Six or eight parries?

[epeefencer74]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Helvetica, Arial">Originally posted by kms:
<strong>One ultra-beginner question (I'd ask our coach but trainings don't begin until next week):

What is the purpose, in épée, of having an en guard stance other than sixte? I see in competitions that octave is particularly popular as an alternative (though often it looks more like 'letting your weapon hang innocently by your side so the opponent thinks you're harmless').

What is the advantage of this? Seems like a much trickier starting point than sixte.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Helvetica, Arial">As Angrylemur said, the engard in octave is to remove to disengage the blades. Works especially well against fencers who seem to require the opponents blade to start an attack. Also it hides distance very well.

[epeefencer74]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Helvetica, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Helvetica, Arial">Originally posted by angrylemur:
<strong>I use a low enguard every once in a while if someone has a habit of beating the blade (or has to) to get the feel of the distance.

I don't understand why you would do a ceding prime from 6 as opposed to a ceding 8. It makes the riposte SO easy and looks much less obvious so your opponent may think they simply missed and they might try it again.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Helvetica, Arial">To go from the circular sixte parry to a prime doesn't require in a change of the direction the blade is travelling in, whereas going sixte to octave does, because of this most of my students find that they are able to go from Sixte to Prime faster than they can go to Octave. Although my top two guys can do either equally fast. Also the opponent might not have disengaged into the low line but rather into the high-inside line.This would also warrent a prime. Ultimately which parry you choose is dependent on how fast your opponent is moving and where he is disengaging to.