Technique is what this thread started as, no? It is certainly the most important thing in fencing, but there are many aspects to technique. Take, just for examples, form and timing. I suspect most people on this message board have good form but poor timing. Books can teach you what good form looks like, but only experience and coaching will teach you good timing.

"The European tradition" is perhaps an overly broad generalization. To become a top fencer requires training with the best fencers. Once you establish the best fencers, that proces perpetuates itself. Historically Europe has had the best fencers and the tendency is for that trend to continue. I can say that in Epee the French, to still generalize, albiet less, have great form and timing, which is why they are the best in the world. The Germans have weaker form, but excellent timing and better tactical decision making than the French. Yet another aspect to technique....