Hitting the arm in epee

[Fencergrl]

If I could give fencing lessons online, I'd have a lot more money than I have now.

Yes without a thick Russian or Polish accent, it just won't work.

[Scotsfencer]

As badpenny said over reaching to hit the arm will in many cases loose you the hit you were attenpting to score. Also on that vein trying to 'swipe' an arm hit can have the same effect at worst; Ensure when going for your arm hit that you arn't taking your hand across your body towards the target your trying to hit (except opposition hits but thats another barrel of fish entrely) but are instead angling your weapon to the target while keeping your guarde covering your sixte side.

Again onto actually landing the hit ensure that when you thrust your hand moves directly forwards not sweeping across your body to point towards your opponants hand as the small distance your hand moved across is translated to a massive move at the weapons tip thus tahdah making you miss.

An execllent way to practice this is to make a padded sleeve for an arm chair roughly armesque looking and practice making the thrust to a small target, step, lunge etc. Nice and padded so you wont brake anything (posting just incase your younger dont want your folks coming home to find the arm of dads good armchair with a nice epee sized hole in it :P ).

[egroeg]

Ohh ok. So guys, would it be safe to say that you will need to apply more power for angulated shots to advanced target areas, as compared to straight thrusts? Because your only going to make contact with the edge of your point right?

Oh and thanks for the tips on its application too! Really finding them useful guys

[Scotsfencer]

Ohh ok. So guys, would it be safe to say that you will need to apply more power for angulated shots to advanced target areas, as compared to straight thrusts? Because your only going to make contact with the edge of your point right?

Oh and thanks for the tips on its application too! Really finding them useful guys

I wouldn't say you need to add more power to your hit for anglauted attacks, the power will come from the speed you place these hits once you have perfected the technique, the actuall hit itsself just needs to be enough to depress the 750g tip which should be uniform accross the tips surface, if its not its time to swap your tip out for a new one / clean the barrel etc.

One has to be very careful in assigning 'Power' to a hit in fencing as once you activly start trying to push the hit on you can find yourself swinging your hand across your own body to the target as I mentioned in my previous post, that can - at best - make you miss. You'll find that as you get more practiced at wrist/arm hits you will find yourself in the position of being able to place your tip in the right spot at the right time and have your opponant walk onto it. tahdah Stop-Hit

[Allen Evans]

egroeg, I think you are working with some fundamentally flawed concepts on how hits in epee are actually scored. They certainly don't involve any application of "power".

A

[tchwojko]

Your feet should get the point where it needs to go way more than your arm, and that's also not about power, but getting to the right place at the right time.

[crquack]

Let's just say neither an extension nor line of sight to target is required.

Use The Force?

[wdragon007]

Ohh ok. So guys, would it be safe to say that you will need to apply more power for angulated shots to advanced target areas, as compared to straight thrusts? Because your only going to make contact with the edge of your point right

You don't need power. Roughly 750 grams of pressure. That's all you need to depress the tip. You don't need to slam your point into their arm to get the point and there are times that I've landed (and been landed on) with a touch so soft they didn't realize they were even hit and kept going.

Like someone else (Fencergrl maybe?), I tend to be much better at counterattacks to the arm (they extend, I retreat slightly and go for that nice open target) than straight attacks. Much of my approach relies on the forward momentum of an opponent to really drive my tip in.

The only time I tend to really throw every attack at the arm is when their reach is noticably longer than mine or when someone is pommeling -- even then, I tend to flick rather than use a straight thrust. Or feint a flick to get someone to go for the underside of my hand during the wind-up and when they reach for it, a closeout to the chest comes into play.

[aln1337]

it all comes down to practice put in the hours into refining your tip control, footwork, and sense of distance/tempo and you can hit the arm anytime you want.