What I've learned from all my questions!!!

[drippingwet]

Edit: Changed me mind!!!

[Epictetus]

The motherland? My family is Scottish and Irish, thank you very much... j/k, no hard feelings.

Impressive stuff. I don't have the time to read it all at the moment, as it is 5 AM and I'm frantically trying to finish an English paper due at noon, but I'll be sure to read it this afternoon.

[dunastor]

Any opinions?

Try not to "over"think your fencing...

[drippingwet]

What do you mean?

[dunastor]

Just do it....

[drippingwet]

Imagine inventing all this in the middle of a bout! If you practice and condition yourself to think about this stuff before hand, you can concentrate on the opponent and apply this stuff as required.

P.S. I see you're a med' student. I'm just about to send my application to med' school. Classy job, classy sport, classy life.

[Epictetus]

Philosphy/Poly Sci Major here, classic liberal arts, lol.

Guess Fencing fits quite nicely with what I'm doing, and I can always challenge someone to a duel if they insult my namesake.

[drippingwet]

Then you can fix them up.

[dunastor]

Imagine inventing all this in the middle of a bout! If you practice and condition yourself to think about this stuff before hand, you can concentrate on the opponent and apply this stuff as required.

As a sabreur I don't have time to think about all that during a bout. I just react to my opponent.

P.S. I see you're a med' student. I'm just about to send my application to med' school. Classy job, classy sport, classy life.

Medicine is cool. Period.

[Grasshopper]

Doesn't anyone find it ironic that NORTH AMERICANS are giving fencing advice to a EUROPEAN? This should be a proud day for all colonists! How times have changed.

[Victor]

Long, elaborate conversational essays about the philosophy and humanistic tactics of fencing bring one particular thought to mind: You don't see the elite level athletes talking so much about their feelings about fencing. They just do it.

[wflaschka]

Long, elaborate conversational essays about the philosophy and humanistic tactics of fencing bring one particular thought to mind: You don't see the elite level athletes talking so much about their feelings about fencing. They just do it.

There's a lot to be said for being un-nostalgic, craftsmanlike, hardworking. Most of the time, people who talked about fencing did so at fencing practice, at the expense of practice-time. And so the talkers always looked like dabblers and dilettantes.

But I think this may be changing. The elite level athletes didn't talk about fencing because they were too busy doing it... and there wasn't a forum to share ideas with other fencers in a talkative mood. Before the intarweb (and even today) fencers congregated at bars or restaurants after a tournament, to talk about fencing. That's what we did in college, that's what my college fencers do today.

As with many other pursuits, there is the execution part, and the theory part. The execution of fencing will be improved, the more we know about the theory... and we will know more about theory the more we discuss tricks and tactics online. I keep remembering David Littell -- after his best fencing, after he was an Olympian, he took lessons from a visiting Russian coach, and then learned basic tactics for closing distance, making parries, setting up opponents. Littell said he was improved by the knowledge, and scored more easily. If he'd only known this stuff before his career, who knows what he might have achieved? His solution -- to talk about it and put it online.

I think that the discussions here materially benefit fencing. (So long as people aren't skipping practice to post on this bboard. I don't think that's happened yet. )

[Victor]

Yeah, you're right. I didn't mean to sound so dismissive.

Well, partially dismissive, but not wholly so.

The Way lies somewhere between two extremes. Talk is good, natch, but some folks get caught up in too much talk and not enough focus on the doing.

[drippingwet]

Italians stutter along up the strip, arm withdrawn, the only thing that protects the preparations is the broken tempo, but this isn't fool proof against AIP. Why don't they make their preparations with a partial extention, to add that bit of extra protection against AIP and help to mask the real attack?

Sometimes Italians advance down the piste with no broken tempo, just beats on the opponents blade, arm withdrawn. This is apparently a march. But the 'marcher' seems very vulnerable to AIP. Apperently only at decision point will the defender be able to act, and the marcher controls decision point. But if the 'defender decides to lunge into the marcher's advance, this certainly doesn't look like the marcher is in control. It looks like the marcher was always in hitting distance of the 'defender'. Unless the marcher remains outside of advance-lunge distance, he is always in danger, but the defender is not in danger until the marcher reaches lunge distance.

Enlightenment???

[noodle]

it seems to me that you enjoy most the posts that ignore your actual questions and focus in on other things you say. along this line, i will answer one question and focus on part of another.

