Foil.Period

[Carlos37]

I´m an epeeist,but in the case I might practice foil in the future,will I have to start from zero in that weapon?

And also,for those who practice foil:
Good things about foil
Bad things about foil

[tdwg83]

It will take a lot of work to incorporate Right Of Way into your game. Even if you think you understand it, that is a lot different from being able to use it. I know from personal experience going from epee to foil.

[AdamH]

If your keepers hung you up by the wrist every night, you may be able to do fairly well on distance, counter-attacks and simple/indirect fleches.

To come over, you may have to sacrifice some of the above, probably dropping the counter-attacks completely in training.

Foilists casually accelerating through a slow attack will be confusing.

If this might interfere with your epeeisms (not all that familiar with these) enjoy foil as a second weapon and just use what works in your epee box.

Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bou-Fleche!

edit: Sorry, good and bad things.

Foil has all the sexy people.

[piste off]

Foil has all the sexy people.

...if you are a pedifile.

Rick

[Inquartata]

What, do you mean if you keep your feet in folders, or if you use a rasp on your toenails?

Good things about foil:

1) It isn't epee.
2)The flick is almost a cut.
3) It lets you be in the same room with us wonderful sabre fencers.


Bad things about foil:

1) It isn't sabre.

[OROD]

Foil has all the sexy people.

Being one of the sexy people myself I can attest that this is indeed true.

But then again, we cant all be really, really, ridiculously good looking. For those that arent, there's always saber and epee.

.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

...if you are a pedifile.

Rick

Thats why its bad idea to be in the same room as a y-14 WF or WE NAC.

[jld]

the right of way issue and the distance play will be the hardest things for an epeeist to get used to when fencing foil.

The good things about foil:

* its a lighter weapon, so you have to learn to be quicker in movement and thought but its more manuverable and fun.
* theres more "back and forth" play between the fencers, so it more stimulating at times.
* women foilists are such cutie pies.

The bad things about foil:

* Its frustrating when you make a good touch off target (especially on the mask or wrist).
* Takes alot longer to "master" foil then the other two weapons.

[OROD]

* Takes alot longer to "master" foil then the other two weapons.

That's because foil is like chess, while epee is more like checkers.

.

[Inquartata]

Actually, foil is a lot more like tiddlywinks.

Epee is like "Operation".

Sabre is like rock-paper-scissors.

[OROD]

Actually, epee is like spaghetti.

Foil is like lasagna... mmm, tasty!

Saber is like a flaming bagel.

You see what I'm saying there? Huh? Yeah, that's right.

.

[Inquartata]

What's a baggle? A flock of them?

And must one be bought at a fixed price, or can one hagle?

[OROD]

What's a baggle? A flock of them?

I dont know what you're talking about.

.

[Inquartata]

Sorry, I misspelled the word. It should hae been flox, not 'flocks'.

[remise]

I started out in epee before learning the ROW weapons. The ROW concept took me more than a year to get totally comfortable with. Now, it poses no problem, although everyone tells me I tend to carry a crazy deep distance when I fence foil or sabre. I guess the epee is still strong in me.

[Cry_Me_A_River]

BAD:

Less target area.

[KShan5[PrFC]]

Good: It's close to sabre

Bad: reffing women's foil

[whtouche]

Bad: This thread

[coerciveutopian]

You will certainly have some advantages over people starting foil. Certainly epee will have trained you to have a stronger and more correct parry which will help against all those remieses that have been creeping into foil (so it looks good on tv!). You should also be able to to pretty well with feint in tempo. That was certainly something I picked up from epee and used in foil. One of the best things you have going for you is a sense of distance. I have found that epeists usually have better distance. Go for those attacks in preparation. When my distance starts getting bad I hand an epeist a foil and go lose.

The foilists will be at a faster tempo though so watch out for that. and you cant just poke them. Tiddlywinks is a tough game...

[InFerrumVeritas]

In the clubs around us, foil is still the weapon that is started with, if only for a few months. I this is probably mostly tradition, but I have heard at least one coach say that he wants to teach epee first, but he had a student learn epee and then want to try foil, and trying to teach ROW was too much of a hassle after someone had been fencing for a while without it.

GOOD:
More strategy based.
Your Epee point control will be highly useful and give you a leg up.
Your parries will be better coming from epee, and your parries will be used more.
ROW
You get to use those body attacks that you probably learned and discarded because hitting the arm was more effective.

BAD:
Your counterattacks will only count if your opponent's attack fails, so some of your reflexes won't be as good.
Off-target will probably be frustrating.
Simu-attacks won't count.
ROW