foil parry practice

[David Neevel]

Harold Buck wrote:

> In article <4019CE8B.E9EE73DF@execpc.com>,
> David Neevel <neevel@execpc.com> wrote:
>
> > Take the retreat first, _then_ parry. By opening the distance, you'll have
> > more
> > time to assess what
> > the attack really is, and won't have to make a rushed parry. You also won't
> > need to make as large a
> > parry to adequately deflect the incoming point if you break distance first.
>
> I definitely wouldn't make the blanket recommendation to retreat before
> you parry. It all depends on the distance. From lunge distance, you
> should be able to parry a simple attack from a lunging opponent without
> retreating. However, if your parry doesn't connect--because the opponent
> disengages--then you pretty much HAVE to retreat in order to buy time to
> make a second parry. This is also why you neeed to keep your parries
> small: if the first parry is big, you'll be too far away to make a
> second parry.

Not true. If your opponent delivers an attack with a lunge from the right
distance, and with
a good tempo change, you will not have time to deflect the blade if you don't
retreat first.
Nor will you have time to make a retreat after you miss the first attempt at a
parry- your opponent
will have landed by then. This the the whole point of the basic "wall-drill" for
feint-disengage attacks
(attacker is making feint disengage attacks, defender is assumed to be back
against a wall): once the
attacker learns the right distance and make a strong tempo change with the lunge,
the defender will
almost always fail. Either the defender parries early, and the attacker
disengages and lunges with tempo
change and hits before a second parry can be made, or the defender waits to parry
after the lunge initiates,
and is unable to close the line. If I'm fencing an opponent who thinks he's able
to parry without retreating, I'll
have very little problem landing feint-disengage attack virtually at will. If you
can defend effectively without
changing the distance, then your opponent made a mistake and initiated the lunge
from too far away.

We may have to define what we each mean when we say "lunge distance". Your
effective lunge distance
in a bout is not the same thing as the maximum distance you can reach a wall
target from. Effective lunge distance
is pretty much defined as that distance from which your opponent has to change
the distance to defend. You should be
looking to set up attacks so that your finish comes at this effective distance,
rather than your maximum reach.



>
> Also, if you reflexively retreat before parrying, when you *do* make the
> parry you'll likely be out of riposte distance, and you'll have to lunge
> to hit. This give the opponent the time he or she needs to parry you.
>

You'll have no problem riposting. The change in distance is not so large that you

end up completly out of reach, just enough to give you a little more time to see
the
attack develop and make the parry. Furthermore, being too close is going to
hinder
your ability to change line or target-section for your riposte, as you'll have to
make a
very large and slow motion to make a line change around your opponent's guard and

weapon arm or to position your point to get at a different target. A slightly
wider distance will
open up many more options for your riposte. I certainly don't have any issue
reaching my opponents
when I retreat to parry.

>
> Of course, I won't make the claim that you should never retreat to
> parry; for example, if you're at lunge distance for you but the opponent
> has a longer reach, you may well need to retreat to make the first
> parry. There could be other scenarios I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I'll re-iterate what I said above: if you can parry your opponent's attack
without changing
the distance, then your opponent is making a mistake and finishing their attacks
from too far
away. Now, if you're scoring off of this in a bout, then by all means continue
until they figure it
out. But that is relying on your opponent making a fundamental mistake, something
you shouldn't
assume. A good opponent is not going to finish attacks from such a distance.
Since you want to
train assuming a good opponent, your default parry-riposte action is going to
involve a distance change.
Parrying without a distance change is the exception.

> But try this: have an opponent of your ability or someone a bit better
> than you take lunge distance and have them do straight attacks with
> lunge whenever they feel like it. Try to parry them without retreating;
> I think you'll be successful most, if not all, of the time. (Just make
> sure they recover to the original distance; if they keep sliding the
> back foot forward with each lunge, eventually they'll get to extension
> distance and you likely will have trouble parrying them.)
>

I think this gets back to differing notions of "lunge distance". I would call the
distance you describe
as being out of effective lunge distance for the attacker, and thus a bad
distance to make a simple direct
attack from. Keep in mind that, when dealing with two competent fencers, any
simple direct attacks that land
are going to be the result of set-ups in distance and tempo. You are never going
to land a simple direct lunge attack
against anyone above a novice-level without some kind of set-up that catches your
opponent at the wrong distance to
defend and/or expecting the wrong timing and speed.

