Foil still a standard?

[darius]

This is where independent thought helps. You know your audience better than we do.

At our NWFC beginner camp, we took a bunch of 6-14 year olds, warmed them up, taught them footwork, did some footwork games, taught them the safety rules, and then cut them loose with instructions as to the target area, what you do when you get hit (acknowledge the hit).

Then we had them "bout" against several opponents, and debriefed afterwards. By doing that, they "discovered" the idea of parry-riposte and feint-disengage. Again, this is within 2 hours of ever walking into the gym.

If you make drills and footwork seem like boring things that people are forced to do, they won't want to do them.

darius

[Superscribe]

http://www.schermaonline.com/scherma...ticle&sid=2454

"I started with foil and fenced also epee and saber. I like saber but not as much as foil which for me represents the Cliff's Notes of fencing. If you are a good foilist you can fence well epee and saber. Foil is a weapon which encompasses all technical characteristics a fencer must know and master."

So, maybe she's been brainwashed/indoctrinated.

[Jason]

If you make drills and footwork seem like boring things that people are forced to do, they won't want to do them.

This is one of the most important pedagogical concepts in the world.

[MdA]

This is one of the most important pedagogical concepts in the world.

What do you mean? Are you saying they must be "boring"....or not?

[thekoby]

If you make drills and footwork seem like boring things that people are forced to do, they won't want to do them.

darius

What type of footwork games did you do? The only game I have in my book is the classic glove game that everybody plays. I'm looking for new stuff that will hold people's attention.

This is one of the most important pedagogical concepts in the world.

Now how do I get this concept to work? I agree that drills should be more enjoyable than someone standing in the front of the room yelling out directions and correcting people as they go, but how can I do this while still making it enjoyable? I've toyed with the idea of letting students lead drills while I participate, and at the end of each set of drills we do races where the winner of the race (with proper footwork) will get to lead the next set of drills.

[Allen Evans]

"Simon Says" footwork drills.

Footwork drills in which each step has a name (color, animal, plant..what ever) and the students must make a footwork action when the name is called.

"Red Light/Green Light" footwork drills.

Footwork drills in which the students must listen or look for cues (for instance, lunging whenever the coach names a number....or a word that SOUNDS like a number, such as "two" and "too")

Paired footwork drills with built in tactical exercises (keeping control of the initiave in the footwork, always staying slightly out of lunge distance no matter what the leader is doing...)

That sort of thing....

[Jason]

What do you mean? Are you saying they must be "boring"....or not?

Maybe I'm too routinely sarcastic.
Boring = bad. People learn better when they're enjoying themselves.

Now how do I get this concept to work? I agree that drills should be more enjoyable than someone standing in the front of the room yelling out directions and correcting people as they go, but how can I do this while still making it enjoyable? I've toyed with the idea of letting students lead drills while I participate, and at the end of each set of drills we do races where the winner of the race (with proper footwork) will get to lead the next set of drills.

The first thing you need to think about is what you want to teach or develop or perfect, etc.

For example, in your footwork race idea above, what are the students working on? I can't see much positive in that exercise since it encourages poor footwork--both in the sense of mechanics and application (when do we ever race down the strip as fast as we can? While there are certainly moments of maximum speed, it should not be a constant state).

You must think "What skill do I want to teach or perfect?" or "What ability do I want to develop?" and then invent fun exercises that accomplish those goals. The mistake a lot of coaches (or aspiring coaches) make is to just think, "What exercise should I do?" rather than first considering the goals.

Additionally, those goals should be fairly specific. Saying, "I want to work on footwork," or even "I want to work on lunges," is far too broad to be useful. What elements of footwork do you want to work on? Mechanics, power, change of rhythm, acceleration, application in specific situations, etc., are all different aspects of footwork that need to be developed and may require completely different exercises.

I wrote a blog entry about some of this last year. I also posted a YouTube video with an example of a couple of fun exercises that help develop lunge power (along with improving coordination, developing boldness, etc.). I'll note that they are exercises for students who already have solid lunge mechanics.

Making training fun requires an understanding of the sport and some creativity.

