Elements of Fencing

[Johann Dieter]

Defining fencing elements
The success or potential for achievement, of a fencer can be separated into four (4) distinct elements and grouped into two (2) categories.

I. Tangible Elements

a) Physical Attributes - Somatotype, muscle composition, strength, flexibility, explosiveness, recovery time, reflex speed.
Note: although reflex speed is primarily a function of intelligence, it belongs in this category due to its ability to be objectively measured and quantified.

b) Technical internalization - The ability to physically realize the specific movements necessary for executing both offensive and defensive fencing actions instinctively, with little or no mental construct before execution.

II. Intangible Elements

a) Creativity - The ability to recognize aspects of a specific fencing environment, and prepare an appropriate strategy. Creativity also consists of not just the "what", but the "when" of action (tempo). Creativity is the "knowing how to win" element in fencing.

b) Psychological Stability - Essentially this is the ability to focus and maintain mental confidence during a bout. This includes the ability to block out distractions surrounding the encounter like fear of losing, looking stupid, who is watching, dislike of ones opponent, money, job, school, family, etc.

An effective training program must include specific attention to each of these elements, in order to consistently produce successful students. A successful student is one who is able to combine these elements to the best of their ability, and develop a better understanding of them through practice.

Tangible Elements

Both Physical Specialists and Fencing Instructors have said much about Physical development programs. Depending on the specific needs of the students a program can be developed using this information. The most important factors though are constancy within the training program and the ability for individual students to measure their own personal development. Quantification is a powerful motivator and should not be over looked by Coaches attempting to bring the best out of their students. "Did we work harder than last time? Can you do more of X? Are you less tired now, than last time?" An affirmative answer in to any of these type of questions, provides a platform of accomplishment and confidence that the student can build on, and in the end they will use as justification to stay involved.

Technical Internalization is probably the most difficult task facing any coach or student. Fortunately, there are a finite number of movements in any fencer’s repertoire that can be explained with relative ease. The difficulty lies in developing a student’s physical awareness and muscle memory capacities that enable the fencer to execute actions properly with as little intellectual preparation as possible. Traditionally the repetition required for this type of development was performed almost entirely in the confines of extensive individual lessons with an instructor. Modern experience and science has shown that there are many other possibilities for developing Technical Internalization. Although the individual lesson is still an integral part of that development, the lessons have become substantially shorter with frequency oscillating depending on variables like work-loading, training focus, and competition scheduling.

Technical Internalization also needs to address the problem of "body-learning." It is an interesting phenomenon that a student can often feel that they are doing an action properly, when in actuality they are doing something quite different. Mirrors are useful in addressing this problem, as they allow for self-correction, and expose the student to less out-side criticism.

Intangible Elements

Unfortunately, many coaches focus exclusively on the development of the Tangible Elements, and ignore the Intangible Elements. For many years it was assumed that the Creative and Psychological Elements would develop themselves. Often this is true over the course of many years of training, but this narrow approach allows many students to fall between the cracks during their development process. Even a natural ability in the Intangible aspects, can be honed or at least brought to the forefront of a students awareness.

Because of the inherent difficulty of achieving Fencing's Technical Internalization, it may require several years of training before a student is capable of even beginning the process of developing their Creative Elements with any kind of helpful feedback from their fencing specific performances. Luckily, there are many activities that require a much simpler skill set that a Coach can use to help develop a student’s Creative/Strategic thinking.
These include a variety of games both fencing specific (footwork drills, controlled bouting and lessons involving decision making opportunities), and non-specific (other sports, puzzles, board games, etc). A Coach interested in well-rounded development should incorporate these activities into every practice, and encourage student participation in creative and competitive activities outside of training.

The most important Psychological Element is confidence. Confidence takes years to build and can be destroyed in an instant. A coach’s most important task is maintaining a general program that a student can take pride in being a participant.

Having confidence in a training program enables a student to progress their development without doubt. This is one of the reasons that coaches working together should not debate, or correct each other, in front of students. This is also the reason that coaches working together should have assigned tasks and that divisions of expertise be observed at all times with students. This means working only with your designated students and trusting other coaching staff.

One coach should never "hover" over another coach’s lesson. This distracts the student and will cause performance anxiety. Individual lessons should be considered constructive confidence building opportunities between an instructor and a pupil with a desire to learn. Individual lessons are not performance opportunities for the coach or the student.

Never forget that the Psychological Element is the co-efficient that effects all other elements. There are many sources of professional information on this subject. Don’t be afraid to use them.

Enjoy your sport

[wflaschka]

What... no replies yet? I love this post, though it's a little out of the blue. What prompted it? Who is being taught?

Please consider writing a simple, user-friendly version for WhatIsFencing.com.

[2Sirius]

What a wonderful rundown of requisite skills for fencing! Almost makes the sport sound scientific. More power to organized coaching with defined goals.