-Dave

[Sara Stearns]

I'm only in my first year in fencing and I'm having trouble with my parry's.
Does anyone have any suggestions, as far as drills and such go, how I could
improve my defensive skills?
Thanks!
Sara

[Zebee Johnstone]

In rec.sport.fencing on Thu, 29 Jan 2004 01:12:02 -0800
Sara Stearns <> wrote:
> I'm only in my first year in fencing and I'm having trouble with my parry's.
> Does anyone have any suggestions, as far as drills and such go, how I could
> improve my defensive skills?

What trouble are you having?

Is it that you miss the attack? Is it that you overparry? That you
can't work out which line the attack is in? That you underparry? That
you parry too late? Too early? That your arm and wrist are stiff and
so you are not working smoothly?

What will help is going to depend a lot on what's wrong!

What is happening that makes you think you have a problem?

Zebee

[Bryan J. Maloney]

"Sara Stearns" <frankitamonkita at nospam.hotmail.com> nattered on
thusnews:bvaiov011n8@enews2.newsguy.com:

> I'm only in my first year in fencing and I'm having trouble with my
> parry's. Does anyone have any suggestions, as far as drills and such
> go, how I could improve my defensive skills?

Ask your maitre to look at your parry.

[Sara Stearns]

> What trouble are you having?
>
> Is it that you miss the attack? Is it that you overparry? That you
> can't work out which line the attack is in? That you underparry? That
> you parry too late? Too early? That your arm and wrist are stiff and
> so you are not working smoothly?
>
> What will help is going to depend a lot on what's wrong!
>
> What is happening that makes you think you have a problem?
>
> Zebee




I tend to parry to late and occasionally overparry. I've worked drills on
all the various parry's but I still can't seem to remove their blades. I'm
pretty fast so when they attack my first inclination is to rush a retreat
while trying to hit their blade out of the way...I kind of panic. I'm just
wondering how I can get over this inclination and gain confidence in my
defense.

Sara

[Harold Buck]

In article <bvbiib02c9s@enews2.newsguy.com>,
"Sara Stearns" <frankitamonkita at nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> I tend to parry to late and occasionally overparry. I've worked drills on
> all the various parry's but I still can't seem to remove their blades. I'm
> pretty fast so when they attack my first inclination is to rush a retreat
> while trying to hit their blade out of the way...I kind of panic. I'm just
> wondering how I can get over this inclination and gain confidence in my
> defense.


Practice slowly and correctly. If you practice sloppily, your parries
will always be sloppy. Practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent.

You don't need to "remove their blades," you just need to make
significant contact--enough for the referee to hear. In foil, you don't
need to prevent yourself from getting hit: you just need to demonstrate
to the referee that you've parried so you can riposte with right of way.

If you're at the proper distance, you should be able to make one parry
without retreating. After that, you'll need to retreat to gain time to
parry.

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

[Zebee Johnstone]

In rec.sport.fencing on Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:14:39 -0800
Sara Stearns <> wrote:
>
>
> I tend to parry to late and occasionally overparry. I've worked drills on
> all the various parry's but I still can't seem to remove their blades. I'm
> pretty fast so when they attack my first inclination is to rush a retreat
> while trying to hit their blade out of the way...I kind of panic. I'm just
> wondering how I can get over this inclination and gain confidence in my
> defense.

Sounds like a classic case of tension and nerves.

THe only cure I know for this is drilling with a competent partner who
can help you concentrate on your form and take your mind off your
performance.

Start by focusing on your own body. Stand on guard and feel the tension
in it, and try to relax. Not just the hand and forearm, but all of you.

