Sabre drills

[Allen Evans]

Wait. Why are you teaching someone something you don't know anything about?

[Alexander Kai]

Wait. Why are you teaching someone something you don't know anything about?

Because its a subset of something I know a lot about, and I figure even if I can't teach them everything specific to it, I can still teach them the fundamentals that transfer over from any of the three weapons to each other.

And I do know SOME things, just now a whole lot. I'm sorry if my post didn't make that clear.

[stjm326]

One drill I always found useful in sabre, and any other blade, is a distance type drill. If Fencer A is attacking, they can only take one advance and one lunge before they attack. Fencer B is allowed retreat as much as they'd like, of parry if they so choose. After Fencer A has completed his one advance, lunge, and attack, Fencer B takes over attacking, and is only allowed the one advance, one lunge, and attack. This works very well on distance, because the defending fencer still has to make his attack and it wouldn't be very wise for him to move to far out of range.

Also I find that doing breathing exercises while doing foot work helps very much. It keeps the fencers mind clear and keeps them more focused. And occasionally when my fencers got a little upset on the strip, they said the thing that kept them calm was just remembering to breath while fencing.

One other thing I toyed with, is blindfolding fencers. Foil and epee are always considered to be "thinking blades." Well, if a sabre doesn't think, that must mean we works by reactions and feelings. If you take a fencers eyes out of the equation, they don't try to process what is going on in front of them. The only drills I did with this were standing still parry repose drills, which after a matter of minutes my sabres were noticeably faster.

[prototoast]

One other thing I toyed with, is blindfolding fencers. Foil and epee are always considered to be "thinking blades." Well, if a sabre doesn't think, that must mean we works by reactions and feelings. If you take a fencers eyes out of the equation, they don't try to process what is going on in front of them. The only drills I did with this were standing still parry repose drills, which after a matter of minutes my sabres were noticeably faster.

I can't possibly imagine how blindfolding fencers would make them better. This isn't some Skywalker ****, this is the real world. There is no "force"--I have no idea how you even made a blindfolded drill seem feasible, but I assume any "improvements" you noticed were no different than you would have witnessed had you performed the identical drill without blindfolds.

[Allen Evans]

I took a number of "blindfolded" lessons from Maitre John Turner and Leon Auriol quite a few years ago. The lessons started from engagement and were fairly technical parry and riposte drills. For instance, I would engage the coach's blade in an extended fifth and then parry tierce when I felt the coach's blade leave mine. If I didn't find the blade immediately in tierce, I would parry quarte and riposte when I found the blade. I did something similar in the other three lines.

I also did a very short sequence of compound attack drills with Nazlymov with my eyes closed (more as a learning tool than a real exercise, I might have done only five or six actions that way in the lesson).

I think these drills, used correctly, have a certain amount of utility.

A

[epeeslasher]

Blind-folding a student makes them more sensitive to the timing of an action. They learn rhythm faster that way.

[darius]

Can you cite sources for that, please?

I'm a fan of eyes-closed work as a way of showing athletes that they don't need visual perception of certain things; doing footwork or bladework actions to make sure they have the skill well-developed, and developing some proprioceptive capabilities, after all it's easy to be aware of balance or lack thereof without the visual information to help compensate. But what exactly about removing visual information makes you more rhythm-sensitive?

darius

[oso97]

Can you cite sources for that, please?

I'm a fan of eyes-closed work as a way of showing athletes that they don't need visual perception of certain things; doing footwork or bladework actions to make sure they have the skill well-developed, and developing some proprioceptive capabilities, after all it's easy to be aware of balance or lack thereof without the visual information to help compensate. But what exactly about removing visual information makes you more rhythm-sensitive?

darius

I'd imagine that it could be possible to achieve that result with some students. I also use closed-eye work for similar reasons as you, Darius, but, I'm guessing that you, like me, occationally notice that some students get different things out of it. For example, I have a closed eye drill that I do with beginners that involves taps to forte, middle, and foible (the goal being to introduce to them the concept of feeling different types of pressure on the blade with the fingers). I've noticed though that there are some ones though, who try to process the information auditorially, and listen for the different sounds. (Note: these students tend to be very strong audial-type learners).