At the risk of sounding pedantic - if not anally retentive - reflex speed has nothing to do with intelligence...at least not by my definition of the two terms. If intelligence is involved, then you are thinking, and then it is no longer a reflex but strategy. Reflex speed is the time it takes a stimulus to produce a response that requires no thought. For example - parrying in the correct line when attacked, or jumping back out of the way to make an attack fall short. If you have to think, you are taking too long! You have to think when you are learning a response pattern, but constant repetition should lessen the response time by incorporating less and less higher brain function in the response. Drills produce response patterns that require no thought, and they therefore increase reflex speed. There is an upper limit which is different for everybody and has to do with the time it takes nerve impulses to travel along the pathways you develop - but now I really am getting pedantic!

[Peach]

To be even more pedantic--

reflex speed cannot be increased. Reflexes are automatic, unconscious pathways which are hardwired and pre-existing, such as the patellar reflex or the Moro reflex in babies. What you are talking about (parries, etc.) are reactions, not reflexes.

[JEC]

Well, I will push it one bit more
Believe it or not, this is one of the few areas where there is research data to answer the question. Two articles from the land of LOR:

Williams LR. Walmsley A.
School of Physical Education, University of Otago, Dunedin, NZ.

"Response timing and muscular coordination in fencing: a comparison of elite and novice fencers."
Journal of Science & Medicine in Sport. 3(4):460-75, 2000 Dec.
Abstract (Edited by JEC)
Reaction time (RT), movement time (MT), total response time (RMT) and accuracy of elite and novice fencers was studied under three levels of target choice (single-, two- and four-targets) with three variations of movement distance (short, medium and long lunge). In addition, electromyographic activity (EMG) of selected upper and lower limb muscles was used to compare the two groups. The elite subjects were faster for RT and RMT and displayed a higher level of accuracy. The hypothesis that increasing choice would cause increases in RT was not upheld. Except for some differentiation between the short and the two longer distances, the effects of movement distance were not marked. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of EMG revealed the high consistency of response patterns within subjects and highlighted the synergistic roles of selected muscles in distinguishing between elite and novice fencers. These findings confirm that differences in the technical skill of fencers can be distinguished in the laboratory through a combination of response timing measures in association with measures of muscle action. They also draw attention to practical implications for individual skill assessment and training. Analysis of pre-movement muscle activity provided moderate support for the hypothesis that it was part of a single control process and indicates that a dual process can involve both the maintenance of postural stability and the generation of movement.

"Response amendment in fencing: differences between elite and novice subjects."
Perceptual & Motor Skills. 91(1):131-42, 2000 Aug.
Abstract (Edited by JEC)
Reaction time (RT), movement time (MT), total response time (RMT), and accuracy of 3 elite and 3 novice fencers were studied under a dual response paradigm requiring a full lunge. Electromyographic activity (EMG) from selected arm and leg muscles was used to compare response profiles of the two groups. Although the elite subjects had slower MTs, their faster RTs resulted in significantly shorter total response times. The EMG analysis showed that in comparison to the novice subjects, onset of muscle activity was significantly faster for the elite group in five of the six muscles studied. In addition, the elite subjects showed more coherent muscle synergies and more consistent patterns of muscle coordination.

The essence of their findings is that elite fencers are quicker overall because of two reasons:
1) elite fencers "recognize" the target earlier,
2) the muscles are activated in a synergistic ensemble that leads to a "faster" and possibly stronger movement. In fact, there was no significant difference in the actual "movement time", suggesting that the gains in fencing are not due to composition or strength of muscle fibers, but to the cognitive process.

[JEC]

We have discussed some aspects in an archived thread:

Technical Perfection

[2Sirius]

For those of you uninterested in neurology and/or neurophysiology READ NO FURTHER. You have been warned.