I found it pretty hard to do at first, I felt that this tension was how
I kept the sword up in the air not down at my side. Getting that
physical ability to be in an odd position - legs bent, feet 90 deg, arm
up - and still relaxed took time and practice. I kept getting told to
"relax!". Then one day it became easier, I think because I'd been doing
the drills and trying to relax and my body just learned how.

There's a concept I learned when learning to ride motorcycles fast,
which is "survival reactions".

When confronted with something frightening, a threat, the primitive
hindbrain we all have takes over. It's been saving us from sabretooth
tigers for a million years, so it reckons it knows how.

Trouble is, a racetrack, or a fencing strip, is not the environment it
knows. The way it reacts isn't the way you need to react. So you have
to learn to override it.

One of those reactions is to tense up and really *bash* that incoming
sword away. "AAAAAGH!" It's a natural thing, and you have to train
yourself out of it.

That comes to another concept, that of "ten dollars worth of attention".
You only have so much attention in you, and things that are difficult
or unusual take a lot of your available attention, use up nine of your
ten dollars, and you only have a dollar left to do everything else.
Things that cause a survival reaction tend to take all of your money,
and leave nothing for anything else!

So even though you know what to do in your forebrain, and have practiced
it in a non-threatening environment, when you get to something like a
bout, that makes the survival reaction of tensing up and pushing away
much more likely and harder to override. Plus the tension and the low
balance in your attention bank means you haven't got as much to spend on
"that sword is coming, I have to know just when to parry it... now!".
So you parry late, because you havne't got the processing power when
under stress.

There is no real cure except practice. When you do your parry drills,
focus on relaxing. Consciously spend attention on how your shoulders
are feeling, do they tense up? How about your hand and wrist, are they
relaxed? Every drill should have some attention spent on that. It will
be hard at first, and some things seem unfixable. (I still lift my
shoulder when thrusting, and I've been yelled at for it for 5 years)

Another useful technique is to bury the "gotta win" instinct. (Easier
said than done, I know!) Or more accurately, give yourself another
victory condition. We tend to think that when we bout, we have to win.
And that winning is "pointy end in other guy". If we don't do that
before their pointy end hits us, we lose and that's bad....

But that mindset is bad news for training. It doesn't let you focus on
getting things right, and punishes you for practicing things you haven't
got perfect.

So instead, give yourself a new meaning for "win". Give yourself a tick
for every parry done with good form *even if it is late*. Spend your
attention on relaxing and moving only as far as you need to. In your
drills, and then in any bouts. Once you are fairly sure your parries
are good under pressure, then you'll probably find you aren't
parryinglate anymore.

I know it took me ages to realise that being good at this fencing thing
was going to take years, not weeks. Especially when guys I was learning
with were doing it so well, they were very physically adept and I...
well.. I'm not. So it always takes me longer to learn to do something.
On the other hand, some of them are now well behind me in skill because
they never bothered to learn the basics, they just coasted on their
talent.

Zebee

[cbigam@somewhereelse.nucleus.com]

Zebee Johnstone <zebee@zip.com.au> wrote:

> Sounds like a classic case of tension and nerves.

(and miles of really great stuff snipped)

A thousand thousand thanks to Zebee for posting this EXCELLENT
discourse! I've just got back into fencing after a three-year
hiatus, and needed a reminder of some (many!) of the basics:
relax, start slow, relax, practice _correctly_, repeat the drills,
and most importantly, relax!

Thanks, Zebee!

Colin

[Sara Stearns]

Wow thanks!
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one. I'll definitely
work on reducing tension and taking it easy.
Sara

[Jonathan Jefferies]

"Sara Stearns" <frankitamonkita at nospam.hotmail.com> posted
>
>
>>I'm only in my first year in fencing and I'm having trouble with my
>>parry's. Does anyone have any suggestions, as far as drills and such
>>go, how I could improve my defensive skills?
>
>

For many of us the transition from lesson to the strip can
be difficult. An excellent exercise that my coach had us work through
on the strip was for one fencer to be the attacker for 5 turns
and the other to be the receiver and then switch roles. In a
continuing combat the attacker was to perform a simple "deep" lunge
followed by a retreat. The receiver was in turn either to step
back and parry riposte or just parry riposte.

