intuitive vs. technical coaching

[antoinette]

Beginning foilist here - and am wondering about coaching. Are there two basic approaches for new fencers - i.e. a highly technical approach, with formal training and emphasis on blade positions; vs. a more intuitive approach, where such things are taught along the way. (Sort of like in music - one teacher will emphasize scales and finger exercises; others, such as in the Suzuki method, teaches technique while you learn actual pieces of music.)

I'm asking about it as the classes I go to seem to be more "intuitive" in approach. I'm feeling a little frustrated because I feel like I'm being asked to do rather complex sequences when I don't have the basics down yet to where they are somewhat automatic.

Thoughts?

[Allen Evans]

The problem with teaching from a technical point of departure is that the fencer will spend a great deal of time learning fencing "things" but not necessarily learning to fence. In a lesson, when cued, they can do an amazing number of actions, but in a bout....nothing*.

An true intuitive approach by a coach MAY** be attempting to integrate hand and foot and tempo all at once. Rather than "intuition", I would rather talk about a "conceptual" approach, instead.

Starting from first concepts of fencing means that the student is integrating a lot of things right from the start: hand skills, footwork skills, skills in tempo, and in tactics. This can result in fencers appearing to make slow progress. In fact, as part of integrating foot/hand/tempo, a coach may actually be giving up some performance success at first as the student attempts to integrate everything -- a VERY difficult process. In the end, however, the student can progress very quickly, as they understand FENCING, and simply need to learn new fencing "things" as needed to fill in their technical holes. This fencer will fence at a very high level.

Because a conceptual approach may result in an appareent lack of progress (*ahem*) and without a good coach to keep them moving and show them progress, the students getting this approach are often discouraged quickly and quit. They understand fencing, but technical failures at an early level can be frustrating, especially if the fencer is losing a lot of competitions to others who have one or two strong technical skills, but little else.

When a coach is simply teaching technical actions (esp. hand-based technical actions) progress appears to be rapid, and students are happier, more likely to continue, and more likely to pay more lesson and class fees. In this approach, a certain number of student's connect the dots and they become good fencers (often without much help fro mthe coach, though he takes the credit). At the very least, the rest of the student's have good technique.


AE


*I have shamelessly stolen this from Gary Copeland, an excellant coach.

**I make this distinction here because I am not sure what you are defining as an "intuitive approach". It can be difficult to distingush a true intuitive approach from a coach who is simply making things up or is not working from a technical background.

[AdamH]

Are you talking about group teaching or individual coaching? Pairs exercises or one on one with the coach?

On the one hand, the best coaching course I went on was a coaching course, not a teaching course. It focused on initial coaching skills for foil using only attack, attack-deceive, quarte/sixte/octave/seconde parries and an emphasis on footwork for delivering those actions. Nice choice-reaction exercises. Good basic skillset to get fencing with. Emphasis on 'less word talk, more fence action'. And all of it moving around, much more applicable to actual fencing.

The teaching course was, well, a teaching course for groups and based off the French system. Fencing in the supinated box, sixte/quarte/septime/octave, disengage, counter-disengage, coupe, first/second counter-riposte, coumpound offensive actions, successive parries; mostly static footwoork but more complex bladework. Pairs exercises and a system for delivering the information; IDEA (Introduction, Demonstration, Explanation, Activity). A key point was that the shorter the introduction, the better.

I'm providing this information to give you an idea of what goes on during a coaching course and why your coach may be doing what they are doing. Notice that the concept of 'deceive' covers disengage/counter-disengage/coupe(cutover).

If your concern is that you don't understand how to do something, then of course you should ask for clarification and explanation. If you are concerned that you are unable to execute an action or correct response, this is normal and the reason we take lessons. Try not to get too hung up on particular actions, give it your best shot and move on to the next exercise and eventually it will start to come.

[RITFencing]

Allen, excellent post as always.

It really begs for a long tangent on the approach of laying down fundamentals behind different actions and teaching a basic understanding of the game of fencing with beginner students and how that can lead into a whole program structure, but that's something that should be covered in a whole new thread, or possibly a book.

[Jason]

I believe that this is a false dichotomy. There is no reason that a coach cannot spend time emphasizing both fencing technique and (assuming Allen's interpretation of "intuition" is correct) concept. In fact, I would argue that it is essential for a coach to do both, adjusting the balance to the individual student's needs.

