Fencing, or playing tennis

[TodG]

I just received my Leon Paul Graphite French grip epee because I wanted to try something lighter and I've been experimenting with posting. Wow, it's huge. As in tennis racquet sized huge. But after trying it for an hour, I notice less hand fatigue than with a conventional French with pommel.

Anyone else using the LP French? How far back can you hold and still take parries?

[K O'N]

I just received my Leon Paul Graphite French grip epee because I wanted to try something lighter and I've been experimenting with posting. Wow, it's huge. As in tennis racquet sized huge. But after trying it for an hour, I notice less hand fatigue than with a conventional French with pommel.

Anyone else using the LP French? How far back can you hold and still take parries?

I found it made my hand and forearm more tired than a traditional french, not less, after a long day of fencing. Not sure why. Maybe the larger size, maybe the lack of weight moving the center of mass of the epee away from my hand.

Parries were fine, I didn't notice any difference between it and a normal french.

It's very light, but it didn't suit me.

Are any top level epee fencers using it? I would think someone would, it makes a very light epee. Surely there's someone whose game it would suit.

K O'N

[TwoPassions]

I LOVE the LP carbon fibre grip! I only fence with extended French and started having hand/wrist pain and developed trigger finger. I tried my coaches LP grip and thought I would give it a try. Huge difference! I was seeing a hand therapist at the time and she too saw improvement. My trigger finger went away within a couple weeks and my pain is minimal. Yes, the grip is expensive, but I decided the cost of converting all my weapons to LP's was worth it. And I pommel all the way to the end, that is, the end of the grip sits a little on the inside of my hand. Parries, beats, binds, etc. aren't a huge part of my extended French game, but I'm still able to do them when necessary. But it takes a while to build up the hand strength if you're not used to pommeling that much.

[glowstix]

Are any top level epee fencers using it? I would think someone would, it makes a very light epee. Surely there's someone whose game it would suit.

haven't seen any top level epeeists use it. i tried it for a while and it does have a different feel compared to a regular french grip. although i had more power, my disengages which are horrible to begin with, got worse (part of that might be that i have really small hands though). i switched back to the traditional french when in the mood to pommel.

[epeelion]

Rick Watrall is the only high-level epeeist I've sen using it.

[TodG]

I've been using the grip all this week and am not experiencing the hand pain I had with a smaller French. The design did give me an idea on how to build a French that can use a stub tang and be quite a bit smaller in diameter and probably cheaper. I'm going to try making up some prototypes for testing.

[K O'N]

I've been using the grip all this week and am not experiencing the hand pain I had with a smaller French. The design did give me an idea on how to build a French that can use a stub tang and be quite a bit smaller in diameter and probably cheaper. I'm going to try making up some prototypes for testing.

That's interesting. So, I guess you think it's the lighter weight and the more-forward balance that helps you, rather than the size of the grip?

Have you thought about removing the pommel nut from a traditional french grip and replacing it with a pistol grip nut? Wrap the end of the thing in tape or something, fence with it for a day and see how it feels. If you like it you can make a light pommel nut by sinking a wingnut in epoxy in an oversized hole in a pommel-shaped bit of wood.

This will get you 90% of the way to what a narrow gauge tennis racket grip would; it will move the balance forward and lighten the weapon. Most of the difference in balance between the traditional french and the LP tennis racket is due to the lack of a heavy pommel nut on the tennis racket.

K O'N