Translating lessons to bouts

[Inquartata]

Fiat, the premise that doing good drills properly will improve results also rests on nothing more than correlation, as far as I have ever been able to discover...

That is, I am unaware of any rigorous studies demonstrating a causal link, strong, weak or in between.

If this is the case, your position rests not so much on a fallacy in Eac's position as in your belief that it somehow proves his position false and the opposite one correct...

[DavidX]

When you post like that inq - I get all hot and bothered.

(Say "correlation" again..)

[Jason]

It is, of course, well known that there is a correlation between practice and perfect (or, to be more specific, practice and permanence), but to suggest that practice makes perfect... well, that would require far more study.

[Fiat Slug]

Fiat, the premise that doing good drills properly will improve results also rests on nothing more than correlation, as far as I have ever been able to discover...

That is, I am unaware of any rigorous studies demonstrating a causal link, strong, weak or in between.

If this is the case, your position rests not so much on a fallacy in Eac's position as in your belief that it somehow proves his position false and the opposite one correct...

I will grant you that I have no "proof" that doing drills improve results. However, eac's position is counterintuitive so that's why I invited him to offer more data to convince us. One club is only a single data point and it is not statistically significant. When one presents an argument contrary to the traditional wisdom, one must provide either a persuasive argument or convincing data to support it.

.

[eac]

My point isn't exactly that there's a correlation between our particular success and not doing drills. My point is instead that because there's us, who don't do drills, and other good people, who do do drills, and other bad people who don't, and other bad people who do, there's not a strong correlation in either direction. Drills are clearly not a necessary condition for goodness in foil, by any means.

And so, I guess my point is, if the top three Junior pointsholders are not doing drills, are you sure you want to be doing drills yourself? And are you sure that they're having a really fantastic effect on your fencing?

For data, I'm not sure what form of data you'd like. I'm a big fan of data, as you may know. The above seems like some reasonably interesting data, but beyond that I'm not sure where to go. And Inq isn't completely wrong, like he normally is, when he talks about burden of proof. I agree that my position is certainly the heretical one, and so the burden is on me to some degree to provide good arguments. However, in terms of data, you know that you can't produce any data to back up any of your claims, and I have a totally symmetrical problem.

About bad people doing bad drills or bad fencing and good people doing good drills or good fencing: The point would be that at any level, if you put yourself in a situation with a dummy, and the dummy isn't enough of a coach to see how to help you get better, you're probably not going to get better. I agree that if you can't take enough lessons, you might be able to remind yourself how to do a few things by programming a dummy really thoroughly, but as long as the dummy doesn't have a coach's deep understanding, you're going to be in some sense rudderless.

And, the rudderlessness in drills can't be fixed by coach supervision, because for the coach to really fix it, he would basically have to step in and be the dummy and start giving a lesson, because the problems are all very technical problems about how your motions are shaped and how they mesh with your footwork in complicated ways, and you can't fix those kinds of problems by just a cursory don't do it that way. Those kinds of problems are things that you're going to keep doing wrong in a drill over and over and over again, because in a drill, where the person is letting you hit them, they aren't going to kill you. The only way to fix them is to have a lesson where the coach doesn't let you hit every time you have that problem, and he forces you to do it right.

Now, you might say, if you suck, you're also going to be rudderless in a bout. That's true. But in a bout, at least, if you're fencing someone vaguely okay, and you have one of these problems, you're going to get hit. And so, especially in the presence of regular lessons, you're probably not going to be reinforcing any really fantastically retarded habits, like you might in a drill. It might be harder to reinforce the good things, too, but if you're trying the good things and the good things are actually good things to do, they're eventually going to pan out in a bout, and they're going to pan out in a much more fluid, dynamic, realistic, effective way.

[catwood1]

Wait, so you guys mean to say that drills* might be good for some things in fencing but not for others? Thats impossible! Everything must be either entirely good, or entirely bad!



*feel free to replace drills with any other word. It still probably applies...

[DavidX]

omg this is SO hawt!

Lets get naked and jason and catwood can pan eac out in a fluid, dynamic way.

[AdamH]

For example: "I will only score using a feint-4, disengage to 6." or "I will retreat with every parry." .

One of these suggestions is better than the other. The application of actions and getting a feel for them is all about distance and timing.

If opponent doesn't parry, how to change from open to closed line?

If opponent searches in 4 early and far, distance is too long to finish in 6 in time.

Still good idea, but as other posters have said, is best to work on footwork, distance and timing. You can do threaten 4, but if opponent does nothing, have strong sense to finish in 4. If opponent searches early, be prepared to change lines or withdraw blade, etc as distance requires. Stepping back on parry will change response at distance, too (obvious but opponent situation change regarding remise/parry/etc).

Get good sense of move with opponent. If opponent just stands there, easy-ish problem. If opponent moves back and parries, harder problem. If opponent comes forward with you, best chance to develop sense of timing for your actions and reading opponent. Enjoy!

