Hello fencers!

[StarFox]

Hello All,
I'm new on the fencing scene and looking for opinions on the French Epee. Oh and how do you put those smart quotes at the end of your posts?

[Inquartata]

Click on "User tools",then "Edit Signature".

No opinion on epees from this sabre fencer, sorry. ( Or maybe it's just as well. )

Welcome a-board.

[VERITAS]

Welcome!

Regarding French epee, I found it very effective providing you have been trained with French fencing. It is not a pistol-grip, and if you use it like a pistol grip you will frustrate yourself and make your opponent's work easy.

There is the neat trick of "posting" where you slide your sword forward till you are holding more pommel than grip to gain reach. I personally find this ineffective since it can still be parried and your ability to parry and evade parries is seriously reduced. Not recommended in my opinion, and hardly the foundation of an effective game regardless.

If you have a good teacher, by all means. The French school emphasizes finess and disengagement. You can nicely redirect the force from your opponent against them, or bypass it altogether, as well as use precise point control to nail their wrist before they can even begin an attack.

Many proponents of the traditional French school may encourage you to start with learning foil, but it greatly depends on the teacher you find yourself with. I found my epee was well worth the wait and the foil preparation because it provided a sound grounding in the basics before throwing in too many advanced topics.

On the practical side, my instructor when competing with french epee (I have only used Italian for competition so far) found that when occasionally disarmed the electronics in the weapon took a beating. He recommends a martingale, which is a loose strap around the wrist going through the pommel that takes the stress off of the body cord, protecting the weapon while not interferring with proper French sentiment du fer.

Sorry for the somewhat hurried explanations, please ask if anything is unclear.

Again, welcome to the forums.

charley

[ThatReallyHurt]

Hello, StarFox! Welcome to the forum!

[VELISARIOS]

Hello Starfox wellcome to forum!
French style! Thats sound good.

[lefty_monster]

Hello StarFox! Hope you have something witty to put on your signature!

I have no opinion on french epee.

[CheekyCanuck]

Hello, and welcome.

I only started fencing epee and because of a hand injury I have to stick with the pistol, but I recomend starting with french. It is possible to understand and have good finger play if you start with a pistol, but french forces you to do it all the more.

[armataforte]

Hello and welcome!!! I think that Veritas did a good job of explaining things and I agree 100%.

[melihop]

Hey, and welcome! I hope you enjoy it here! And you should choose whatever weapon feels right!

[Inquartata]

Unless you're left-handed.

[Alain]

Hi!

I guess everyone has already told you what you need to know, so all I'll say is that your username's cool, well done on picking such a marvellous weapon, and welcome to the forum!

[epeeisky]

I find that I am disarmed more when I used a french grip vs an orthopedic grip.

[StarFox]

Thank you all for the warm welcome,and for the advice.

[InweCiryatan]

Welcome to the forum.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Welcome to the sport and to the forum!


Great to have another épéeist with us!