Terminology while coaching

[tbryan]

In this thread in the general fencing forum, Durando raised a question about uniform terminology for fencers in the United States. While the USFA Coaches College provides a vocabulary, I was wondering whether you use the terminology as defined by the USFA Coaches College when teaching your students? Or do you use terminology from some other tradition (French, Italian, etc.)? For example, do you talk about "diagonal transfers" or "binds"? Or do you use some mixed up combination of terms you have picked up from various people over time?

And a related question: how verbal are you when teaching new skills to students? That is, do you give skills names and expect your fencers to remember them? For example, do your students know words like time stop and time thrust? Are you careful to make a distinction between "two advances" and "double advance"?

[hpfencing]

Yes, I think it is very important to use the same terms that the USFA Coaches College uses, it keeps fencers that fence with multiple clubs from being confused AND if two fencers met up and talk at a tournament they are talking about the same thing.

Yes we all have "buz" words we use as coaches but as a general rule the terms should be the same.

For example our club says "green Tea" for Point in line attacks... Long inside joke there but the bottom line is everyone knows it is a point in line so when they are talking to people outside the club they use point in line.....

[chefencer]

For example our club says "green Tea" for Point in line attacks...

Haha! OMG, I can't wait to see fencing TXT MSGs - LOLZ...
We need a new section in the wiki!

[qatet]

One of the things that most irks me about Coaches College is the insistence on using their vocabulary and ignoring other vocabulary. Those are not the terms that I've trained with before, so for me it felt silly to have to relearn many terms (transfers come to mind, but there were plenty of other ones as well). But I find it really problematic that the CC vocabulary doesn't also have a list of terms that others will use to describe the same actions. It means that CC is creating coaches who will presumably have a hard time communicating basic ideas with coaches who aren't coming up through the CC curriculum. Even just including alternative terms in parentheses at the end of the definition would be a good resource for these coaches. It's not like CC is really able to determine the vocabulary of American fencing - American coaches come from all over the world, and many are trained at individual clubs rather than CC, so the CC's decision to reinvent the wheel with new terms seems like a step in the wrong direction.

I'll admit that, as a historian it seems sad to lose the links to the history of fencing by translating everything into English. But then, I've got a decent familiarity with French and Italian.

Of course, there's a good chance that I'm just annoyed at having to learn a different set of definitions from the USFCA list that I was studying a few months before.

[keith]

And a related question: how verbal are you when teaching new skills to students? That is, do you give skills names and expect your fencers to remember them? For example, do your students know words like time stop and time thrust? Are you careful to make a distinction between "two advances" and "double advance"?

I think this is the only important question. What matters is the appropriateness of the cues to which a student is responding. If those are correct it doesn't matter if a student then goes of to work with a different coach who uses a completely foreign nomenclature. As far as possible cues should be non-verbal IMHO.

What is more likely is that the next coach will be appalled at the hand position in the parry quarte or will stop mid sequence point at your hand and exclaim "What the **** is that!" (I paraphrase for brevity).

There is I think a difference here between a pedagogy for training coaches and one for training fencers. Also a common terminology should not be confused with a consensus amongst coaches as to the preference, importance or correctness of actions within the tactical framework.

[tbryan]

If those are correct it doesn't matter if a student then goes of to work with a different coach who uses a completely foreign nomenclature. As far as possible cues should be non-verbal IMHO.

Oh, sure. But when you're at a tournament, do you sign everything to your fencers? It's useful for them to have a vocabulary, so that you can communicate quickly during the one minute break. Do you say bind or diagonal transfer, if that's what the student needs to consider? Or do you just mimic the action with the hands?

I think that it could also be useful for team mates to share a vocabulary. As a fencer, I would love if my team mates could tell me something articulate about my upcoming opponents. I hate it when they say, "That guy was okay. Good luck, I think you'll beat him." It's much better to get something like, "When I fenced him, he was mostly attacking in high lines with a fairly even tempo, but if he gets the parry, he tends to transfer to low lines for his riposte."

It's difficult for fencers to talk to each other or to their coach (over dinner, driving home, etc.) if they don't have a shared vocabulary for describing footwork and bladework actions.

[Rick Thompson]

As for my fencers' knowledge of terms - I tend to require them to know the more classical terminology (mostly French), though I do equate things like "transfer" to the French terms.

The vocabulary of fencing is more than a loose connection of terms - it is a taxonomy. It classifies actions as well as encapulates concepts. And many of these terms have no English equivalent term (or even an explanatory phrase). For example, the term "Trompement" can be phrased as "the final commitment in a compound attack," but it *implies* a successful feint(s).

