Epeeists: How many parries?

[oiuyt]

Blatently stealing (errr, borrowing) an idea from gtmac's foil-oriented poll thread.

How many of the standard epee parries do you know or use?

-B

[counterattack]

Blatently stealing (errr, borrowing) an idea from gtmac's foil-oriented poll thread.

How many of the standard epee parries do you know or use?

-B

Unless I'm under extreme duress, I use circle six (for most everything since I'm a lefty) and four. Anything that would provoke a different parry in foil, I counterattack. I do sometimes use other parries, but only if someone has some sort of extraordinary low line attack that I don't feel safe counterattacking to the shoulder against.

[jjefferies]

Ah come on guys. This has to be flame bait originated by a foilist. Every epeeist knows sixth and eight are bread and butter for epee. Four works for some. Most of those who fence the BayCup opens remember Julian Saviguon from EBFG who loved to take 4 with opposition and a long lunge. Even when he missed he usually could make it work with in-fighting. But for us more prosaic types six and eight are the way to go.

[Sciurus-Rex]

This epee "parry" concept I keep hearing about is just a theory. No one has proven it yet. It probably doesn't even exist.

[Durando]

Ah come on guys. This has to be flame bait originated by a foilist. Every epeeist knows sixth and eight are bread and butter for epee.

Definately flame bait--poll is flawed. Just because you don't parry for yourself and your entire family in 4 doesn't mean you're not parrying. Better question would have been "How many of you win touches on ripostes?" Yeah 6 and 8 are bread and butter, but really you see all parries employed by competent épée fencers at one time or another--the bladework just looks different. Erm, did I say "different?" I meant better.

[chiz]

Didn’t Pavlov do this thing with dogs? Parries and epee, same thing, it may hurt when you do; as a prelude to an attack, your mouth may water.

Chiz

[trazom]

I used to have a great prime riposte. Particularly useful against a fleche. A yielding prime when necessary. But then I relied on it too heavily and all the decent fencers in my club knew what I was doing.

In general, I use 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8.

And some crazy ones that I don't think have numbers to protect me from the sabreurs and the foilists on the strips next to me in practice. And one epeeist who needs to have all of his weapons confiscated and banned from ever picking one up again.

Nothing hurts more than being nailed in the back of the neck by a missed foil flick on the strip over.

[Mr Epee]

This epee "parry" concept I keep hearing about is just a theory. No one has proven it yet. It probably doesn't even exist.

No. No.

It does exist.

I have been there.

It's in France, as I recall, and has a fairly large airport.

[KD5MDK]

Ah come on guys. This has to be flame bait originated by a foilist.

Calling Brad a foilist amuses me...

[Fechter1]

I definitely use parries. 1,2,4,5,6 and 8. And I did not start as a foilist (as Brad knows, ahem... He's been on the receiving end on a few of them... including the following riposte...).

But I'll grant you that you don't see nearly as many parries in Epee as you do in Foil.

[Valerio Versace]

I HATE when I have to talk about parries with people who use the french nomenclature.
I'm relatively new to fencing, so I don't employ many parries or pris de fer, 'cause I know that I still can't rely on them, and rather work on measure and false times. Lately, I've been working mostly on sixte and sometimes quarte against the righties. Against lefties, I mostly play with absence of blade.
Somehow, I'm totally inept with octave.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

Calling Brad a foilist amuses me...

hey, Brad's a C in foil....................

[KD5MDK]

Yes, but if I ran the Federation Internationale d'Two-man Treesaw Fighting I'd give Brad a C in that to make sure if he ever enters a competition things are fair.

[needle]

Most frequently - 0 (aka 10) - don't be there
Commonly - 8,6,4,2
Occasionaly - 1,7,9 (high septime)
Very rarely, almost never - 3,5

[glowstix]

i think i used 6, 4 and 8, with opposition 80% of the time..or at least i tried to.. there's a time to parry and a time to counterattack.

[smurfette]

As a product of the German system, and as someone who is heavy on the blade (most often iin an effective way), these are the ones:
prime, 1, 4,6,7,8

Things are plenty complicated and useful with these.

As a lefty, (6,) 8, 8, 8. Proficient fencers fall off the blade when I use 4, but 8, when timed correctly, gets them almost all the time. And lefty lefty -- fabulous.

[Fencergrl]

My 8 parry got lonely all by itself, so I introduced him to 6. They get along well, but they needed more company; so along came 4, then 7 when I started fencing against a lefty in my club... 1 can be handy when you want to be close... and I recently started having an affair with 2... he's exotic and I thought might be worth exploring (although I suspect it'll be a fling).

[umbrella]

Ah come on guys. This has to be flame bait originated by a foilist. Every epeeist knows sixth and eight are bread and butter for epee. Four works for some. Most of those who fence the BayCup opens remember Julian Saviguon from EBFG who loved to take 4 with opposition and a long lunge. Even when he missed he usually could make it work with in-fighting. But for us more prosaic types six and eight are the way to go.

I like 6 better in epee myself; I was never strong enough for 8; and I only use 4 once in a bout, if you use it more than that, they'll know you're a foilist and kill you. So you have to reserve one parry 4 somewhere especially in the beginning of your epee career. Then you have to regroup your strength and go for the doublepoint, doublepoint, and if you're in the lead, don't give them anything back.
en garde.

[mrbiggs]

the perspective of a low level foilist who learned by trial and error which ones kind of work, I use counter 6, basic 4 (except with slightly different form than the foil 4), and very occaisionally, parry 8. Counter 6 is probably 80% of the parries I make, though. I guess I can use parry 1, but I almost never do, because it's kind of risky.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Parry 1 is exceptionally useful for infighting, as is 8 or 7.