Newbie training program(Question about multiple weapon training)

[Domo230]

Hi everyone
Im a 20 year old in college in Ireland and took up fencing about 6 months ago and absolutely fell in love with it.

I seem to have a bit of a knack for and want to develop a training plan for a beginners competition that is just under a year away(for foilists who have been fencing less than 2 years). The plan is to train in college once a week, go to 2 other clubs that also run once a week, join the local gym, compete in as many competitions as I can and possibly get some private coaching if I have the spare cash.

I am currently doing foil and I am a tall lad and many people have recommended epee to me. Epee is a lot of fun but it's not quick enough for me. The thing is there is an epee club near me and I am wondering if it would benefit or hinder my foil training if I supplemented it by going to the epee club as a form of extra training. It would certainly help me improve things such as footwork but I imagine it would affect my bladework in foil.

In Ireland most people traing about once a week, twice tops. I plan to train as much as I can and do what it takes to win. The good thing about people not training much here is that even a beginner like me has a chance of doing okay in competitions. My first attempt at the beginner competition was a month ago and I came in the top 16 out of about 60 competitors (very rare for a first year fencer to get that far).

I could really use everyone advice on training, anything
you think I have forgotten about and advice on training I can do at home.

Thanks in advance
Stephen

[Wizardly]

Ignore the "you're tall, you should do epee" baloney. They've been saying that for decades. First, it's not like it isn't equally advantageous in saber and foil. Second, in epee, at some point being tall is less of an advantage as being good.

If you want to fence foil very well, epee tactics will hinder your results. It's not the mechanical part of your game that will suffer, i.e. different muscles aren't used between the two. The difference is more mental - the actions you choose to execute and to some degree, how you choose to execute them will be different in epee. If you practice epee then you will be more likely to reflexively use or rely on tactics and execution that are successful in epee which are typically not that successful in foil. You will also become used to reacting to threats that are not threats in foil, e.g. counter-attacks to the hand.

Training advice: strength training helps. Don't neglect your core (that big huge area between your arms and legs that often gets ignored). Make sure you give your muscles time to recover in between workouts, e.g. don't do legs every single day (like fencing every single day).

[Domo230]

Thanks for the response

Considering the difficulty in getting large amounts of time on the piste over here. I wonder if the benefits gained due to increased footwork, point control, distance and timing would offset any defecits the once a week training in epee would cause to my tactics. Surely the foil tactics would still be dominant?

[D'Art]

Debatable, especially if you're a beginner. Even at a decent level, it'll still have some adverse effects, more so without a good grounding and level of experience. The footwork, point control, timing and distance are all very different for epee than foil. Hell, even the parries are different, even for the same moves, never mind anything else. Wizardly is on the ball with his reply, even if he's not 100% there.

Stick with foil just now if you want to get results quicker, but by all means add in the epee night if you just wanna have more fencing. In the mean time, I'll point you back to the Uk forum, which will give you less replies, but is more likely to give you useful advice for what's going on in Ireland