[Allen Evans]

Hmmm...I would agree that it's a false dichotomy....except here in the US where I see an abundance of technical training in isolation at the beginning level.

I made the seperation very strong mostly for illustrative purposes. A skilled coach strikes a balance between the two, but I feel that the emphasis should be more conceptual than technical for the first six to twelve months.

I asked Buckie Leach once how he started his coaching, with a tactic or a technique. He told me that he started with the tactic, until the technical failures drove him crazy enough to "backfill" technique (I'm not certain he used the word "backfill" when he answered the question). This is something I find myself doing a lot, as well.

If you ask a coach what they teach, they all say: "I teach both, of course", but in reality I suspect that few coaches really find this balance, and teach from a technical approach (again, my opinion is US centric).

[Rick Shellhouse]

The problem with teaching from a technical point of departure is that the fencer will spend a great deal of time learning fencing "things" but not necessarily learning to fence. In a lesson, when cued, they can do an amazing number of actions, but in a bout....nothing*.

An true intuitive approach by a coach MAY** be attempting to integrate hand and foot and tempo all at once. Rather than "intuition", I would rather talk about a "conceptual" approach, instead.

Starting from first concepts of fencing means that the student is integrating a lot of things right from the start: hand skills, footwork skills, skills in tempo, and in tactics. This can result in fencers appearing to make slow progress. In fact, as part of integrating foot/hand/tempo, a coach may actually be giving up some performance success at first as the student attempts to integrate everything -- a VERY difficult process. In the end, however, the student can progress very quickly, as they understand FENCING, and simply need to learn new fencing "things" as needed to fill in their technical holes. This fencer will fence at a very high level.

Because a conceptual approach may result in an appareent lack of progress (*ahem*) and without a good coach to keep them moving and show them progress, the students getting this approach are often discouraged quickly and quit. They understand fencing, but technical failures at an early level can be frustrating, especially if the fencer is losing a lot of competitions to others who have one or two strong technical skills, but little else.

When a coach is simply teaching technical actions (esp. hand-based technical actions) progress appears to be rapid, and students are happier, more likely to continue, and more likely to pay more lesson and class fees. In this approach, a certain number of student's connect the dots and they become good fencers (often without much help fro mthe coach, though he takes the credit). At the very least, the rest of the student's have good technique.

Please polish this up just a hair in your style and panache so I can print it and give it out.


Rick

[foibles]

- one teacher will emphasize scales and finger exercises; others, such as in the Suzuki method, teaches technique while you learn actual pieces of music.)

Thoughts?

In both methods, patience and practice wins the day.
Patience and Practice, antoinette.

Of course it's frustrating... you've only just begun!
You're hungry, mindful and smart. You'll get there. Just give it some time (and some practice).

[Verbify]

I know exactly what you mean. When I moved from my beginner/introductory class to the ongoing foil class, the style of the class changed to more of what you describe as the Suzuki method: fewer formal drills and more situational, tactical approaches along the lines of "here's what you can do when...." and then you practice them with your partner. Then you build on that with an alternative move, etc.

I also began taking private lessons with a different coach at my club around the same time. In him I found the more technical approach that emphasized form, clean economical moves, more muscle memory building drills etc.

I continued down both paths and after 7 months since I started fencing, I'm at a point where those two styles actually work very well together and I learn different things from each. I get some real discipline in my form from my more technical private lessons and I get a different strategic and tactical perspective from the group class.

When I had hip pain the "technical" coach was able to make some corrections in my private lessons to my posture and my pelvis position that helped tremendously. When I kept getting stuck in a "parry-riposte" marathon with a few fencers in the club (picture a continuing parry-riposte back and forth from each fencer until is becomes downright silly), the "Suzuki" coach was able to give me two tactical approaches to break that cycle and score points. (So that I don't paint either of these great coaches into a stereotype, I should note that my "Suzuki" coach has given me very technical private lessons too. I think that private lessons are just geared toward the more technical aspect of fencing..at least at my club. Ask others at your club about their private sessions.)

In my case, I was better able to work on the basics and my form through private lessons and then work on strategy and tactics in the group class. If you have the ability to afford private lessons periodically, I'd say go for it. I think that made the biggest difference for me.

[Jason]

Hmmm...I would agree that it's a false dichotomy....except here in the US where I see an abundance of technical training in isolation at the beginning level.

I have certainly seen this as well. In spite (actually, because) of this technical isolation, these coaches also nearly ubiquitously teach bad technique.