The objective of course was to polish the attacker's lunge-retreat
and the receiver's parry riposte and all other blade work or
combinations were verbotten. As the timing was natural, i.e.
the attacker choosing the time and place in a natural combat
phrasing but with just the single action it made an excellent
practice for both fencers. Point: this was done using electric's
and both fencers moving as they would in combat.

This was epee but I submit that it would be just as effective for
foil.

J.

[Bryan J. Maloney]

Jonathan Jefferies <jonathanjefferies@alamedanet.net> nattered on
thusnews:40199961$0$32595$2c56edd9@news.cablerocke t.com:

> "Sara Stearns" <frankitamonkita at nospam.hotmail.com> posted
>>
>>
>>>I'm only in my first year in fencing and I'm having trouble with my
>>>parry's. Does anyone have any suggestions, as far as drills and such
>>>go, how I could improve my defensive skills?
>>
>>
>
> For many of us the transition from lesson to the strip can
> be difficult. An excellent exercise that my coach had us work through
> on the strip was for one fencer to be the attacker for 5 turns
> and the other to be the receiver and then switch roles.

All well and good, but the eye of an expert evaluating this drill can be,
well, invaluable. Merely doing the drill without understanding the
dynamics of the parry will not magically iron out all difficulties.
Somebody has to be around with sufficient skill to perform diagnosis, or
fixing things may very well take up to forever.

[Bryan J. Maloney]

Harold Buck <no_one_knows@attbi.com> nattered on
thusnews:no_one_knows-F77E5E.15050229012004@comcast.ash.giganews.com:

> In article <bvbiib02c9s@enews2.newsguy.com>,
> "Sara Stearns" <frankitamonkita at nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I tend to parry to late and occasionally overparry. I've worked
>> drills on all the various parry's but I still can't seem to remove
>> their blades. I'm pretty fast so when they attack my first
>> inclination is to rush a retreat while trying to hit their blade out
>> of the way...I kind of panic. I'm just wondering how I can get over
>> this inclination and gain confidence in my defense.
>
>
> Practice slowly and correctly. If you practice sloppily, your parries
> will always be sloppy. Practice doesn't make perfect, it makes
> permanent.

What he said. Repeating an action reenforces that action, good or bad.

[Zebee Johnstone]

In rec.sport.fencing on Thu, 29 Jan 2004 14:25:27 -0800
Sara Stearns <> wrote:
> Wow thanks!
> You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one. I'll definitely
> work on reducing tension and taking it easy.

It's a very common novice mistake. the weird stance, the actions, the
stress, the way your thighs hurt....

The point others made about form are right on the money too. Your job
for the next few months (years...) is to train your muscle memory so
that you do it all right without having to pay attention.

That means you have to focus on "move right and know if you have moved
wrongly" rather than "bash the other guy's sword and go for him".

Remeber the Karate Kid movie, and "wax on wax off"? It really is like
that, ages of practicing the right movements, done the right way, rather
than on the end use for those movements.

Focus on the correct movements, and on feeling your body. When you get
that parry correct, can you tell? Without looking?

You've had your feet and arms rather a long time, but you've probably
never had to know exactly where they were when you couldn't check with
your eyes. So it's not a skill you've developed.

But it's one you need.

You can only get it by having someone else point out the good and bad,
repeatedly. So you can associate the feel of it with the information.
A mirror can be good, but a person is better to start with.

If you don't have lots of access to an experienced trainer, then you might
have to borrow a fellow student. One who knows what to look for is good,
if you can't manage that, then get another novice and try and talk your
coach into showing both of you what to look for. How to tell if the
other is tense, what the usual form mistakes are and what causes them.
Then you can critique each other. (and that practice is suprisingly
useful when you are watching future opponents fence. ooh look, they
tense up when they get close to the back end of the strip....)