[DangerMouse]

eac, you really have a flawed understanding of the concept of "drills". Your entire argument is based on the premise that the two people drilling are not able to help each other. Part of proper drilling involves drilling with someone who CAN help you. For example, doing a drill with one of my primary training partners at a weekend camp a couple months ago (high level camp with the men's epee national team), he was able to point out that I was getting bound up because my mid fleche disengage was slightly too early. I was able to translate that into starting my feet slower to disengage as I accelerated. Would a lesson with a coach do the same thing? Maybe, maybe not, it depends on the coach.

Similarly, when working on a different drill, I was able to point out to my drill partner that the reason he was unable to make his lunge with disengage work is because he never got his arm fully extended on the feint, so I never recognized the feint to parry and he would then disengage into a closed line.

To offset these with another counter to your claim, I have taken lessons from a few well known coaches where I really feel I got less out of the lesson than a static drill with a partner who had no clue what they were doing. At least drilling with a clueless partner requires some problem solving.

[K O'N]

I had a teammate in college who didn't like to do any sort of blade drills involving letting himself get hit. He had heard a coach say to another coach, "Wow, I suck these days. All I do is give lessons, so when I go to fence my hand and my feet think I'm still giving lessons, and I get my butt kicked". So my teammate thought, well, even a little of that would be bad. To drill with someone you have to stand there and let them hit you, or put on a sleeve and let them hit you, or something. He didn't want to train his reactions in the direction of letting himself get hit. I didn't agree with him, but it didn't seem like an unreasonable position to take.

K O'N

[DangerMouse]

Drills can be designed so both people get something out of them and nobody is simply letting themselves be hit. One example they do a lot at NWFC (for epee) is:

One person makes a short attack to the hand trying to draw out their opponent, get away, and parry-riposte

The other person is trying to hit on either straight fleche or fleche with disengage

[catwood1]

I had a teammate in college who didn't like to do any sort of blade drills involving letting himself get hit. He had heard a coach say to another coach, "Wow, I suck these days. All I do is give lessons, so when I go to fence my hand and my feet think I'm still giving lessons, and I get my butt kicked". So my teammate thought, well, even a little of that would be bad. To drill with someone you have to stand there and let them hit you, or put on a sleeve and let them hit you, or something. He didn't want to train his reactions in the direction of letting himself get hit. I didn't agree with him, but it didn't seem like an unreasonable position to take.

K O'N

There's more to drills than the ones where you're letting yourself get hit. Its really not very hard to set up conflicting objective drills. Probably the most commonly used one is "distance game aka step lunge game" Partners take turns making advance lunge and retreats until one of them hits. This really doesn't train you to get hit. In fact, it rather does the opposite..

[darius]

I think eac is right in some ways, less so in others. A drill is like any other method; it can have positive or negative transfer to fencing performance. The causality thing can be played over and over, but ultimately, why discard any method that might prove interesting?

Some examples: at NWFC, we do something called "The Drill," because the idea is so fundamental that it should be given a definitive name. In this case, both fencers have full freedom of movement, but may only hit with a lunge (no continuous advance-lunge). For foilists, this ends up being very difficult, because they tend to want to advance-lunge all the time -- again, that's probably right given the distance at which foilists tend to attack from, but we want foilists to be in control of what their body does! In this case, we're working on several major things: 1) understanding the distance where they can hit with a lunge. 2) getting to that distance or recognizing it before their opponent, without relying on distance collapse as a crutch. 3) creating tactical situations where they draw the opponent out, make them fall short, and then hit immediately on a lunge. 4) developing the body control to not just automatically do specific actions.

Let's look at another one we do fairly often: "Feint-Deceive Drill". Fencers X and Y start in X's lunge distance. Fencer X attempts to hit with either a straight attack or a feint-deceive around Y's known parry. Y does NOT want to be hit straight, but if he does not believe X's feint, he may choose to keep the original line closed. If Y misses the parry, they should attempt to make a second parry. X should try to make counter-riposte and infight as necessary. This teaches X to make a realistic-looking feint. Y is getting to overtrain their hand, as well as learning to tell the difference between a straight attack and a feint attack. Both get a chance to infight should the situation come to that. Again, all attributes we want fencers to have.

The nice thing here is that we're focusing on the attributes we want to develop in a balanced competitive setting. Now, granted we could have them work on those attributes in standard bouts, but this makes it clear -- if everybody in the room is doing "The Drill", you know that advance-lunge is not-kosher, so it helps you keep people on task.

I think part of the problem is that designing a drill is fairly hard. A lesson is easier, because a coach has full control, whereas drills need to account for all the fencers in the room. So what does the coach do? They cater to the least-common denominator, by making a boring static bladework drill.

It seems reasonable, at least to my brain, that by considering the nature of the game, you can create drills that heavily stress the right attributes. Then you have to stress-test them; "The Drill" tends not to break easily, but "Feint-Deceive" does...if I make an extremely bad feint, the defender won't respond, and I can hit them straight! Then again, it's good for a young fencer to go through that thought process...we can then say, "None of that!" or try to challenge the defender to defend that 2nd option as well!

