Fencing secondary weapon?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

If you are fencing someone who is not using his primary weapon, do you try to use his reflexes/habits from his primary weapon to his detriment?

I tried this, and it worked. I usually fence epee against a lefty who is the same height as me (174 cm), and we both know that usually the one of us that adopts the most defensive strategy has the best chance in our bouts. We are both naturally defensive epeeists, (I more so than him) and have talked about this a bit. In our new and small club, I am the only one who does toe hits with any regularity, and has a good chance of pulling them off. My opponents in the club bouts know this, and adjust their game accordingly.

Well, a few times we have fenced sabre (no maestro - just looked at tapes, read in the books, and tried to figure out for oneself - weak ersatz for the reak thing) I have several times caught myself thinking: Peter - what the h*ll are you doing? attack! When two defensive fencers pick up sabres, it can look strange.

Anyway, one time when fencing sabre, I got a nutty idea: I did a committed hit to the front toe attack, which drew a low parry (epee prime, IIRC) from him. This opened up his entire forearm, which I easily cut from below. It felt good to mess up his brain to such an extent!

Anyone tried something similar in this or other primary/secondary weapon combinations?

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Peach]

When fencing sabre with epee fencers, I made most of my attacks to the hand because although their guard position was excellent protection against point attacks, they were not in the habit of protecting against cuts and complacently kept their guards static.

[Jeric]

When I fenced in Germany, I experimented with an Epee against a guy called Christoph, who is an Epee. I noticed that he would do this funny thing with his epee, and because I was impressed with the move I copied it. I know use it when I fence in foil.

This other person in Nottingham was fencing against me. It was a foil match and this person was originally and Epeeist, he would copy my flicks and ripostes and such. I beat the poor sod though. He fences Foil now.

[oiuyt]

Of course. Fencing a ROW person in epee you can frequently blatently draw attacks to pick off. Alternatively, especially against a foilist in epee, you can play all kinds of 2nd intention, short attack, remise games counting on them to release the parry when riposting.

When fencing ROW vs an epeeist abuse them on the conventions. Build long slow attacks, accept the stophit and finish.

When fencing a sabre fencer in foil utilize the vast differences in how time is called and what a break in an attack is. Do the little hitches that signal prep in sabre but don't matter at all in foil.

Fencing is fencing, but there are some differences. Know what they are so you'l know what weaknesses to expect from people fencing out of their weapon. Obviously they can all be overcome and they merely act as a starting point for your planning and scouting, but sterotypical trends are widely held beliefs for a reason.

-B :)

Oh, and when fencing a foilist in ANY weapon, set up a mirror beside the strip. Hit him while he gazes adoringly at that handsome figure and stops to adjust that last strand of hair that has drifted out of place. :)

[WJM]

I was fencing a recent 5-time romanian foil champ who is still near the top of his game (some of you will know whom I'm speaking of)....at epee...in a small local tournament, and my 4th touch was a feint at a flick to the top of the hand, finish with a flick to the outside, all this with big movements and marching forward.

[Inquartata]

You want to see odd, watch two left-handed epeeists fence sabre. Something like 80% of the touches are to the arm, and about half of those stops...brrr!

[oiuyt]

My sophmore year (my second year of fencing) I (normally VERY exclusively epee at the time) was in a 3W tournament. My first ever sabre bout was against another epeeist. Final score 5-4 me on 9 single light touches to the wrist. Neither of us had the least clue how the use the things.

-B :)

[D'Artagnan1673]

I got the oppertunity to fence a sabreur from UT who lives in my area last Tuesday.

We didn't keep score in sabre but I'd say I took 60-70% of all the touches. He kept on saying, "You are so an epeeist" because I'd just sit there and wait for him to attack. To the best of my knowledge, sabre is a weapon for aggressive people. My opponent couldn't un rattle himself on the fact that I refused to attack. I'd just rock back and forth in place and be ready to retreat, then parry riposte to the mask. The few times I did get aggressive I was able to get a quick shot to the torso or head as he wasn't ready to defend. To be honest, I think the next time we fence sabre he'll remember how I fence and won't get so shaken by my stlye.