The first year or so of fencing is wax on, wax off. Getting the muscles
trained to do it right so you don't have to spend any of your attention
on it. Getting them trained so when you are stressed, you do the right
thing because that's what you've practiced over and over and over.

It can be boring as anything, but it really *does* pay off. When you
get on the strip and things just flow.

Zebee

[David Neevel]

Take the retreat first, _then_ parry. By opening the distance, you'll have more
time to assess what
the attack really is, and won't have to make a rushed parry. You also won't
need to make as large a
parry to adequately deflect the incoming point if you break distance first.


-Dave

Sara Stearns wrote:

> > What trouble are you having?
> >
> > Is it that you miss the attack? Is it that you overparry? That you
> > can't work out which line the attack is in? That you underparry? That
> > you parry too late? Too early? That your arm and wrist are stiff and
> > so you are not working smoothly?
> >
> > What will help is going to depend a lot on what's wrong!
> >
> > What is happening that makes you think you have a problem?
> >
> > Zebee
>
> I tend to parry to late and occasionally overparry. I've worked drills on
> all the various parry's but I still can't seem to remove their blades. I'm
> pretty fast so when they attack my first inclination is to rush a retreat
> while trying to hit their blade out of the way...I kind of panic. I'm just
> wondering how I can get over this inclination and gain confidence in my
> defense.
>
> Sara

[Harold Buck]

In article <4019CE8B.E9EE73DF@execpc.com>,
David Neevel <neevel@execpc.com> wrote:

> Take the retreat first, _then_ parry. By opening the distance, you'll have
> more
> time to assess what
> the attack really is, and won't have to make a rushed parry. You also won't
> need to make as large a
> parry to adequately deflect the incoming point if you break distance first.


I definitely wouldn't make the blanket recommendation to retreat before
you parry. It all depends on the distance. From lunge distance, you
should be able to parry a simple attack from a lunging opponent without
retreating. However, if your parry doesn't connect--because the opponent
disengages--then you pretty much HAVE to retreat in order to buy time to
make a second parry. This is also why you neeed to keep your parries
small: if the first parry is big, you'll be too far away to make a
second parry.

Also, if you reflexively retreat before parrying, when you *do* make the
parry you'll likely be out of riposte distance, and you'll have to lunge
to hit. This give the opponent the time he or she needs to parry you.

Of course, I won't make the claim that you should never retreat to
parry; for example, if you're at lunge distance for you but the opponent
has a longer reach, you may well need to retreat to make the first
parry. There could be other scenarios I'm not thinking of at the moment.

But try this: have an opponent of your ability or someone a bit better
than you take lunge distance and have them do straight attacks with
lunge whenever they feel like it. Try to parry them without retreating;
I think you'll be successful most, if not all, of the time. (Just make
sure they recover to the original distance; if they keep sliding the
back foot forward with each lunge, eventually they'll get to extension
distance and you likely will have trouble parrying them.)

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

[Zebee Johnstone]

In rec.sport.fencing on Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:51:11 -0500
Harold Buck <no_one_knows@attbi.com> wrote:
> But try this: have an opponent of your ability or someone a bit better
> than you take lunge distance and have them do straight attacks with
> lunge whenever they feel like it. Try to parry them without retreating;

I presume that by straight attacks, you mean they don't get to do those
evil one-two things?

Of course there's always the inquartata...

Zebee

[Harold Buck]

In article <slrnc1jmev.khh.zebee@zeus.zipworld.com.au>,
Zebee Johnstone <zebee@zip.com.au> wrote:

> In rec.sport.fencing on Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:51:11 -0500
> Harold Buck <no_one_knows@attbi.com> wrote:
> > But try this: have an opponent of your ability or someone a bit better
> > than you take lunge distance and have them do straight attacks with
> > lunge whenever they feel like it. Try to parry them without retreating;
>
> I presume that by straight attacks, you mean they don't get to do those
> evil one-two things?

