Repeated Mistake :: Seeking for help

[Nikolic Reis]

I have started fencing few month ago.
However I always pull my arm back when I do disengage and I always move my leg first when I do a lunge. I'm always try to correct my mistake. However when I attend fencing lesson at weekend, I still repeated the same mistake. Anyone can give me advice. Thank you.

[Sildar]

Hi Nikolic-

There's no real secret here; just keep practicing until it become instinctive. Anytime you have some free time, around your house or whatever, go into your guard and practice, very slowly and deliberately, extending the arm, then stepping with the foot.

Take your foil and do little disengages around a doorknob or something, and be very careful that only the blade is moving, and not your arm.

Practice these slowly, until it becomes automatic. Then, when the motions feel natural, slowly integrate them. For example, once the lunge is correct and feels natural in slow motion, go from "extend, step" to "extendstep!" so that both actions become one continuous motion.

And make sure you practice these slowly and correctly now, because the longer you do them incorrectly the harder it will be to fix them. Better to do a little backtracking now than have to totally retrain yourself months down the line.

Hope that helps!

[swordsen]

What Slidar says...
Practice them slowly. Then practice some more SLOWLY. When you do it correctly slowly then start to speed it up.
Patience is a virtue.

[Bebop and Rocksteady]

For starters, I too had both those problems, and they don't go away easily. I know I'm going to get beaten by suggesting something like this, but here it goes...

I recommend you use a straight sword arm when on guard, like in epee (Or almost straight, whatever). Not locked and stiff, but rather a relaxed kind of straight. Let's see how this can help. First, by keeping the sword arm straight, your elbow is immobilized, preventing you from withdrawing your arm during a disengagement, making sure your weapon is manipulated with the wrist and fingers, and therefore improving point control.

That's not all. With a naturally straight sword arm, you can now lunge quicker, and in some cases, longer as well. When you fence against even a half-decent fencer, you will rarely be allowed enough time to fully extend the arm for the lunge without being immediately parried. Because of this, many fencers tend to extend while the lunge has already started (such as you), or, they may not extend it completely. With a straight sword arm when on guard, you insure a lunge with maximum length and speed.

A straight sword arm has other uses as well. When an opponent comes up against your straight arm, assuming your point is continually threatening his valid target, by the rules of right-of-way, deflecting the point is mandatory, by a beat, bind, transport, envelopement, whatever. The point is, all these attacks can be avoided, and your opponent can be taken advantage of.

Just some more stupid independent thinking from me...

[135711]

it's universal for everyone to go through these things. here's another tip that helped to speed me up, resist the temptation to look back as much as possible, in other words, check where you're looking. if you're looking at the right spot, then you'll hit the target faster, not to say you need to keep your eyes glued to a target, but try to check where you're looking.

[swordsen]

Not stupid, just not very practical. If your arm is constantly extended that makes it even easier to parry you when you start forward. I would reccomend as a beginer it never hurts to practice with a full extension before starting your lunge. that will get you into the habit of moving the arm first. as you get better and faster it will gradually move from "extended" at the beging of the lunge to "extending"
but one shouldn't try and pack too much stuff in at once.
as Ed Richards said at the coaches college, "Beginers always do everything too fast."

[neevel]

Something to keep in mind, which connects to what has been said above: Practice bouts are primarily for _practice_, not for winning. You need to conciously work on the things you have difficulty with, and eat however many touches you need to eat in order to get them down right. People who worry too much about winning practice bouts, and consequently never work on their difficulties, are denying themselves an important training tool.

-Dave

[angrylemur]

I have several things to say about this:

first of all, don't try to fix the problem by saying to yourself: "DON'T PULL YOUR ARM BACK". Instead, tell yourself what you are going to do, ie : DISENGAGE WITH YOUR ARM OUT". It sounds stupid, but my coach told me to it because I got caught in a reflex of doing four six when I should have been doing four with an interception parry 7.

second, talk to yourself quietly during the bout. Seriously, if you're practicing, who's gonna care?

third, this is my favourite but it's a bit extreme, tell whoever is presiding beforehand (if you are doing practice bouts) to card you for pulling your arm back. If you do this for a while it fixes the problem pretty darn fast, IMO.

[latenight]

Think of your arm as a scout, and your body as the army. The scout has to go before the army.