[Allen Evans]

I would agree. Teaching technical skills in isolation removes one of the feedback mechanism from making good technical corrections.

"Yes, you did the right tactic, at the right time, but it failed because your disengage was too big/slow/etc."

Good point, and one I should have mentioned.

[noodle]

relevant video, imo, with respect to concepts of learning/teaching:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/t..._anything.html

edit: worth noting that there is a dirty word in there, don't watch it with your speakers up at work

[telkanuru]

One of these days I will get a direct link to the wiki page on the Fallacy of Bifurcation stickied at the top of each forum.

[Eejit]

It's pretty much impossible for a coach to truly teach tactics in a lesson. The best you can do is discuss them and practice carrying out a tactic (which is a chain of actions) and then encourage your fencers to use them during bouts. Actions that affect tempo can be taught in lesson with discussion on when and how to use them during a bout. But the heart of the matter is that students cannot learn to fence without actually fencing, much as in any other sport, or as how a university student must practice problems on a topic instead of learning exclusively through lecture, etc. The best a coach can do is teach new actions, refine known ones, and talk with the student about actions during the lesson and inbetween fencing -- the rest is up to the student.

To bring this back to the discussion, "intuitive" coaching isn't really coaching. I don't think it even exists. A good coach will teach his or her student actions and tactics and then practice them over and over again. Beyond that all they can do "intuitively" is try to talk the fencer through making mental connections, but actually making those connections is up to the fencer.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

When you teach someone to fence, there are a lot of things going on.

Where are the feet? Knees bent enough? Is the butt sticking out or tucked in? Is the core actually helping the other muscles out? Assuming the butt is in the right place, the fencer's back is probably upright, but not necessarily. Shoulders relaxed? No, actually relaxed? Okay, they physically can't relax. Is the hand even close to where it's supposed to be? Then you go back and forth between the hand and the elbow, trying to approximate where each is supposed to be for a bit.

Can the fencer keep that position for a minute? And this person hasn't started moving, never mind completing a blade action.

It's necessary to move on before everything is fixed, or people would never move on.

Many things are made more understandable by the next thing. "Why do I put my hand here" isn't obvious until you both try to hit and try to parry. And so on.

[darius]

It's pretty much impossible for a coach to truly teach tactics in a lesson. The best you can do is discuss them and practice carrying out a tactic (which is a chain of actions) and then encourage your fencers to use them during bouts.

Really, I thought it was quite possible; I guess it depends on what you're definition of 'tactics' is. If a tactic is the choice, or selection of techniques to apply to a given situation, doesn't that make it easy to teach tactics?

First, create a situation: student attacks straight.
Then, respond like a fencer would: coach makes a parry-riposte.

Allow the student to solve the problem on their own. This could involve a change of action (make a feint-disengage), a continuation of the original action (allow the parry and make a counter-riposte), a change of distance (start the attack from a closer distance to arrive before the parry), or a change of tempo (accelerate more strongly to arrive before the parry).

Regarding technique, I never want the "perfect" to be the enemy of the "good enough". Why not give the students as much context as they can handle?

darius

[antoinette]

Thanks for the interesting posts everyone - they've been most helpful, and it's nice to know that the "Suzuki" method has a lot of method in its - seemingly at the moment - "madness!" Private lessons probably will give me more of a technical grounding that I feel I need, but I do find it fun to try out the moves in actual 5-touch bouts at the end of class. I think that during the last class I started to see, in a faint glimmer of recognition, how a few of the more complex things I've been learning might actually be used in a bout. At first, it seemed like we learned rather pretty bladework that looked nice in slow motion but was wholly useless (!) against a real opponent. Was blind, but now I see ... sort of. At least I saw it once!

[Allen Evans]

I'm a little confused about these two statements in the same post:

It's pretty much impossible for a coach to truly teach tactics in a lesson.

A good coach will teach his or her student actions and tactics and then practice them over and over again.

So, what's the coach really doing here?

Beyond this, I'm with Darius. I suppose whether a coach can teach tactics or not depends on your definition of "tactics". I like to think that my lessons in foil (esp) are often lessons in tactics with some technical refinement thrown in when needed. Often I will give the student a starting action, defeat it (or show a new side of the problem) and force the student to come up with a new solution. That may not be the definition of "teaching tactics", and of course, some students learn "tactics" much better than others.

AE