I just started fencing, and am keeping a journal of what I've been taught, as well as miscellaneous fencing thoughts.
During my lunch break at work the other day I was thinking about how one chooses to attack certain areas of the body in foil fencing.
Is it based on closeness to your tip? How protected of an area it is? How large the area is?
Of course in reality, I'm sure it is based on the constantly changing combination of all of these things, and many other variables, but I wanted to explore this question to see what people prefer.
I drew this (poor!) diagram of a foil fencer in en garde to illustrate:
See fencer.gif.
If one draws a straight line through their foil, it creates two areas, A and B:
See fencer2.gif.
Note that A, the shaded portion to the fencer's right of the fencer's foil is closer to your tip, well protected, and a small area. B, on the other hand, is further away from your tip, less protected, and a large area.
Of course it depends on the specifics of the situation (duh!), but in general, as an attacker, which area would you prefer to hit?
Last edited by statisticool; 04-27-2006 at 08:23 PM.
While you may hope that the fencer on the other side of the strip has huge holes in their defense...you should not count on it...your post reads as you are being reactive to the opposing fencer...instead of proactive...you want to make them open up the area you wish to attack...not try to attack what they leave open....cause where i fence...any opening ...well we assume its an invitation to begin with and are extremly wary of it...
I just ask my opponent to open up a target area, and then I attack into it. It's that simple. Most of my bouts go like this:
Director: "Fence!"
OROD: advances towards opponent
Opponent: advances towards OROD
OROD: "Dude, like, drop your point"
Opponent: "Why certainly"
Opponent: points weapon at floor
OROD: performs blazingly fast high-line attack, touch arrives!
Director: "Halt! Attack from the left arrives, touch left!"
Given the speed of fencing, I find that over-thinking an attack can be a touch against waiting to happen. When my opponent is within lunging distance (and you must know what this is before trying), I close my eyes and execute the most perfect lunge I can. The instant before your rear leg has straightened, or, if you make contact with something, open your eyes. Let your wits guide you from here.
i like to feint in a and disengage to b mid lunge. it works like a charm! most of the time, if my opponent wasn't in my class...
or do an attack in b but drop the blade so it hits and the parry (hopefully parry 4 or it doesn't always work) misses.
if they have a wierd en garde then attacks in a work perfectly. i beat someone 5-0 cuz of thier en garde alone.
Seriously, do whatever prep is necessary (feints, tap dancnig, "Look over there!"), get close enough, hit them before they can realize you're attacking. I do have a fondness to hitting around a "closed" line, but hey, we foilists do that.
"The Head Crusher likes visa cards." The man smiles. "He slathers peanut butter on them and eats them." He shakes his head. "Weird, but then, most everything is weird out here - present company excepted, of course."
You don't focus on just one area, that's a weakness. Obviously certain techniques lend themselves to hitting a certain area, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to hit the area that is most vulnerable.
Although I do prefer to feint to the outside and finish inside.
"We now know that individuals engulfed in flames not only pose a danger to themselves, but to everyone else around them." --The Onion
If I were to make a general statement about the way I choose where to attack I would say that I start to attack wherever they expect me to and in the middle of the attack change the line to whatever is least expected. The least expected target is whatever they have left open when they tried to protect themselves from my first line of attack. I know that's pretty simplistic and it's easier said than done, but that's the basic approach I take.
Also, my first coach once told me to never assume that the opponent was going to figure out what I was doing. If something works keep doing it until it stops working. I've seen bouts won by doing the same stupid trick 15 times and the loser never did figure out what was happening. The other side of the coin is to realize right away when something isn't working and then try something else.
Go for whatever target your opponent doesn't seem to realize just opened up.
If he covers it, press home to the spot that just opened up when he did that.
Failing that, just take his blade, force it into a position he can neither defend nor touch from, and poke him wherever your tip is now pointing. (a simple one that works for me surprisingly often is a circle six bind to take control of his blade, then snap his blade down and out into the next strip over, and poke squarely in the chest. people rarely expect strong bladework, for some strange reason.)
Just because you have the right, that doesn't mean it is right.
Your area "A" is called the outside target and, in general, is a little harder to open up in foil then it would be in the other two weapons (because the weapon arm guards the outside target). So naturally, most attacks arrive in area B (the inside target)...which is why you start en garde in sixte (it's called an invitation) and the most common parry is quarte (high inside parry).
As you get more experienced, you'll learn different ways of opening up the outside target to attacks. Feint-disengage, for example, is the first action you learn designed to attack area A by causing your opponent to move from en garde with a feint to area B, exposing area A in the process. There are other ways to do this same thing (binds, croise, beats, etc...) but generally you need to figure out how to move your opponent from their en garde into a vulnerable position before you can hit area B reliably.
When you get to be good at fencing, you'll realise that you can equally attack either area A or area B (or C/D, the low line versions of the same areas or E/F, the backside versions of A and B) and tactical considerations come into play. If you have a preference in attack, your opponent will take advantage of that and drill you in *your* open area, so it's wise in fencing to not have any sort of preference in attack. What you try to do instead is take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.
