Training/practicing Disengages

[Cookeit]

Does anyone know any drills I can do from home or by myself to help my disengages?

I think my main problem is I can't get my opponents to make the first parry.

[remistress]

I may be wrong, but sounds like that's a problem with feinting not with disengages.

If you do want disengage practice, I use the tried and true tennis ball, with a nail in the top, hung from some string. Usually you try to hit the ball, but instead, try swinging the ball back and forth. Try to avoid the ball, by disengaging while extending. Make sure to change the hand tempo as you do this (rate of extension).

Hope this helps!

[riceboy]

remistress is right, that sounds like a problem with your feints. Try talking with your coach about that, you will want your attack to look like your feint. Working with a mirror will help, if you can try and make a feint and then compare it to your attack, you may find that there is a diffrence in movement that you will want to correct to make your feint more convincing.

While this is probably not your problem, if your disengages are too large you can also try and practice isolating your thumb and index finger in your disengages. Try and manipulate the weapon with just those fingers, so that you can make smaller disengages without the wrist.

[Allen Evans]

See this:

http://home.earthlink.net/~allenevans59/LIES.HTML

AE

[Don Badowski]

Try hanging a string straight down. Go on guard and place the blade close to one side of the string, about two inches deep. Disengage to the other side of the string, getting as close as possible without actually touching it. Gradually increase the speed. Gradually reduce the distance between you and the string. This increases the depth of your disengage, which will help you get those indirect ripostes at close distance. You might also change the extension of your arm. This exercise works with cutovers as well.

And work on those feints.

[samh]

I realize that you requested exercises that you can do at home or by yourself; however, the best way to practice and improve your disengages is by practice bouting. Just be sure to concentrate on doing disengage attacks (regardless of whether or not it is an effective tactic in the match). Try preparing attacks differently and also try different levels of commitment with your feint. Depending on who you're fencing against the distance for the feint for it to be effective can vary hugely.

[stu]

Of course, if they're not reacting to the initial feint as you get closer and closer, there's nothing to stop you finishing the movement off and hitting them.

For the disengage itself, while making it smaller is a good thing most of the time, don't overdo it. I've known some people who worked in front of a mirror until their disengage movement was so small, it couldn't get around the parry it was trying to dodge.

[Don Badowski]

Originally Posted by stu

I've known some people who worked in front of a mirror until their disengage movement was so small, it couldn't get around the parry it was trying to dodge.

The bigger your opponent's parry, the smaller your disengage can be, as they're doing the work for you.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Don Badowski

The bigger your opponent's parry, the smaller your disengage can be, as they're doing the work for you.

I disagree with this, though bigger parries from the opponent make the disengage EASIER, the size of it should be dictated by which part of the opponent's blade you are disengaging and the distance between the two blades.

[7thGuest]

Originally Posted by Cookeit

Does anyone know any drills I can do from home or by myself to help my disengages?

I think my main problem is I can't get my opponents to make the first parry.

Interesting question. By the way. Do you know how to make disengages? If not, my suggestion first learn how to do. Why? Because in real you have to keep pistol grip with 2 fingers (big and second) and three other must follow open and close. Your first target must be guard and than, when your move will be small enough you have to start around the blade.
Good Luck

[Don Badowski]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

I disagree with this, though bigger parries from the opponent make the disengage EASIER, the size of it should be dictated by which part of the opponent's blade you are disengaging and the distance between the two blades.

If you are only disengaging to change the line of engagement (old school), the width of the disengage doesn't have to be any bigger than the width of your opponents blade. If you are disengaging to actually hit an opponent who may have left a line open more than is prudent, same thing.

But if you are making a hard feint to draw a parry, it now depends on the opponents reaction. Consider a feint-disengage from 4 to 6. You make the feint beyond the opponents bell guard, and we will assume its heading straight for target. Since you have to get beyond the bell guard to score, your disengage has be at least the width of the bell. If the opponent takes a small, controlled parry just big enought to close the line, you're going to have to add some lateral motion to get around the bell. But if the opponent makes a big, panic induced parry, you can just drop the point and let them pass over, bring the point up and score.

[muaddib]

Cookeit, some good advice above, but I would like to add a comment on your mental game. If you think "I'll attack in 4, then disengage to 6", this usually doesn't work. You should think "Attack" or "attack in 4". If your body and mind believes you are attacking, trust me, your opponent will believe you are attacking and will make the parry, at which time you should disengage.

Try practicing your attacks in SLOW motion, like Matrix slow-mo, and have your drill partner, sometimes parry and sometimes not parry. Make sure the beginning of your attack is slow so that you can excellerate when needed.

Good luck

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Don Badowski

If you are only disengaging to change the line of engagement (old school), the width of the disengage doesn't have to be any bigger than the width of your opponents blade. If you are disengaging to actually hit an opponent who may have left a line open more than is prudent, same thing.

But if you are making a hard feint to draw a parry, it now depends on the opponents reaction. Consider a feint-disengage from 4 to 6. You make the feint beyond the opponents bell guard, and we will assume its heading straight for target. Since you have to get beyond the bell guard to score, your disengage has be at least the width of the bell. If the opponent takes a small, controlled parry just big enought to close the line, you're going to have to add some lateral motion to get around the bell. But if the opponent makes a big, panic induced parry, you can just drop the point and let them pass over, bring the point up and score.

