Fun and Games with fencing

[Jay83]

Greetings,

I was just wondering what everyone's favorite fencing games are. Training and bouts are fun, but fencing games break up the intensity of training sometimes...

For example, one game we play at our club is "kill the messanger" (I'm sure everyone has a variation on the title) It is simply one point bouts where you try to defeat and become the messanger till the end of the time limit.

I am looking for different fencing games to play at my club.

[S. Hunter]

Well once a year at thanksgiving at salle, we play a very elaborate and slightly dangerous game called a turkey shoot. The rules are simple: Tie a baloon to the everyone's mask and tape one to their chest, throw them in a square, and the one surviving with all their baloons wins. Its sort of elaborate for relaxation, but its lots of fun if you can get everyone to take a night off and just screw around.

[Zilverzmurfen]

At my club me and my friends sometimes play something we call "Pricken" ("The Dot").

The object is to fence each other until one of us has scored 7 touches. However - the touches must be made on the following parts of the body:

• Mask
• Body
• Upper arm
• Lower arm
• Legs
• Foot
• Optional (Anywhere on opponents body)

Note: You can only have ONE optional touch. If you score a touch and have already "used up" your optional touch, that touch will be invalid and fencing comtinues.

I personally think this is a good way of "forcing" yourself to land touches where you need to, regardless of where you usually find it easiest to hit.
(Eg. My specialty, so to speak, would be to hit opponents hand. I'm lousy at doing foot touches, this way I have to make at least one hit land on opponents foot... Tricky-tricky!)

...and as you might have guessed from this description, yes, I am an epéeist...

[klauver]

I stumbled on a salle in Miami that used to do Blacklight fencing. They spray painted some practice weapons with fluoresent paint, turned of the white lights, turned on the blacklights and voila!
They had some cool pictures on their website, but I don't have time to go searching tonight.

[Aeric]

Epee fencing with a strobe light. Really fun to do. It's interesting, because it breaks down the actions into phases where the mind can react in a set tempo.

Basically, the fencers are keeping distance back and forth between light pulses (frames). Then, suddenly, both have the same idea to attack at the same frame.

At frames, it looks like this, with fencer A and B:

...A.....B...
..A.....B....
..A.....B.....
...A.....B....
...A.....B....
...A......B...
....A.....B...
...A.....B....
...A.....B....
...A.....B....
....A.....B...

shifting around and such, bouncing and keeping status quo, then...

....A.....B...
...A.....B.... <--- B waits for an advance from A, and A prepares to flesche
....A....B.... <--- both fencers decide to go here
......AB......

The funny thing is that between the last two frames, you can't see what's happening, so they go from a good distance to in-fighting in ONE frame.

[klauver]

Here's the link to photos of blacklight fencing. See, I told you it's cool.

http://thirdstreetfencing.tripod.com/1/id10.html

[frenzl]

the black light fencing looks cool but the strobe light things sounds like it could become dangerouse, but still cool looking.

[wflaschka]

One of our fencers just brought this back from a fencing camp. It's great with kids, it involves everybody, and it keeps us moving.

Each fencer gets their glove, and tucks it into their beltline in the small of their back.

Then someone shouts, "Go!" and everybody tries to tear out everybody else's gloves. You can run all over the place.

If your glove is torn out, you're "out," and you go to a designated place in the room so you're not confused with people who are still "in play." The winner is the last person with their glove still tucked in.

A few rounds of this game, and everybody is warmed up.

[FoilyGeezer]

Okay, this one's a guilty pleasure. I started doing it a couple weeks ago with the kids and now I'm becoming an addict.

Simon Sez

Everyone lines up and one person gets to be leader and calls out footwork. Fencers have to execute those with Simon Sez. If they execute on those without, they're out. Play till one person remains. Sounds stupid, but it's actually a lot of fun.

[sabrebelle]

Glove Tag!

That's a great warm-up game. My college team used to play it, but we did 10 jumping jacks when we lost our glove and then re-entered the game, instead of sitting out. Everyone stays moving that way.

We also used to play a game where the whole team lines up and approaches the coach one at a time for a one-touch bout, trying to cross some imaginary bridge. Obviously, this works better with very new fencers.

[oiuyt]

UMass plays the same version of glove tag that sabrebelle describes.

When I was at Hopkins we played a variant where you added claimed gloves to your collection of "tails" (eventually adding to the sides and front as well as the small of the back). If you were ever without any gloves you were out. Helps reduce the incentive to never take a risk and go after gloves (and thereby increase the risk to your glove). Of course it also makes sorting out the gloves at the end significantly harder.

I like the version that UMass uses (obviously, or I would modify it). I don't like warm-ups that get most people sitting around for a significant amount of the time, kinda defeats the purpose.