I guess my point is, if the top three Junior pointsholders are not doing drills, are you sure you want to be doing drills yourself? And are you sure that they're having a really fantastic effect on your fencing?

What works for one club may not work for another. However, I believe that one of the best ways a fencer in a smaller club might (help) neutralize the advantage of the larger, more dominant clubs is to focus hard on what they can control - footwork and SPARQ stuff clearly fall under that umbrella, but why not technique, timing, and distance too?

darius

[whtouche]

Some examples: at NWFC, we do something called "The Drill," because the idea is so fundamental that it should be given a definitive name. In this case, both fencers have full freedom of movement, but may only hit with a lunge (no continuous advance-lunge).

In sabre we would call this the "how to fall short drill"

[K O'N]

I had a teammate in college who didn't like to do any sort of blade drills involving letting himself get hit.

There's more to drills than the ones where you're letting yourself get hit.

I'm not sure why this is a reply to me; did I imply that was the only sort of drill in existence?

K O'N

[catwood1]

I wasn't responding to you, so much as I was to his line of reasoning, considering how many others follow the same logic. No offense to you meant*

[Verbify]

Just to clarify a few things, my lessons have been progressive in that we started out in the beginning with basic bladework but have, over time, added elements of footwork, tempo, varying distance, etc. I do have confidence in my coach and his wisdom in what things he chooses for me to work on in my lessons. He's an accomplished and respected coach and fencer. As for the class drills, I have to say they are always presented with a strategic background and in that context, they are far more helpful than rote drill. It's one thing I particularly enjoy about this second coach is his strategic focus on actions he teaches.

That said, many of you have given me some great things to think about and try to apply myself to. The biggest one seems to be to purposefully practice these skills in my open bouts at the club. It also sounds like I need to learn a little ptience with myself -- this isn't anything unusual so buck-up and keep at it.

[the ancient one]

Here's the thing about drills and being a beginner,
even if you learn to execute an action with good form and so forth...

The element missing in the typical beginners drill is the need to confuse your opponent about intentions. Each fencer agrees to play a role and work on the mechanics.

The end result is the inevitable beginner problem of "telegraphing*" the pending action during an actual bout. The experienced opponent can see exactly what is developing and will be ready.

Simple drills don't teach that part-you have to develop it some other way.


* telegraphing = an archaic term related to communicating over wires. Perhaps we should call it "texting" or "tweeting".

[Insipiens]

...
It seems reasonable, at least to my brain, that by considering the nature of the game, you can create drills that heavily stress the right attributes. Then you have to stress-test them; "The Drill" tends not to break easily, but "Feint-Deceive" does...if I make an extremely bad feint, the defender won't respond, and I can hit them straight! Then again, it's good for a young fencer to go through that thought process...we can then say, "None of that!" or try to challenge the defender to defend that 2nd option as well!

....

darius

I extracted just this bit not because I didn't think the rest is worth thinking about / doing. You say that the "feint-deceive" falls over because of the piece highlighted by me - i.e. I can do a bad feint and then just lunge direct. But the way you first described I took it as a deliberate part of the drill: surely if I can hit my opponent with a direct lunge (i.e. without him being able to parry) then a crappy feint that I know he is going to disdain and ignore is a good set-up for a direct lunge. If I could get my opponent to think "oh that feint is so rubbish I will just wait for what happens next" and then hit him/her I would be quite pleased.
I guess it doesn't necessarily help my actual feint which may be your point.

[Insipiens]

Just to clarify a few things, my lessons have been progressive in that we started out in the beginning with basic bladework but have, over time, added elements of footwork, tempo, varying distance, etc. I do have confidence in my coach and his wisdom in what things he chooses for me to work on in my lessons. He's an accomplished and respected coach and fencer. As for the class drills, I have to say they are always presented with a strategic background and in that context, they are far more helpful than rote drill. It's one thing I particularly enjoy about this second coach is his strategic focus on actions he teaches.

That said, many of you have given me some great things to think about and try to apply myself to. The biggest one seems to be to purposefully practice these skills in my open bouts at the club. It also sounds like I need to learn a little ptience with myself -- this isn't anything unusual so buck-up and keep at it.

Back on topic. It looks like you are taking some good bits of the advice out of this (somewhat drifting thread). I have been fencing for a long time (especially given my years ) and it is rare that I feel in a bout that I have actually done something just the way my coach gets me to. I can still remember a particular touch from two and a half years ago that felt just like it would in a lesson - both my remembering it and the feeling were probably partly due to the high quality of my opponent: when you are fencing other relative beginners one of the hard things to get over in bringing in what you do in lessons is that your opponent doesn't move or react anything like your coach (or possibly anything like other more experienced fencers or beginners).

One important thing to remember in bringing what you do from lessons into bouts is that often slower and more controlled starts to actions result in more successful actions.

I hoe you are enjoying it while you exercise the patience.