I introduce the terms as I introduce the concepts and techniques - definition without understanding is meaningless.

The difference between "double advance" and "two advances" is important, but only after a beginner understands the concept of tempo. (of course the DEFINITION of tempo can be confusing - it's easier to demonstrate than discourse....).

Sometimes I hand out "homework" to my students - e.g. what terms in the glossary (I supply one) relate to change-of-line actions? Good group discussion stuff, and good lead-offs into lessons.

In addition, fencers *should* know the terminology from the rule book. Try randomly asking any foil / sabre fencer the definition of an attack, and see if they know....
======================

[Durando]

Oh, sure. But when you're at a tournament, do you sign everything to your fencers?

I annoy my teammates with my nascent system of hand signals. It is mostly tactical advice, like "Distance," "Tempo," "More reconnaissance," "Beat," "Into Prep," and "You suck, now get me a cup of coffee."

[Allen Evans]

Fortunately, fencers tend to be intelligent. Just as many fencers have learned more than one way to describe many objects and actions in their every day lives, many of the fencers I know understand more than one way to describe actions and objects in the fencing "lives".

I use some of the Coaching College terminology when talking to students (I don't see it as a huge difference from my usual French terminology) but I don't make a point of using it to the exclusion of other terms that my student might understand more readily.

Oh, except for term "expulsion", which sounds so much like a bodily function it makes me uncomfortable to use around people wearing all white.

AE

[Adler]

Oh, except for term "expulsion", which sounds so much like a bodily function it makes me uncomfortable to use around people wearing all white.

AE

Expulsion? thats not a term I've ever come across, except as a threat to my students who fail to put the club kit away.

In terms of terminology I tend to use the terms of my own training which is primarily the Hungarian system.
The main reason I use Hungarian terminology is that its the terminology that fits the system and it describes the theory of that system. For example Counter-time in the French sense is any action against a counter attack where as counter-time in the Hungarian sense is quite specifically a counter attack into a counter attack anything else would be termed second intention.

However I think it is important that fencers know not only the terminology of their own system but the most common terms of other systems and that of the F.I.E.

[erooMynohtnA]

However I think it is important that fencers know not only the terminology of their own system but the most common terms of other systems and that of the F.I.E.

That's really important. For the first four years of my fencing career, I had a coach who would just make up terms as she went along. She fenced in Poland, came to America, and never bothered figuring out the correct nomenclature in English. An advance-lunge was a "slide," a disengage was a "circle," a flick was a "shot," a balestra was a "shlegink," and so forth.

It made work with anyone outside her school very difficult. And when I finally switched coaches it made that difficult too. I had to devote two or three lessons just to figuring out what everything meant.

Expulsion: A type of tac-au-fer, executed by engaging the opponent’s blade with the middle part of one’s own blade and briskly whipping it forward straight to the target, at the same time expelling the opponent’s blade from its line.

[Don Badowski]

One of the things that most irks me about Coaches College is the insistence on using their vocabulary and ignoring other vocabulary.

I've been told by more senior graduates that the CC is attempting to get everyone working on the same page to avoid the confusion that our imported coaches bring with them.

Example: Old Coach tells you to do a counter parry riposte. Does he want you to do a counterattack into a parry? New Coach tells you to do a circular parry riposte or a parry counter riposte.

Example: Old Coach tells you to do a balestra lunge. Does he want you to do a jump lunge recover lunge (coaches of the eastern european persuasion will tell you balestra means a forward jump, not a jump lunge)? New Coach tells you to do a balestra and you do a jump lunge.

Example: Old Coach tells you to do an indirect remise. New Coach tells you that any indirect continuation of the offensive action is a reprise.

And on it goes. It's not going to be a smooth transition, I know. When I got back from my first CC in 2003, I got into an argument with my Bulgarian epee coach about how a remise didn't need to have a forward confirmation of the footwork. "Don, we've been working together for five years and now you're going to change it on me!" For her sake I let it go. But I think the CC will prevail in this. As the years go by more of our coaches will be home grown, and the CC will have the biggest influence.

Besides, it's only fair. You don't hear about european coaches changing their fencing terminology to match us, do you?

[Durando]

I've been told by more senior graduates that the CC is attempting to get everyone working on the same page to avoid the confusion that our imported coaches bring with them.But I think the CC will prevail in this. As the years go by more of our coaches will be home grown, and the CC will have the biggest influence....

....Besides, it's only fair. You don't hear about european coaches changing their fencing terminology to match us, do you?

