How to improve in an environment of limited competitiveness?

[Spanky McFarland]

I'm in the position at the moment of being a member of a club were I am significantly better than the foilists I fence every week at the club (let me point out that I am not saying I am a great foilist, I'm just better than the mainly recreational fencers in my club). This causes me a problem in that I never have to try hard to win fights, and I don't get the chance to practice certain strokes or work on my timing/ tempo changes in order to score hits. This means that when I compete, and I come up against the top fencers, I can't get close to them, as I have been not been fencing at that level regularly.

How do I continue to improve in this environment? I do as much training on my own as I can, but I find that isn't enough. I want to get better, so that I can at least give the top Scottish fencers a harder time than I do at the moment, but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I try to go to other clubs as often as possible, but it is difficult as the best clubs are a bit of a hike.

Any suggestions?

[haggis]

Move to Edinburgh!!

Simple really.

Regards

Haggis

[haggis]

Flippancy aside, work hard on your footwork, get as fit as possible and make the best use of the fencers that are at your club. If timing and tempo changes are what you feel you need to work on then limit the complexity of your bladework against weaker fencers and concentrate on using the simplest possible actions with the best possible timing and change of pace to score your hits in training. Try to make the maximum of what you have at your disposal - encourage your clubmates to compete more, travel if you have to, pester your coach for more lessons.

Good luck

Haggis

[dreadfoil]

stop crying about it. what you should do is continue to go, and assist the less experienced students develop their talents, and you'll be surprised at how quickly some of those less talented fencers will catch up to you. then try, in a year or so to arrange an informal 'in-salle' only competition, until their confidence level increases. in time the whole group will be able to challenge other salles to duels and eventually, should you win, you can consider larger competitions. in the meanwhile, shame on you.

[Spanky McFarland]

Dreadfoil,

Did you hear me slagging off the other fencers in my club? Note the use of the word 'recreational'. Most of the other fencers in my club are happy to come along once a week and enjoy themselves by having a few fights. They don't particularly want to wear themselves out training to get better just to accomodate me. They are there to have fun, and that is their right. Do you think I should impose what I want on them? I don't think so.

Those fencers that are interested in improving, I do give advice to, and bouts can sometimes turn into lessons, even though I am not a coach, and don't feel that I have a whole lot to offer them, as I have a whole lot of improving to do myself; hence my question. For a while, I tried to do footwork, and find partners to work with on a week to week basis, but nobody was keen enough to keep it up, as most don't compete, so don't have the motivation.

I am not whining about anything. I am asking for advice to improve my situation, which is a very different thing, so spare me your disdain. Mind you, at least you managed to stop being judgemental for long enough to offer some advice, so for that I thank you.

Haggis,

Cheers for the tips. I would like to get through to Edinburgh on occasion, but I don't like turning up uninvited, and equally I don't really see what benefit the Edinburgh lads would get from fencing me, so I'm not sure they would be keen to fence me.

[counter riposte]

Hey Spanky,

I actaully had the same problem. My solution was to go fence where the better fencers fence. While that may be quite a bit of a hike, you will definitely learn more from the better fencers than just plain recreational fencers. (Which I happen to be, thank you). I believe that fencing is just like dancing... the more partners you dance with, the better you become. Regardless of the experience. But if you are only fencing the same people every day, then you know all their moves, and can easily beat them. The more people you are exposed to, the better you can adapt to their techniques. The question is just exposure.

See if you can go to the other places to fence in Scotland. I know this can be difficult, but if I can drive 2 hours from San Diego to Long Beach to fence... you can make the hike to edinborugh. It'll improve your fencing, if not, your physical shape.

Good luck.

[haggis]

Nobody gets invited. Just turn up. You're not turning up for someone else's benefit so don't worry about how the boys will react. They fence whoever's next in the queue.

Cheers

Haggis

[Boo Boo]

...and don't forget the "girls" in Edinburgh too - a few of them will give you a run for your money too... :-)

Boo

[D'Artagnan1673]

I am having the same problem. Most of my club is recreational and I rarely have to work hard at beating them time and time again. I too, dreadfoil, am not bashing my clubmates. How they wish to fence is fine with me and I love fencing with them. However, as a motivated competitive fencer, I need more.

I mentioned this in another post, but I'll put it here since it has relevence. I was asked by another coach if I could possibly make the hour and a half hike up to Humble Tx as a means of beefing up his fencers. It seems he saw me in a competition and liked what he saw. I am thrilled because it will give me the opportunity to fence new people and its rather flattering getting an email asking you to come fence with another group.

How do I get better? I try new moves on my recreational group and work on my footwork. I try to use as many moves as I have. If I think up a move that I like, I'll give it a go during a bout. Also, I love was Counter Riposte says about the more fencers you fence, the better you will be. I think that is so right because it allows you to get a fresh perspective of fencing instead of your "stale" clubmates. What I mean is that once you fence someone time and time again week after week, you get a pretty good feel for exactly what they will do. When you fence someone new, you have absolutely no idea what they do. That is the excitement of fencing someone new.

Good luck Spanky!

[Sildar]

Another way to improve your own training is to fence bouts with your clubmates while giving yourself a handicap. For example, fence to 15 but give your clubmates 7 points to start out with. Just make sure that you don't do this with people who might take it personally.