Italians stutter along up the strip, arm withdrawn, the only thing that protects the preparations is the broken tempo, but this isn't fool proof against AIP. Why don't they make their preparations with a partial extention, to add that bit of extra protection against AIP and help to mask the real attack?

partial extension provides no such protection.
the reason the blade is in absence is to prevent a parry and to retain ROW until the final attack is launched. if i mosey along the strip with my blade partly extended, a competent defender will parry/beat it and go. if i mosey along with it out of reach but not pulling it back, i can continue to mosey until i feel ready to attack, which can happen at any number of circumstantial times.

Unless the marcher remains outside of advance-lunge distance, he is always in danger, but the defender is not in danger until the marcher reaches lunge distance.

false. i believe you have the two mixed up. the defender is most at risk in advance lunge distance because this means the competent marcher can always finish his attack to land, no matter what the defender does. the marcher is most at risk within the lunge distance, because this means that if he is not making his attack, he is close enough for the defender to take distance-breaking tempo and take jabs at him. once the marcher reaches lunge distance, they should be attacking. if they are not, they've messed up the distance control, therefore losing control of the march, and will be more vulnerable to AIPs.

[pkt]

DW,

Practise what you're talking about so that you can execute the actions while asleep.

All you need is 5 actions that you can score 100% of the time. Then in DE you mix them up or add more to the repertoire.

Keep doing what works till they stop working.

while fencing you don't have the time to think.

--)-------------

Grasshopper,
There's still, i believe, a large proportion of the UK/GB population who do not consider themselves Europeans.

This day and age, it seems that US fencers are doing much better than the Brits in international competitions - this is what $$$$ and the attraction of the USA can do.

Now, let's work on getting more TV coverage for our sport.

--)-------------

an afterthought:
What do you call that thing on your head while you fence:
Do you call it
~ a mask [protects your face], or
~ a helmet [protects mainly the head]?

--)-------------

PK

[ThornOfTheBlood]

I don't know if anyone else brought this up, but I don't have time to read the posts at this moment.

4. Short lunges. Finish with knee over base of toes (seems to absorb some of the impact).

Short lunges? maybe for short people. I myself am pretty tall(i'm 15 and am about 6'4'' -6'5'') and using long attacks and long lunges especially, is a good thing. For anyone in fact, that if you only use short lunges...then what's the point of lunging? An attack with a fleche over(not those lumbering charges that fencers are notorious for) would do you more use then just a plain 'ole short lunge.

[SOA9286]

Short lunges allow ones self to recover sooner than a longer lunge, so you still are able to lunge, just have a much quicker recover/riposte.

[ThornOfTheBlood]

A short lunge is useless IMO, lunges can really throw your opponent off guard if they're long, and if they were so terrible and hard to recover from in a bout then no one would teach them.

[drippingwet]

partial extension provides no such protection.
the reason the blade is in absence is to prevent a parry and to retain ROW until the final attack is launched. if i mosey along the strip with my blade partly extended, a competent defender will parry/beat it and go. if i mosey along with it out of reach but not pulling it back, i can continue to mosey until i feel ready to attack, which can happen at any number of circumstantial times.

I mean partial extention with each advance/stopshort or any forward orientated footwork action. And then resett and extend with a following footwork action. So the defender can't attack on preparation because of this. And it's also hard to attack on preparation becuse they don't know when and how fast the next footwork action will be. OK, the arm is withdrawn and seems ready for a parry when they do these non-feinting attacks, but parries can be smashed by a well timed AIP.

false. i believe you have the two mixed up. the defender is most at risk in advance lunge distance because this means the competent marcher can always finish his attack to land, no matter what the defender does. the marcher is most at risk within the lunge distance, because this means that if he is not making his attack, he is close enough for the defender to take distance-breaking tempo and take jabs at him. once the marcher reaches lunge distance, they should be attacking. if they are not, they've messed up the distance control, therefore losing control of the march, and will be more vulnerable to AIPs.

The marcher and defender are at advance lunge distance. So as the marcher steps forward, if the defender lunges, the defender should be able to hit as the marcher completes the step...

The marcher first has to advance to get within lunging distance. I know an advance-lunge can be done in single tempo, but that advance still has to be gained, however fast, by the marcher. The defender can just lunge and let the marcher impale themself. Unless the marcher was extending before the defender.

Opinions?