I'm using "straight attack" to mean "no disengages at all." I should
have said "simple attack."

>
> Of course there's always the inquartata...
>

That's used as a counterattack. I also like the passata soto.


--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

[Larry Breniser]

This is confusing to me.

I though if you are hit on target while parrying, you have not properly
controlled your opponent's blade, and are therefore "dead".

Could you, or others, elaborate?

Larry

"Harold Buck" <no_one_knows@attbi.com> wrote in message
news:no_one_knows-F77E5E.15050229012004@comcast.ash.giganews.com...
> In article <bvbiib02c9s@enews2.newsguy.com>,
> "Sara Stearns" <frankitamonkita at nospam.hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I tend to parry to late and occasionally overparry. I've worked drills
on
> > all the various parry's but I still can't seem to remove their blades.
I'm
> > pretty fast so when they attack my first inclination is to rush a
retreat
> > while trying to hit their blade out of the way...I kind of panic. I'm
just
> > wondering how I can get over this inclination and gain confidence in my
> > defense.
>
>
> Practice slowly and correctly. If you practice sloppily, your parries
> will always be sloppy. Practice doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent.
>
> You don't need to "remove their blades," you just need to make
> significant contact--enough for the referee to hear. In foil, you don't
> need to prevent yourself from getting hit: you just need to demonstrate
> to the referee that you've parried so you can riposte with right of way.
>
> If you're at the proper distance, you should be able to make one parry
> without retreating. After that, you'll need to retreat to gain time to
> parry.
>
> --Harold Buck
>
>
> "I used to rock and roll all night,
> and party every day.
> Then it was every other day. . . ."
> -Homer J. Simpson

[Harold Buck]

In article <401a8fcd$1@solnews.wv.mentorg.com>,
"Larry Breniser" <larry_breniser@mentor.com> wrote:

> This is confusing to me.
>
> I though if you are hit on target while parrying, you have not properly
> controlled your opponent's blade, and are therefore "dead".
>
> Could you, or others, elaborate?


If you are hit *while* parrying, you're absolutely correct: you are hit,
touch for your opponent.

But if you parry--hit the opponent's blade clearly enough that the
referee can perceive that you parried, but not necessarily by
"controlling" their blade--and you immmediately riposte, and both
fencers hit on target, then the opponent's attack is no good, your
riposte IS good, and the opponen't remise doesn't matter (and this is
the important part) even if it hits you before your riposte hits the
opponent.

I believe the rules state that a parry has to deflect the point from the
target, but in practice this is asking too much from the referee. As one
of the top referees in the country likes to say, "A referee is not a
protractor." In other words, since you can't really tell whether the
parry deflects the point from the target, you simply call it a parry if
it looks and sounds like a parry.

Note that you certainly *can* parry and control the opponent's blade by
doing an opposition parry; these are more common in epee, though. They
can be used in foil, but they're certainly not required.

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

[Zebee Johnstone]

In rec.sport.fencing on Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:31:47 -0500
Harold Buck <no_one_knows@attbi.com> wrote:
>
> If you are hit *while* parrying, you're absolutely correct: you are hit,
> touch for your opponent.
>
> But if you parry--hit the opponent's blade clearly enough that the
> referee can perceive that you parried, but not necessarily by
> "controlling" their blade--and you immmediately riposte, and both
> fencers hit on target, then the opponent's attack is no good, your
> riposte IS good, and the opponen't remise doesn't matter (and this is
> the important part) even if it hits you before your riposte hits the
> opponent.
>

Which is the difference between sport and duel, and that's what's
confusing.

What's needed is a nice pithy saying that can encapsulate that.

If the blades were sharp, then a tapping parry that doesn't control the
blade is only marginally better than no parry at all, in the sport
that's not so.

It's not "hit without being hit" it's not "Only attack when you have
controlled their blade", Maybe it's "you only need to sketch it out, not
use oilpaints"....

Zebee