Types of Preparation

[AaronK]

epeeslasher,

...got me thinking about just how important preparation is.

I agree. IMHO, preparation is perhaps the most undervalued and overlooked area to develop in a fencer. darius gave a list of categories that preparations will fall under (which is modified or based on Czjaikowski's definitions of preparations)- you can either read his book chapter/article on preparations to compare lists. I use a similar definition and categories for preparations, and only mention this so I can answer your initial question:

Can anyone share some very simple types of preparation they teach their students' and responses off of it?

I took this to mean that either the fencer is making some sort of "preparation" to develop an open-eyes action, or that the fencer is making some sort of preparation and the defender (coach) is making some sort of response. I don't think about preparations this way- not that you couldn't.
Often when I am teaching preparation, I am working from the premise that a fencer's choice of action (tactics) can always succeed provided they support it with the right preparations. Therefore, the preparatory movements are selected based on the choice of action, and should avoid or undermine the opponent's abilities to respond or react.

For example, one of my students is working on developing his direct-attack (in saber) to the mask. There are several different ways that I could have my student prepare, or develop this attack but one specific example is:
1. My student begins forward motion by a series of small, slow advances, initiating some form of offense. I move to maintain distance, and frustrate his development by periodic false attacks on his preparation. The size and speed of the steps are important for my student to asses the distance to the target, control the rate of collapse, and to assess his opponent's rhythm.
2. On his own initiative my student executes a jump forward, moving his blade briefly from 5 to 3. The jump is an attempt to gain a half-tempo (catch his opponent on the back foot), and disrupt balance. The purpose of the blade-movement is to demonstrate the possibility of a counter-time or second intention parry against my attack in preparation, it has a secondary effect of making a defensive blade-take difficult should his opponent read the jump early and attempt beat the blade.
3. From the jump, my student must continue moving forward with a series of rapid advances- most likely larger steps- and collapse the distance to attack. If the jump was executed at the right time, his opponent will have difficulty regaining balance if they wish to maintain safe distance.
4. One step out of attacking distance my student will execute another change of position to 5, to prevent or hinder an attack in preparation (to the mask, the most likely target for attack in preparation). The cut will be executed from this position (technically an indirect attack because we had not stayed in the normal guard position, 3. The action could be executed from 3- but is more susceptible to attack in preparation, pris-de-fer, etc.).
5. The attack is executed (jump-lunge and cut to the head).

If the opponent was using a different method of hindering offense- attempts at pris-de-fer or point-in-line- the preparation may be different, or may contain additional movements. Likewise, my student may have to execute a change of decision if I regain balance in the middle of their preparation, find the blade as they start to develop the action, or manage to parry their attack and riposte. Those contingencies are considered as the student is able to execute the complete action.

You are probably imagining that my student is covering a lot of real-estate when executing this action, and in fact they are. We are likely only able to execute 1-3 actions along the length of the strip. Also, I am acting as an opponent would (with restrictions on the type of action I choose to execute), at up to full speed.

In my experience, preparations are often taught as only one or two tempo movements that precede an action- while the reality on the strip is that preparations of actions (other than actions where both fencers intend to collapse the distance, "simultaneous type" actions) frequently extend well beyond three or four tempos- without loosing context in the phrase d'armes.

[darius]

Aaron jogged my brain into two points that I'd like to add:
- Preparation precedes an action. Preparation can also precede preparation as well.
- Most people work from the context of : preparation-action-resolution, with one preparation leading to multiple actions. This is good for training against opponents' likely responses to a preparation. Thinking in terms of multiple preparations leading to one action trains different ways to make a single action succeed. I'd consider both useful.

darius

[AaronK]

I should clarify "from 5 to 3"...
I meant from the guard position to 5th position and back.
Aaron

[David S. Lewis]

Thanks Darius, this is exactly the kind of framework/examples I was looking for. No theory can truly be understood without use of examples.

The meaning of preparations above looks like it was taken mainly from the theory,methods and exercises book. I'm gonna go reread that portion and come up with some ideas.

One other really famous coach who isn't well known to the English speaking world was Arkadev, (his work remains in Cyrillic, luckily I've got students who could read part of it for me) some of his ideas were used in Wojiechowski's book as mentioned in the reference section.

Not understanding the theory behind an instruction makes the instruction arbitrary; a teacher or coach should always know "why" they are teaching as they are. I also find ridiculous the notion that a degage has been made somehow obsolete by a beat-riposte; engaging in 6 and drawing the beat is the point of a degage, no? It is not such an effective engagement if the fencer simply goes through the motion, right?

[RITFencing]

I assume that by "degage" you mean "disengage?"

[AaronK]

I would assume that was what he means: sans diacritics, dégagé.