[thekoby]

Thanks to both Allen and Jason for the input. After reading Allen's post I remembered doing something where colors were a certain movement (Blue=advance, Green=retreat, Yellow=lunge - for example) and I would stand at the front of the class and tell a story like "I was walking along under the clear blue sky and noticed how green the grass was and how yellow the sun looked." Made the students pay more attention to what was going on.

Good advice from Jason on my thinking. You hit the nail right on the head. I'm more concerned with what drill I want to do next rather than what I should have them focusing on (i.e. double advance or step-lunge on a particular day where lessons would focus on the application of said footwork).

[Allen Evans]

Another drill:

Give each footwork piece a number (advance=1, retreat=2, lunge=3, etc) and start calling out numbers. Then start calling out concations of the numbers:

"1....2....3....2....11....21..."

Works for slightly older students (though I've never tried it with anyone younger than 12, so I might be wrong here).

Again, as Jason says. You want to engage the student on more than one level. You want to make the drill fun. Depending on your goal, you might want to make the drill competitive (make a mistake and you're "out").

[Jason]

Footwork drills in which each step has a name (color, animal, plant..what ever) and the students must make a footwork action when the name is called.

"Red Light/Green Light" footwork drills.

Footwork drills in which the students must listen or look for cues (for instance, lunging whenever the coach names a number....or a word that SOUNDS like a number, such as "two" and "too")

Another drill:

Give each footwork piece a number (advance=1, retreat=2, lunge=3, etc) and start calling out numbers. Then start calling out concations of the numbers:

"1....2....3....2....11....21..."

Works for slightly older students (though I've never tried it with anyone younger than 12, so I might be wrong here).

The problem with these sorts of exercises is that, while they may be more entertaining than a coach simply saying, "advance, retreat, lunge," they suffer from the same drawback: they aren't very beneficial for fencing.

Regardless if I say, "green" or "monkey" or "two" or "too" or "lunge," I'm still training my fencers to execute the movement on a verbal stimulus. If I want to help my students improve their reaction times, I need to give them realistic stimuli to react to.

I suppose one could argue that the last exercise might be somewhat useful for very young students (6 or 7 years old), as they often benefit from any exercise that helps them improve their concentration. Generally, though, any exercise that involves executing fencing movements in response to a stimulus ought to use the visual or tactile stimuli the fencers would encounter in a bout.

[Allen Evans]

Jason, good points but....

...they may be more entertaining than a coach simply saying, "advance, retreat, lunge,"

I wouldn't underestimate the utility of that. I wouldn't consider a drill like the ones I described the "end all of footwork" but it's a better idea than "advance, retreat, advance, lunge".

Be helpful, give us some suggestions that are more effective.

[Jason]

Be helpful, give us some suggestions that are more effective.

I really don't think that I can give suggestions that are more helpful than my earlier reply to thekoby, but I'm happy to give it a shot.

Of course, my question has to be: "more effective" at what? To say, "Give me an example of a good footwork exercise," is extremely broad and exemplifies the same mistake I mentioned above: looking for an exercise without thinking about the goal.

What are you trying to teach, perfect, or develop with the "red, blue, mouse, too" exercises?

[Allen Evans]

Hmmm...how about a drill that engages the reactive time of the student to a visual signal to lunge. Something more creative than simply holding your hand up to cue the lunge?

Audio cues aren't the best drills for fencing, agreed. But it lets students have some fun with footwork, and because of that, students might be less prone to shy away from doing it. If nothing else, they are a step away from the mechanical "advance, retreat, advance, lunge" which most students avoid like the plauge.

One of the problems with being an American coach, especially if you haven't had the benefit of a wide background of fencing, is the enourmous lack of information available to a coach in simple training pedagogy. Coaches do things (like playing soccor as a warm up game for example) or invent drills without really knowing if it's helping their fencers or not, because most of us have never had the background in pedagogy, motor learning, or any of the other fields that would help us evaluate games and drills for their effectiveness.

And some of us are guilty of doing drills because someone else has done them with us, or another coach uses them at their club. Footwork races, for instance, which sound as though they are helpful, but destroy footwork technique in a race to cover an arbitrary amount of ground as fast as you can.

True, a little imagination goes a long ways. But without knowing what sort of criteria to filter these ideas through, the results of imagination are often a lot less effective then they could be.

