Disengage drills

[big daddy]

Hello, does anyone know any drills for the disengage in foil.? Im looking for a ways to teach and pratice this move.

[Grey]

Try disengaging at three different distances, at the tip, medium and around the guard of the weapon. Practice both vertical, horizontal and circular disengages (on both sides)

An additional tip to having a more successful disengage attack is to threaten the opponent by positioning your point at his guard level. Placing higher would render your disengage harder.

You can also try disengaging on invitation (meaning pressure). Practice with a friend. Allow your friend to pressure your blade either towards quarte or sixte and you reply with a disengage. Or disengage right before he contacts your blade. Do follow through all disengages with a thrust. Also, specify the amount of disengages and tempo that you want to execute beforehand.

When disengaging, the only body parts that should be moving will be your wrist and to a smaller degree, the fingers (if you're using pistol grip). The elbow should not move at all. As to your weapon, position it at a lower enguarde, somewhere at your chest level to better your executions. (unless you are practicing absence of blade etc, it is better to keep on a simpel guard sixte)

edit : However, if you are disengaging once only, it might be better to disengage and extend your hand at the same time. Proper technique comes with constant practice and combat. Be patient if results do not come quickly.

[jeff]

To continue with what Grey said: you can start from an engaged position, and have the student disengage when he feels blade pressure - a sentiment-du-fer exercise. Or, you can start with absence of blade and have the student disengage the instructor's attempt to take the blade. For starters, best to have a specified action, eg: "disengage my attempt to take in 4", and later change that to "open eyes" drills where the line of taking changes without warning. Natural progressions will be to move to multiple disengages and initial feints to draw the parry, with more tempo and more footwork.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Teach them proper timing. Often, my disengage is too fast, so fast that they never throw a parry. The enemy needs to fall for the attack, and then attempt a parry. A disengage with a psyched out opponent is just about foolproof. On the days that I teach, I teach people to do a pattern of attacks.

Attack-straight.
Attack-straight.
( by now they are afraid of the straight attack, and are prepared to parry it, but are not expecting the disengage)
Attack-disengage.
Attack-disengage.
(now they are prepared for the disengage, but they are not expecting the next move)
Attack-straight.
(and that finishes the bout)

Disengages, in my opinion, should only be used at certain times, and are a tactical element that needs to be used wisely, and correctly, or else it will lose you the match.

[FoilyGeezer]

Static Drill

Start from engarde with the tip near but not touching the ball and disengage around the ball. Try and stay as close as possible without actually touching. Do this back and forth with as much speed as possible.

Dynamic drill

Extending in a half-lunge start the disengage when the tip closes on the ball and disengage around and past the ball. Again stay as tight to the ball without touching it as you can. If you're having someone do this drill make sure they keep the disengage small as the tendency is to involve more and more arm motion which is what you want to try to avoid.

Once they've mastered that you can start variations; full lunge, advance lunge, etc.

[CvilleFencer]

What Grey and others have said is good advice going from beginners on up a bit to using distance/tempo in the drill for more intermediate students.

For students just learning the disengage I like to "build it up" starting with very simple movements to get the muscle memory dialed in and then working them up. For our beginners the first disengage drill, after a good demonstration of how it "should" look, is this:

Fencer A is in step attack range. He extends his arm threatening the four line of his opponent. Fencer B parries 4 while Fencer A does a nice and tidy disengage with no movement. Fencer B returns to 6 and Fencer A disengages again and returns to threatening 4. Have them do this at increasingly faster speeds (I like to have Fencer A keep his arm out the whole time so that B is practicing his 4 parry while A is working on his Disengage) until their disengages are small and tidy (make sure they are using the fingers and not the wrist/arm for the disengage) and it starts to click.

I then will have them do the above but this time they lunge and hit on the disengage and return to their ongaurd to do it all again. This way they work on their lunge and the disengage.

After they have that I will incorporate movement into it. Fencer A advances and extends to threaten Fencer B's 4 line. B parries 4 and A disengages and hits with a lunge. After this if you have already worked on redoublements you can have B parry 6 with along retreat forcing A to redouble from his lunge to hit, maybe with a double disengage to as B returns to six or all kinds of combinations to keep it fresh and show them all the ways you can piece different moves together depending on the tactical situation.

It is really easy to build this drill up using circular parries, distantce, timing changes, changes in attack speed and lots of fun stuff.

I hope that is a decent way to teach it as I have been using that for a while now!

[keith]

the only thing to add to the above is make sure the feint is a real potential threat - alot of times fencers learn to disengage on the basis of a lesson/drill were any sticking of the arm out draws the parry. Once they start bouting they have this beautiful disengage they never get to use!

If you are drilling with someone make sure the only action that draws the parry is the real threat ignore everything else - feints must be deep.

In these actions you can also practice open eye double disengage timing, you partner may or may not make an attempt to collect the blade on the initial extension, and may or may not make the attempted parry - once the feint passes a certain point it becomes a direct attack.

and finally when drilling any meeting of the blade (failed disengage) should lead to riposte - counter riposte actions, so you stay sensitive to blade contacts shifting priority. Start slow and then build up speed.