I think its fun to fence secondary weapons just to get an insight on the different styles and mindsets one must be prepared for in the conventional weapons. My sabreur friend beat me 7-10 in foil. His parrys were too reactionary so my striaght attack/disengage did the trick. I am amazed that after all my epee fencing that I can perform a full lunge!

The last time we fenced Epee, August, he was still exclusively foil. I used distance and made shots to the extremely exposed hand. He tended to expose himself as he made his attacks. I love fencing foilists in epee!!! They are so fun.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Maybe I should have qualified my question to something like: How many of you have intentionally done something that is harebrained in the weapon that you are fencing, the only reason being that you hope to draw a bad response from your opponent because of his ingrained behaviours/reflexes from his primary weapon? (wow, what a mouth-filler!)

Anyway, another funny situation in a sabre bout (if that is the word) between me and my clubmate.

First of all he has a pretty homemade lunge that he sometimes uses - it is so, how shall I put this, unorthodox, so that it often catches me totally off guard. (Usually, he uses a perfectly normal lunge, though) He does like this:
1. Starts like usual lunge, lifting up his front (left) foot and pushing off with his back (right) leg
2. He pushes so hard that both feet leave the floor, becoming airborne.
3. After becoming airborne, he re-bends his back knee, so that the lower leg is paralell to the floor.
4. He lands on his back knee, or on the back lower leg, and slides about 40-50 cm forward before landing on the front foot to a sudden stop.
5. He then overextends his front knee in front of his front toes, while at the same time leaning forward so that his chest hits his front knee.

While this sounds like atrocious form (and belive me, it sure looks strange) he does it surprisingly fast, and gets a huge reach. The total impossibility of a backwards recovery is often offset by the fact that the opponent is flabbergasted by the looks of the move, and stands still like a statue.

Well, after this beginning, off to the description of the phrase.

We epeeists were "fencing" sabre, and I saw him coming forward. I did an inquartata (what was I thinking???) getting myself well out of way - or so I thought - to my right (I am a righty) while poking out my sabre in hopes to catch something - anything - with it. He did his homemade lunge, while at the same time - now get this - taking his blade from usual sabre position to a sabre octave parry position. (left hand close and to the left of his left ear, knuckles facing outwards, tip of blade close to his left hip.) This position opens up lots of target, but since I was so caught up in my stuff (i.e. not knowing what to do with the strange weapon) I did not react to that. The upside of this position is that it enabled him to do a massive swing cut, so that the cutting movement comes mostly from the elbow and the shoulder, while the sabre is held stiffly in the weapon hand. For some reason, this particular guy does swing cuts just as fast as usual wrist cuts. Don´t know why, and I have tried to figure it out. Well, he advanced forwards a lot, and I moved forwards also in my inquartata since I had not anticipated this from him. So we ended up closer than expected. I managed to snag his *right* cuff so that my blade visibly bent. He, OTOH, halfway missed his intended swing cut to my back, and instead landed the cut with the forte of the blade near horizontally across my rump, with a part of the blade probably on where the lame would have been, had I wore one. The cut landed with his elbow not fully extended, but the adrenalin in him took care of that.

I immediately collapsed on the floor, with three different conflicting emotions: It hurt like hell, I laughed my head off at the comedy of the situation and my own idiocy, and I got angry at my self for letting myself getting caught by such a thing.

He apologized profusely, but I could only laugh at the whole thing. We are of equal tallness, and I outweigh him by at least 20 pounds. When he fences against other fencers, he uses normal cuff-ticklers - he only uses swing cuts against me, with which I have no problems.

Sabre refs out there: How would you call this crazy thing? Since my left foot went infront of my right foot immediately after the inquartata - but the left knee stayed behind the right knee - could I be considered doing a illegal crossing?

Have a nice time, and happy holidays!

Peter Gustafsson

[Inquartata]

It depends---was there any blade contact between your point counterattack and his hit? ( Sounds like he went for a beat in prime in the middle there, but if he didn't make it and you didn't break the line it's your touch; if he did, it's his. OTOH did he hit valid target---your derriere is NOT! : )---and if so, before or after the, er, butt-whipping...

His novel lunge sounds fairly painful to me, BTW. Maybe that's my aging knees talking, though. I sure wouldn't want to try landing on mine!