Don,

Great to hear from you again. (Perhaps you remember me from Fencing 2K in Chicago.) I think you're right on in both substance and sentiment. If the thinking about how to implement changes in training for high-level success always comes from another school, or competing schools, after being filtered through a second language, American fencing per se will never evolve into a school of its own. Or, at the very best, it will be unable to plan for high level success.

On one hand, American fencing as it is, is very eclectic. On the other, it is uncoordinated and, really, unidentifiable as a school. It is not content which can be taught. The latter point is difficult to see until you've been fencing somewhere outside of the States. My situation is such that I would much rather talk about the sport in French, given the choice. I can talk to someone from a club in Paris or Bordeaux and be easily understood. Those weird moments of linguistic integration into a new club are largely absent.

And yes, at a certain point, foreign coaches should feel obliged to learn the terminology and the theory that goes with it, in order to teach in the United States. A ringer remains a ringer until they join the team.

[chefencer]

...And yes, at a certain point, foreign coaches should feel obliged to learn the terminology and the theory that goes with it, in order to teach in the United States. A ringer remains a ringer until they join the team.

Ah but then they lose half the cache' of having an accent! You can't be a good coach if you ain't a foreigner that talks funny...

[Durando]

Ah but then they lose half the cache' of having an accent! You can't be a good coach if you ain't a foreigner that talks funny...

Yep. Emigration is hard.

[Don Badowski]

Last year in my CC Level 1 Epee class, Alex Beguinet was answering some questions about "transfers". A woman in the class kept referring to croises, envelopments and binds. She asked the pardon of Alex, as she had been taught in the French school and terminology. Alex smiled and said "Me too!"

[Rick Thompson]

From USFCA GlossaryExpulsion: A type of tac-au-fer, executed by engaging the opponent’s blade with the middle part of one’s own blade and briskly whipping it forward straight to the target, at the same time expelling the opponent’s blade from its line.

Well, the bodily functions described by Allen might also remove the blade from the line!

What's also interesting is that new terms are being added to the vocabulary, and some fall into dis-use. In the latter category, when's the last time you heard a referee call "preparation" or "attack into preparation"? The referee terminology is simplifying things down to attack or counter-attack. (Any similiarity to Orwell's "1984" is merely coincidence.)

On the NEW side... at the USFCA Conference (August 10-12, Oklahoma City), Andy Ma introduced us to a new piece of tactical footwork called a "half-step" - not a half-advance, but smaller without shifting one's weight. It's a type of body feint or preparatory step. While the movement has been around for some time, no one (to my knowledge) has given it a name. Now it exists as a term, a concept and a tactical tool.

[oso97]

What's also interesting is that new terms are being added to the vocabulary, and some fall into dis-use. In the latter category, when's the last time you heard a referee call "preparation" or "attack into preparation"? The referee terminology is simplifying things down to attack or counter-attack. (Any similiarity to Orwell's "1984" is merely coincidence.)

Don't know what they've been calling in South Carolina, but I assure you, the concept of "preparation" and attack there-into is alive and well in the rest of the United States.

On the NEW side... at the USFCA Conference (August 10-12, Oklahoma City), Andy Ma introduced us to a new piece of tactical footwork called a "half-step" - not a half-advance, but smaller without shifting one's weight. It's a type of body feint or preparatory step. While the movement has been around for some time, no one (to my knowledge) has given it a name. Now it exists as a term, a concept and a tactical tool.

I encountered this idea a number of years ago at a coaching workshop, can't quite remember where. I've seen the sabre fencers I referee in Div I, Junior and Cadet events using it for at least as long as I've been paying attention.

[Rick Thompson]

It's not the tactical use or taking advantage of preparation that I'm referring to. It's the simplification of the calls by the referees. I do not see any referees (F&S) using the terms "preparation," "on the march," etc. It's all "attack" versus "counter-attack," where an attack into preparation is the attack, and the preparatory action (e.g. compound attack) by the opponent is the counter-attack.

On the half-step - as I said, the movement has been around, but I've never seen it given a specific name. Of course, I'm in the hinterlands, and things take an additional 16 years to get here.... At any rate, it was certainly a new term to many of the attendees of the conference, with a systematic tactical application.

Coaching conferences are a wonderful thing for sharing info like that.

[erooMynohtnA]

On the half-step - as I said, the movement has been around, but I've never seen it given a specific name. Of course, I'm in the hinterlands, and things take an additional 16 years to get here.... At any rate, it was certainly a new term to many of the attendees of the conference, with a systematic tactical application.

If the action you're describing is what I'm thinking of, Laurie Schiller at Northwestern has been calling it a check (check-back or check-forward, actually) for awhile.