Making a hard and believable feint doesn't necessarily mean a deep one. If they let me get so close that my tip is past their bell guard before making their parry, I can generally get them with a remise anyway (this is epee I am talking about.)

Anyway, most fencers (at least IMHO) will search (for parries, presses, prise de fers, beats, or any other blade action I might want to avoid) with the blade, not the bell guard, and it is much easier to learn small disengages and make them bigger in those situations where it is needed than to learn big ones and make them smaller.

Are there situations where I need to be able to get around the bell guard? Of course. Sometimes I just make my disengage too late, or sometimes I fence people who take really late parries, or I disengage one parry and they make another very close to the body.) However, again in my humble experience, it is vastly preferable to learn (or teach, since this is a coaching thread) small disengages first and let the student adapt to the situation, or teach larger ones later in lessons.

I've covered reasons one should learn/teach small disengages, now let's talk about a big one why one should avoid teaching big ones, at least too early: blade control. If fencers learn big blade actions early, it becomes far too easy (or worse, necessary) to "cheat" and make the wrist do too much work and the fingers do too little. This leads to serious blade control issues down the line because the fencers cannot use the fingers, or cannot separate the finger and wrist motions (which are different things, and while used in concert should still not be considered one and the same) or just ham handed fencers who grip their weapons so hard they leave fingerprints in the handle.

[Hauptman]

Originally Posted by Cookeit

Does anyone know any drills I can do from home or by myself to help my disengages?

I think my main problem is I can't get my opponents to make the first parry.

I may be wrong, but I'm not sure there is an effective way to practice this by yourself; other than the mere mechanics of making little half circles with your blade.

The problem I had with this skill was learning proper distance. Less experienced fencers tend to keep the distance WAY too close. A feint/attack should be from advance lunge distance... or at least double advance distance anyway. So to draw the parry you must make a convincing feint and that takes explosive footwork. But then when you DO draw the parry if you are too close the disengage becomes much more difficult. Taking my offense out to advance lunge distance was a huge factor in improving my game.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Hauptman

I may be wrong, but I'm not sure there is an effective way to practice this by yourself; other than the mere mechanics of making little half circles with your blade.

The problem I had with this skill was learning proper distance. Less experienced fencers tend to keep the distance WAY too close. A feint/attack should be from advance lunge distance... or at least double advance distance anyway.

Always? I disagree.

So to draw the parry you must make a convincing feint and that takes explosive footwork. But then when you DO draw the parry if you are too close the disengage becomes much more difficult. Taking my offense out to advance lunge distance was a huge factor in improving my game.

Now THIS bit, on the other hand, is very, very good advice. Have some green dots. Just remember that doing it so close isn't necessarily wrong, you just have to change it up a bit, and there's NOTHING wrong with that.

[Hauptman]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Always? I disagree.



Now THIS bit, on the other hand, is very, very good advice. Have some green dots. Just remember that doing it so close isn't necessarily wrong, you just have to change it up a bit, and there's NOTHING wrong with that.

Always? Of course not! Just speaking in generalities here. And I hesitate to recommend to someone that is having problems with feints in general to attempt close-quarter attacks. Up close you are forced to make large, bent arm disengagements which leave you very vulnerable. Very risky, but of course there are times when appropriate.

[Don Badowski]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Making a hard and believable feint doesn't necessarily mean a deep one. If they let me get so close that my tip is past their bell guard before making their parry, I can generally get them with a remise anyway (this is epee I am talking about.)

If I thrust my weapon out and the tip doesn't pass the bell, why you you parry at all? It can't do you any harm. Such an action is more likely to draw a counterattack to my arm than a parry.

[darius]

Less experienced fencers tend to keep the distance WAY too close. A feint/attack should be from advance lunge distance... or at least double advance distance anyway.

But if you can teach them to make a strong feint-disengage from lunge distance, you're golden. It's a bit harder to learn that action, because there's more hand-foot separation required, but once you have it, it's easier to do it from longer distances.

darius

[Insipiens]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

Now THIS bit, on the other hand, is very, very good advice.

That was the point I was going to add.
If you are not getting your opponent to parry then he is comfortable that when you do complete your attack he still has time to parry. So you (like me) need greater acceleration in your attacks. However small and fast your disengage, and however otherwise menacing your feint looks if you don't accelarate with the final extension and end of the lunge you are not going to make your opponent look to parry earlier.

The other aspect of it is distance and timing of when you make the feint. If you make the feint when your opponent is perfectly balanced and ready to step forward or back he will be less hurried in his parry. If you pick the moment when his footwork means he isn't able to change direction and get away from you, he would have greater need to parry.

[RITFencing]

Originally Posted by Don Badowski

If I thrust my weapon out and the tip doesn't pass the bell, why you you parry at all? It can't do you any harm. Such an action is more likely to draw a counterattack to my arm than a parry.

A) Because that tip is getting to the point where I can control it and score a touch.

B) If it keeps going, it may be too late to parry or the distance may make my riposte harder.

C) If I wait too long and you make a successful disengage, I won't have time for another attempt to take your blade.

D) It takes a small but still non-zero amount of time to complete the parry. If I start before your tip is past my bell guard, I may well end the parry after your bell guard.

E) In the same track as D, I'm not going to parry AFTER your fient or attack or whatever is done. I'm going to parry BEFORE it is done. If it looks like a real attack and you did a good job feinting, I'm not going to know if it'll fall short or not.