Covering target. How to break a bad habit?

[Angwilwileth]

So.. I've fenced in three tournaments, and have been carded three times for covering target.
I'm wondering if any of you had problems with this, and how you broke the habit if you did.

Any help would be appreciated.

[RITFencing]

Actually, getting carded repeatedly will help you break that habit.

For more specific stuff, what were you getting carded on? Mask covering the lame, rear arm in front of your torso during an action, turning with the rear arm against your side, something else?

[SthPawFncr]

I had this habit when I first started fencing. I tried several things before I found something that worked for me. It might sound stupid but for me it worked. I cross my fingers on my rear hand. For the first few lessons it was distracting, now I do it without thinking. It just kept me *minimally* aware of where my hand was. I probably don't need to do it now, but it's a habit, and a better one than covering target IMHO.

[RebelFencer]

So.. I've fenced in three tournaments, and have been carded three times for covering target.
I'm wondering if any of you had problems with this, and how you broke the habit if you did.

Any help would be appreciated.

Just like you get in any habit. Consciously stop yourself and monitor your hand. The more you do it the less you'll have to think about it until you don't need to anymore. Same applies to many other things in fencing.

[eac]

Try putting your rear arm behind the wire. Pretty hard to pull it forward from there, and also you get a physical feedback when it starts doing what it's not supposed to.

[RebelFencer]

Try putting your rear arm behind the wire. Pretty hard to pull it forward from there, and also you get a physical feedback when it starts doing what it's not supposed to.

I don't know, if I were directing I would be a little wary of someone with their hand on/near their body cord/floor reel wire.

[Angwilwileth]

For more specific stuff, what were you getting carded on? Mask covering the lame, rear arm in front of your torso during an action, turning with the rear arm against your side, something else?

Back arm in front of torso.

[RITFencing]

I don't know, if I were directing I would be a little wary of someone with their hand on/near their body cord/floor reel wire.

They can leave it NEAR the cord... but touching it is a yellow card.

[bunbury]

They can leave it NEAR the cord... but touching it is a yellow card.

Pretty sure he's aware and that he means that having is hovering right by it will definetly have him paying more attention to that back hand.

[KD5MDK]

I switched to sabre. Best decision I ever made.

[mrbiggs]

Just ask your teammates to tell you when it looks like you're covering. If they keep yelling at you every time it happens in every bout, you'll get better.

Also, if you're like many fencers, you might just be covering during infighting. In which case, whenever you're infighting, you should concentrate less on the fencing and more on not covering target.

[Beowulfman6]

I switched to sabre. Best decision I ever made.

You can still cover target in saber.

I have a clubmate who has a chronic problem with this- today in practice one of our more experienced fencers had him ballance a pen across the thumb and fore finger of his back hand- it's kind of hard to describe, but it was supopoed to help him remember to keep his hand back.

[Goldgar]

You can still cover target in saber.

Indeed you can. I carded someone for this just today. His habit when attacking was to put his back hand right in front of his midsection.

[KD5MDK]

Generally, getting hit there at least once will deal with that.

I've never seen a card given for covering target in sabre except when there's hair on the lame, although I have accidentally parried with my knuckles. That was considered sufficient punishement in itself. (Given it took a chunk of skin off, I'd tend to agree.)

[Goldgar]

Generally, getting hit there at least once will deal with that.

I've never seen a card given for covering target in sabre except when there's hair on the lame, although I have accidentally parried with my knuckles. That was considered sufficient punishement in itself. (Given it took a chunk of skin off, I'd tend to agree.)

I certainly see the card as partly protective of the fencer at fault, but it does disadvantage the opponent, too, and I believe that reason alone is enough to justify the card.

[Inquartata]

Generally, getting hit there at least once will deal with that.

Meh, you are reckoning without the boneheaded stubbornness of some sabre fencers.

We have a fellow in my club who does this. He's been hit a couple of times, still drifts back to doing it. Operant conditioning can take awhile sometimes.

I've never seen a card given for covering target in sabre except when there's hair on the lame,

Nor have I, despite some really flagrant examples, including one novice who when attacked brought his entire back arm up in front of his chest as though to shield himself...including the hand, of course. Must have done it a dozen times in the bout I watched. Never got carded.

although I have accidentally parried with my knuckles.

Yep...and been hit in the off hand a few times when it was in an innocuous position, below and back of the torso---and had opponents claim that it was blocking target. As indeed I suppose it was, if the cut was coming up from floor level and behind me.

[KD5MDK]

If he's got his whole lame covered arm in front of him blocking, and you can only hit the hand, don't you deserve a little bit of the blame?

[Inquartata]

If it had been me fencing him, I'd just have pointed it out to the referee. I was watching from one strip over.

But the hand was a moving patch of nontarget. This isn't the opponent's "fault", no.

[Katman]

I've seen saber fencers hop backwards on one foot and cover target with their front knee.

I started developing a habit of covering target too (foil). Then I was flicked on the middle knuckle of my off hand during practice.

That's all it took.

As far as advice: make yourself stop. You will probably figure out how to do that on your own.

[restlesscheese]

I don't know if this is legal in competition or not, but my coach has the chronic target coverers hold their groin strap in the back with their off hand. It works, for the most part. Could possibly turn into a bad habit though.

Also, I've noticed that those that learn to fence holding their back arm the classical way tend not to cover target area as much as those that hold it down and back in the modern way.