Do you ever notice students using different types of compensation for removing visual input?

[darius]

I'd imagine that it could be possible to achieve that result with some students.

Not the same thing, which is why I challenged the statement.

I also use closed-eye work for similar reasons as you, Darius, but, I'm guessing that you, like me, occationally notice that some students get different things out of it. For example, I have a closed eye drill that I do with beginners that involves taps to forte, middle, and foible (the goal being to introduce to them the concept of feeling different types of pressure on the blade with the fingers). I've noticed though that there are some ones though, who try to process the information auditorially, and listen for the different sounds. (Note: these students tend to be very strong audial-type learners).

Even for not-particularly-audial learners, we've got to get a qualitative analysis of the sounds of fencing: is your beat correctly bouncing off the blade, or are there two blade contacts or a sliding sound? Did your disengage get around perfectly, or did it ping off my bell guard? This is less of an issue in foil/epee than in sabre, where a different sound can actually trigger the referee to make a different call.

Do you ever notice students using different types of compensation for removing visual input?

Not really, but the times where I remove visual input, I'm looking for a very specific result. It's always the execution of a discrete motor skill. The cues are generally tactile, auditory, or student-initiated. There's not really much wiggle room in there to use different types of compensation.

If your goal is to develop tactile sense, you need to create a drill where they can't cheat by using a different sense. If your goal is to have the fencer know where you hit their blade, it doesn't matter what pathway they use.

darius

[big daddy]

Iv'e been doing a lot of thinking in that direction as well. It's ok to teach a person to fence but one needs a direction in which to go. By this I mean a logical progression of actions to teach.

[Fedor]

One of my favorites is a distance keeping drill.

Each fencer is only allowed to do 2 steps + lunge to hit. Each stop in forward motion is considered attack no. When on the defensive, a fencer can take as many steps as he wishes to avoid the attack.

Example:

Fencers at En Guarde lines.
Fencer A does one small step forward and stops.
Fencer B misjudges the distance and attempts to hit with 2 step + lunge.
Fencer A sees the attack coming, avoids easily.
Fencer B is too close after having missed.
Fencer A riposte with a direct hit, lunge, step lunge or 2 step lunge depending on distance.

The idea is to entice the other fencer into giving you enough distance to hit, without them seeing it in time and being able to avoid.

The variable is step size. In order to win at this game I began riposting my attacks with monstrous steps so I was able to quickly cover half the piste with 2 step + lunge. If started outside of counterattack distance, this attack is generally a great attack or a surprise riposte when you change rhythm. Of course it's hard to start outside the distance with an opponent who constantly threatens on the defensive.

[Birdman1011395]

I'm a Sabreur with about a year of experience and have been kind of teaching Saber for about three months. The club does footwork drills as a big, singular group, so I only really have experience with bladework drills. This might only really be applicable for new-to-weapon/fencing Sabreurs, but it's all I really know.

First up, for warm-ups we've always started with what was an unnamed drill I learned from one of the few Sabre coaches in Pittsburgh that I call "the 3-4-5". It's a simple two person drill with a leader and follower. The basic rundown is that the leader starts with an attack into 3, the follower parries and ripostes to 3. The leader parries, ripostes to 4, the follower parries, ripostes to 4. The leader parries, ripostes to 5, the follower parries, ripostes to 5. And finally the leader parries and ripostes back to 3 to start this all over again.

A variation involves an attacker-defender pair. The attacker advances with a head cut. The defender retreats parries 5 and alternating ripostes to flank and belly. The attacker parries and ripostes with a head cut. When a wall is reached, they switch and go the other way.

There are stop-hit drills where the goal is to land both the stop-hit and the ripostes without getting hit yourself. A beat-attack in any line, respond with parry-ripostes drill. Building sequences for a singular attack into 4- or 5- part parry-ripostes-parry sets.

EDIT: For sightless drills, responding to simple beat attacks from point-in-line can be completely done by feel. For that matter responding to beat attacks in general can be trained sightless as well.