Another approach which might cause less friction within the club is to work on specific actions that you don't use as much; if you know a certain person will fall for feint X every time, from then on don't use feint X; force yourself to learn to score on them with a different action, the more difficult the better; only attack into their best defended lines. If you want to work on footwork, fence them without using any parries or evasions, so that you have to control the distance with nothing else to fall back on; it can make an easy opponent a real challenge. This way weaker fencers will get an ego boost when they do better against you or beat you, and you don't have to tell them that you were trying to make the bout more challenging.

But visiting tougher clubs is probably your best option; even if you can only do so every other month, it will make a difference in your game.

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

Basically, you can only get better by fencing someone better or at least the same level. You can do a million solo drills but bouting tests your skills more than a non-moving target. I think you already realize that. Try to travel to a club that you know has experienced fencers.

[135711]

spanky, i can't respond to your complaint. you've selected a salle where there's no one to fence with, you've selected a sport that is highly competitive, if you don't like your salle, move to france or italy, what's the problem? if you were a nice person, i could have directed you to several people who could have helped. rather than relocate immediately, i offered a suggestion that would work for about a year, before relocating.....

[135711]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sildar
[B]Another way to improve your own training is to fence bouts with your clubmates while giving yourself a handicap. For example, fence to 15 but give your clubmates 7 points to start out with. Just make sure that you don't do this with people who might take it personally.


One of my teachers used to do that for me until I got stronger, he used his left hand. I tried to contribute my share to the club by being both overly aggressive and insane so that he could deal with the competition from across the planet. It did not work.

[Spanky McFarland]

Boo,

I'm quite sure that all of the girls in Edinburgh would kick my *** up and down the piste. I've seen you fencing.

135711

I'm afraid I found your first reply completely incomprehensible. Were you trying to make a joke or just being rude? Please clarify, so I can decide whether to take offence or not!

Thanks to all for the advice. I'll try and incorporate all of your suggestions, and get my *** over to the stronger clubs.

[Boo Boo]

The girls at Edinburgh (or at least the ones I know) are a really nice bunch of people. Don't really know the blokes, but am sure that they are just as friendly.

Originally posted by Spanky McFarland


I'm quite sure I've seen you fencing.

with any luck, it was on a good day.

Boo
(the inconsistent fencer...)

[haggis]

Spanky

Quite possible you haven't seen Boo fence, she's based a long way from Scotland and, as far as I'm aware, hasn't competed up here. She's quite right though. The EFC girls, while perfectly pleasant off the piste, will be more than happy to beat you to a bloody pulp on it. In the nicest possible way, of course.

Hope to see you there soon

Haggis

[counter riposte]

Originally posted by haggis
Spanky

The EFC girls, while perfectly pleasant off the piste, will be more than happy to beat you to a bloody pulp on it. In the nicest possible way, of course.

Haggis

I like that

[135711]

Originally posted by Spanky McFarland
Boo,

I'm quite sure that all of the girls in Edinburgh would kick my *** up and down the piste. I've seen you fencing.

135711

I'm afraid I found your first reply completely incomprehensible. Were you trying to make a joke or just being rude? Please clarify, so I can decide whether to take offence or not!

Thanks to all for the advice. I'll try and incorporate all of your suggestions, and get my *** over to the stronger clubs.

I'M NOT SURE WHICH REPLY YOU MEAN, BUT I HARDLY EVER INSULT PEOPLE, UNLESS THEY GET REALLY BAD. I'M SURE I WAS KIDDING AROUND WITH YOU. ET LA, I JUST MET THIS REALLY WEIRD BUT INTERESTING PERSON ABOUT AN HOUR AGO, A GUY FROM PALISTINE, WHO WAS REALLY TOTALLY TIGHT. TALK ABOUT HAVING YOUR MUSCLES IN A KNOT. WE TALKED ABOUT A 5K COMING UP AND H4 MAY JOIN IN.. BUT, HE REALLY IS TOTALLY SPOOKED OUT.

[Mo]

Spanky:

Here's something we used to do at an old club where one of the fencers was much better than the others.

We would start a king of the hill match, where the better fencer stayed up as long as he won. With each victory, the victor started a point further in the hole, (going neg 2, neg 3, neg 4 points, etc) with each successive match.

After he won a couple of bouts, he had to fight very hard to keep from losing, and it gave the lesser fencers a real incentive to fence their best (with a little help) and try to pick him off.

[Gav]

Hi Spanky Mc'! Ahh the perils of weegie-land! Yeah get off your butt and come on over to Edinburgh. I'd recommend our club however we don't have any [currently] competing Foilists so I believe you'd end up in the same situation. All I can offer with us would be some Epee and then pints afterwards. The better Foilists are down at EFC.

Mo makes a good point, I've fenced this format and it's quite amazing how tense things can get after 2-3 wins. We tried it with Epee [on a really busy night], limiting bouts to 3 minutes and bouts to 5, with the winner staying on and digging themdselves 1 point futher into the hole. It's funny watching 2 committed stop-hitters trying to decide the best way to attack without being impaled on each others Epee's.