Sometimes, you set up opportunities with a preconceived plan ready to go but if you guess wrong (or your opponent doesn't react as you thought they would) you can end up screwing yourself. Sometimes you simplify your actions because your opponent has a preconceived plan and/or has a bad reaction that they do. This process of opening up targets for attack is called the Tactical Wheel and is the subject of much analysis. It's on the site here under the "training" section.
Finally, the target that you choose to hit depends on what distance the other fencer is at and what they are doing. Attacking to the outside, for example, doesn't work as well when the opponent is moving toward you as when they are moving away from you. Sometimes, you'll find your blade on the wrong side of the opponent's blade (called the engagement) and, coupled with the movement, only have one available target to hit (so it's often wise to take it!). Having a "preference" in that situation would be pretty silly, wouldn't it?
So the answer is that your preference should always be: "whatever target you can hit with priority". *grin* Helpful, eh?
Your area "A" is called the outside target and, in general, is a little harder to open up in foil then it would be in the other two weapons (because the weapon arm guards the outside target). So naturally, most attacks arrive in area B (the inside target)...which is why you start en garde in sixte (it's called an invitation) and the most common parry is quarte (high inside parry).
As you get more experienced, you'll learn different ways of opening up the outside target to attacks. Feint-disengage, for example, is the first action you learn designed to attack area A by causing your opponent to move from en garde with a feint to area B, exposing area A in the process. There are other ways to do this same thing (binds, croise, beats, etc...) but generally you need to figure out how to move your opponent from their en garde into a vulnerable position before you can hit area B reliably.
When you get to be good at fencing, you'll realise that you can equally attack either area A or area B (or C/D, the low line versions of the same areas or E/F, the backside versions of A and B) and tactical considerations come into play. If you have a preference in attack, your opponent will take advantage of that and drill you in *your* open area, so it's wise in fencing to not have any sort of preference in attack. What you try to do instead is take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.
Sometimes, you set up opportunities with a preconceived plan ready to go but if you guess wrong (or your opponent doesn't react as you thought they would) you can end up screwing yourself. Sometimes you simplify your actions because your opponent has a preconceived plan and/or has a bad reaction that they do. This process of opening up targets for attack is called the Tactical Wheel and is the subject of much analysis. It's on the site here under the "training" section.
Finally, the target that you choose to hit depends on what distance the other fencer is at and what they are doing. Attacking to the outside, for example, doesn't work as well when the opponent is moving toward you as when they are moving away from you. Sometimes, you'll find your blade on the wrong side of the opponent's blade (called the engagement) and, coupled with the movement, only have one available target to hit (so it's often wise to take it!). Having a "preference" in that situation would be pretty silly, wouldn't it?
So the answer is that your preference should always be: "whatever target you can hit with priority". *grin* Helpful, eh?
Hope this helps.
James.
Wow, I didn't know Cliff Notes for fencing even existed and here I've found the online version! Comprehensive, yet concise. Richly rewarding, yet uncommonly smooth.
Your area "A" is called the outside target and, in general, is a little harder to open up in foil then it would be in the other two weapons (because the weapon arm guards the outside target). So naturally, most attacks arrive in area B (the inside target)...which is why you start en garde in sixte (it's called an invitation) and the most common parry is quarte (high inside parry).
As you get more experienced, you'll learn different ways of opening up the outside target to attacks. Feint-disengage, for example, is the first action you learn designed to attack area A by causing your opponent to move from en garde with a feint to area B, exposing area A in the process. There are other ways to do this same thing (binds, croise, beats, etc...) but generally you need to figure out how to move your opponent from their en garde into a vulnerable position before you can hit area B reliably.
When you get to be good at fencing, you'll realise that you can equally attack either area A or area B (or C/D, the low line versions of the same areas or E/F, the backside versions of A and B) and tactical considerations come into play. If you have a preference in attack, your opponent will take advantage of that and drill you in *your* open area, so it's wise in fencing to not have any sort of preference in attack. What you try to do instead is take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.
Sometimes, you set up opportunities with a preconceived plan ready to go but if you guess wrong (or your opponent doesn't react as you thought they would) you can end up screwing yourself. Sometimes you simplify your actions because your opponent has a preconceived plan and/or has a bad reaction that they do. This process of opening up targets for attack is called the Tactical Wheel and is the subject of much analysis. It's on the site here under the "training" section.
Finally, the target that you choose to hit depends on what distance the other fencer is at and what they are doing. Attacking to the outside, for example, doesn't work as well when the opponent is moving toward you as when they are moving away from you. Sometimes, you'll find your blade on the wrong side of the opponent's blade (called the engagement) and, coupled with the movement, only have one available target to hit (so it's often wise to take it!). Having a "preference" in that situation would be pretty silly, wouldn't it?
So the answer is that your preference should always be: "whatever target you can hit with priority". *grin* Helpful, eh?
Hope this helps.
James.
It does, thanks! I'll read it today and hopefully be able to apply some of it on Mon. when I fence again.
Originally Posted by xlr8 