-B :)

[Victor]

I like something simple, like tossing a Frisbee around a circle of people. But at the same time, the group is also trying to keep a tennis ball moving (one floor bounce) and kick a soccer ball around (must roll; can't leave the floor). ... No winners or losers; you're just trying to keep the mess going at multiple levels and occasionally set up your friend so that he has to react to two or more objects at the same time. ... "Fair" shots, nothing too complicated, so you don't have to slow down for retrievals.

[vermilionsun]

We've been playing a lot of games with beanbags at my club.

One game is simply trying to correctly juggle 3 beanbags between 2 people (where no one is ever holding more than 1 bag at a time).

Another involves tossing the beanbag up in the air and then catching it with extension, advance, lunge, advance-lunge, etc. More complicated versions involve clapping twice before catching, clapping twice and slapping each knee before catching, and then clapping twice then once behind the back and then catching. And then we try to do all of this with our non-dominant hands...

There's another game where you and your partner each have a beanbag. Your partner tosses their beanbag directly at your chest (with as little arc as possible). Before it reaches you, you toss your beanbag in the air immediately in front of you, catch your partner's beanbag and throw it back to them, and then lunge to catch your own beanbag.

Last night we did one where we sat on the floor, tossed the bag in the air using our feet, and then tried to jump to en garde position before catching it. (That was messy...)

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Defend the newbie, a third of the fencing crew guards the uber newbie, while the rest try to kill him. That or doubles epee.

[I_luv_saber]

1. War. 2 teams are assembled, taking up the whole floor. Then there's a sort of Mexican standoff, untill someone breaks, then it's war between the two teams. You can move everywhere, but you can only hit the head (saber) and you can't hit from behind. We play one version with balloons (originally spawned from a fencing demo!).

2. Opposite game. Actually a footwork/coordination excercise. Advance means retreat, and visa versa. You wait too long, or do the wrong maneuver, and your out. The fewer people that are left, the more complicated the moves. At first it's like, advance, lunge, etc. Then for the "experts" it's more along the lines of, advance, retreat, double advance-lunge, jump back.

[Mar98]

you can do the glove game also with fencing footwork. looks idiotic.
you can do many of such games with fencing footwork. but: it always looks idiotic.

we do the "trainer says" exercises very often. they are useful, as you learn to concentrate on the real thing. you can vary it with gestures, colours or even sillier words (yellow - advance, red - ballestra, etc.)

then we have another game(?): everyone´s lined up, trainer says: imagine you are in the last round of a tournament. 30 seconds left, last touch. go! give all!
then you are in the quarter finals, ... , finals! and everytime you have to be faster, more aggressive (the opponents become better ).
that really kills you ..

mar98

[Jay83]

For warm-ups we have a circle of people and we do chest passes with a 10lb ball. Then a designated person will add something to the throwing. ie: throw ball then do a jumping jack. If you fail to follow the designated move, or you throw the ball badly you have to do 10 push-ups.

We also do another game similar to war... it's like... fencing dodge-ball. There are two teams separated by a line. You are basically allowed to hit anyone, but if you get hit you are out. You cannot put both feet past the line, you can lunge across it, but that's about it. This is really fun, it usually ends up with a 2 on 1 battle or something like that.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Eg. My specialty, so to speak, would be to hit opponents hand.

I rooted for Zilverzmurfen at the recent Nordic Championships, and saw her do a just beautiful hand shot at Alla Zuikova, Estonian national team member. Snap! That horizontal epee flick - with no windup whatsoever - simply caught AZ completely unawares.

I, OTOH, have made people parry lowline when I feinted a foot attack - in sabre - based on what that guy had experienced when training epee against me.

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Worminator]

My coach has a standard game when practicing footwork with us. A bit like the "reverse game" described above, only his hand works as a "mirror" so that rather than keep our distance to him, we become his "mirror image" (advance when he advances and retreat when he retreats).

Another classic (though we haven't done it in ages) is where our coach will stand behind us (one by one) and throw a glove over our heads. We then have to fleche and catch the glove. Sounds pretty easy, but you don't have much time from you see the glove till it hits the ground.

For the kids, I remember a guy I worked with in a summer camp in CA in 2000. He made the kids choose a character and something to fight for, ie. if you're Winnie the Pooh you fight for your honey, Bugs bunny fight's for his carrots and so on. Of course, even if you lose, you still have your honour and your dignity.

[reawl]

One game that gets exciting for experienced fencers is the following:

Each person is armed with a glove. Both fencers start off just out of distance to hit the other with the glove using a lunge. Fencer A starts, gets an advance lunge to try to hit. Fencer B can retreat as much as he wishes to avoid the glove. AS SOON AS fencer A is finished with his advance lunge, fencer B takes the offensive and gets an advance lunge. A is allowed to retreat as much as he wants.

The trick is that if you retreat too far, you'll never be close enough for an advance lunge to land. It also works on taking advantage of an attack that fails, turning the corner too.