Mind you, I'm not asking for anyone (esp. you) to disgorge two or three years of accumulated knowlege and training in order to be able to evaluate a drill or game. It would take too long, and there's no reason to give it out for free. But an occasional example of "what's right" is always helpful.

[tbryan]

What are you trying to teach, perfect, or develop with the "red, blue, mouse, too" exercises?

I thought that this type of footwork exercise was an attempt to push less experienced fencers to do footwork without thinking about the footwork itself. That is, beginners often have to focus on the movement itself to correctly execute the action. Later, they can do footwork reasonably well if they're just doing footwork by themselves, but their footwork falls apart when they have to concentrate on something else, especially an opponent who is trying to hit them. This game forces them to split their attention between their footwork and something else. They still have to execute the footwork immediately and correctly, but they have to focus some attention on something else. Eventually, they find that they can pay attention to that "something else", and the footwork just feels like it's automatic.

If the coach has a relaxed and amusing way of leading this kind of drill, it's a way for one coach to get 20 - 30 students to have fun doing footwork while he spends some time looking around to see how everyone's footwork is progressing.

For more advanced fencers who have done the drill before, it's a quick and fun group warm up that gets everyone moving around and gets their brains engaged in the class without risking injury.

[Allen Evans]

Oh, and a ps...Jason your criteria for judging drills is an example of the sort of processing steps that a lot of us haven't been introduced to, and yes, was a good answer to the question.

[Adler]

Hmmm...how about a drill that engages the reactive time of the student to a visual signal to lunge. Something more creative than simply holding your hand up to cue the lunge?

The easiest way to acheive this is:

Coach: On guard and either steps forward with a bent arm or steps forward with a straight arm.

Pupils: Either attacks with a Lunge on the coach's forward step with a bent arm or steps backward when the coach steps forward with a straight arm.

The advantage of this is that not only does it help improve reaction to a visual stimulus but the pupils also learn when to execute a lunge in a bout. It aslo works on improving differential reaction.

[Inquartata]

T
If you make drills and footwork seem like boring things that people are forced to do, they won't want to do them.

That's like saying "If you make bees sound like insects". There are no bees which are NOT insects. And no drills which are not boring.

And even if you designed a drill led by a nude Megan Fox I STILL would not "want to do them".

[Bryn Ralph]

Allen, I believe that you have touched upon the raw regarding the instruction of fencing when you referred "...background in pedagogy, motor learning, and any of the other fields..." And I, for one, must agree that this is the sticky wicket.

Perhaps those instructors who desire to improve their instructional abilities should take notice of your observation.

[thekoby]

Coach: On guard and either steps forward with a bent arm or steps forward with a straight arm.

Pupils: Either attacks with a Lunge on the coach's forward step with a bent arm or steps backward when the coach steps forward with a straight arm.

I can see how this may work with a handful of students, but what about a class of 15-25? Obviously it is understood that the fencers executing this exercise have had a few weeks of practice, but what about those just starting? That is what I'm most interested in. My club will be having it's enrollment week next month where we will be trying to recruit new members from the college where we are based and a lot of newer members get burnt out because of the footwork drills we do each night.

[Adler]

I can see how this may work with a handful of students, but what about a class of 15-25? Obviously it is understood that the fencers executing this exercise have had a few weeks of practice, but what about those just starting? That is what I'm most interested in. My club will be having it's enrollment week next month where we will be trying to recruit new members from the college where we are based and a lot of newer members get burnt out because of the footwork drills we do each night.

Class size shouldn't be a problem. For large groups I would use a double line formation with left handers to my right hand side so that everyone can see.
As an exercise it can be introduced relatively early, once the fencers know how to execute the lunge.

A fun competitive exercise to reduce presignals whilst executing a lunge, increase speed of reaction and concentration.

In groups of 3

A) On guard with a tennis ball balanced on their open palm
B) On guard close distance opposite A with their sword hand raised about 20-30cm above the ball.
C) On guard to one side of A and B so the tennis ball is roughly in line with their sword hand. C should be at a distance where they can't quite reach the ball with an extended arm.
C) At any time excutes an explosive lunge and tries to grab the tennis ball.
B) Tries to spot the start of the lunge at grab the ball before C can reach it.

N.B when C lunges to grab the tenis ball it should be a smooth movement starting with the hand and should carry the ball through to the completion of the lunge.