Peach -

Of course we know that Dieter (and I) were speaking of reaction time, not reflex time. In layman's terminology, the two are synonymous, even though in medical terminology they are quite different.
Even so, you are incorrect in assuming that reflex times cannot be improved. The reflexes you are talking about are pure spinal reflexes that involve an afferent nerve dendrite, a neuronal cell body in the dorsal root ganglion of the associated spinal segment, a synapse in the dorsal horn of the aforementioned spinal segment between the afferent nerve axon and an interneuron, up to three synapses between interneurons in the median body of the segment, and a final synapse between the last interneuron and the dendrite of the efferent motor nerve in the ventral horn of the same spinal segment. This culminates in a signal travelling down the efferent motor nerve axon to the neuromuscular junction of the effector muscle spindle controlled by that nerve. More complex reflexes spread to other spinal segments through interneurons, thereby recruiting different muscle groups.
It is true that the maximum speed of this reflex is dependent on "hardwired" factors such as neuron length, nerve conduction velocity, synaptic cleft distances, neurotransmitter vessicle concentration at the pre-synaptic membrane of the axon, number of synapses between the involved neurons, neurotransmitter diffusion rates, and the depolarization threshhold level of the post-synaptic membrane. Of these factors, the major bottleneck in speed is at the synapse between neurons.
However, the nervous system is so amazingly plastic that several of these hardwired factors can be changed through repetitive use. Specifically, repetitive use of a neuron pathway will increase the number of synaptic connections between the nerves, cause neurotransmitter vessicles to migrate closer to the presynaptic membrane, and increase the number of vessicles present at that membrane. All of these will have the effect of decreasing the time necessary for the impulse to travel across the synapse, causing a greatly increased speed of response. The more synapses involved in the pathway, the greater improvement can be effected in the overall response time of the reflex pathway through practice.
Additionally, in all live, conscious nervous systems (and let's face it, a live, conscious opponent is SO much more challenging), each step of the reflex pathway is connected to the higher centers by inhibitory and excitatory neurons. These regulate the depolarization threshhold of the neurons involved. Inhibitory impulses raise the threshhold of both the involved pathway and the excitatory neurons, making it harder to initiate firing of the neuron. The opposite for the excitatory neurons. These "plus" and "minus" pathways can be "practiced" into making the reflex pathway more or less sensitive to stimuli. Repetition, therefore, can cause the reflex pathway to require minimal stimulus to fire.
The same effect is seen when you are nervous. The epinephrine and norepinephrine released from your adrenals greatly lowers the depolarization threshhold of pretty much all your neurons. Hence you get "jumpy"; reacting vigorously to the slightest of stimuli. Certain illegal chemical substances can cause the same effect in a more targeted fashion - hence their universal banning at most sporting events.
Of course, there is a practical limit. If not, you could practice yourself into seizures. Also, all of these changes require chronic repetition to maintain, and will deteriorate fairly rapidly through disuse.
But the point is that you are not born with your reflexes as fast as they will ever be. Bottom line...keep practicing. The more you do it, the faster you get. Also, use it or lose it.

[JEC]

Originally posted by 2Sirius
It is true that the maximum speed of this reflex is dependent on "hardwired" factors such as neuron length, nerve conduction velocity, synaptic cleft distances, neurotransmitter vessicle concentration at the pre-synaptic membrane of the axon, number of synapses between the involved neurons, neurotransmitter diffusion rates, and the depolarization threshhold level of the post-synaptic membrane. Of these factors, the major bottleneck in speed is at the synapse between neurons.

In terms of time, the bottleneck is axonal conduction time.

However, the nervous system is so amazingly plastic that several of these hardwired factors can be changed through repetitive use. Specifically, repetitive use of a neuron pathway will increase the number of synaptic connections between the nerves, cause neurotransmitter vessicles to migrate closer to the presynaptic membrane, and increase the number of vessicles present at that membrane. All of these will have the effect of decreasing the time necessary for the impulse to travel across the synapse, causing a greatly increased speed of response. The more synapses involved in the pathway, the greater improvement can be effected in the overall response time of the reflex pathway through practice.

This is also not entirely correct. For example LTP, which is a presumed learning paradigm involves higher amplitude of the population spike, which is a sum of EPSPs. The effect on speeding the process is relatively negligible as compared to facilitation of the minimum amount of input to elicit it, or the size of the response.

Repetition, therefore, can cause the reflex pathway to require minimal stimulus to fire.

Complex pattern motor learning involves the synergistic activation of muscle ensembles to perform an action. The complex pattern movements of tennis, judo, fencing and playing piano have some similarities but considerable differences. The plasticity underlying the learning of this complex motor learning is not primarily stored at the NM junction or spinal cord, but in associative motor cortices, basal ganglia and cerebellum. Some of the plasticity processes that you initially mentioned might underlie some of those effects.

The same effect is seen when yoou are nervous. The epinephrine and norepinephrine released from your adrenals greatly lowers the depolarization threshhold of pretty much all your neurons. Hence you get "jumpy"; reacting vigorously to the slightest of stimuli. Certain illegal chemical substances can cause the same effect in a more targeted fashion - hence their universal banning at most sporting events.

The effect of NE and E is quite complicated. In fact, in hippocampal principal neurons NE can be both depolarizing in some types and hyperpolarizing in other. The systemic effect of epinephrine is likely to be mediated by an increased level of alertness in from the reticular activating system, but too much will be associated with an anxious state.

Of course, there is a practical limit. If not, you could practice yourself into seizures.

Urban legend... Obviously, stimulants can provoke seizures, but repeated practice do not. More likely, overstimulation with stimulants worsens the normal intention tremor that all of us have.

Also, all of these changes require chronic repetition to maintain, and will deteriorate fairly rapidly through disuse.

Again, not entirely true.

But the point is that you are not born with your reflexes as fast as they will ever be.

This is correct, but not due to the reasons that you proposed but rather by the process of myelination, which speeds the conduction time by making it saltatory conduction.

Bottom line...keep practicing. The more you do it, the faster you get. Also, use it or lose it.

Correct, but that is because your recognize the target earlier and you activate the appropriate pattern of synergistic muscles while relaxing antagonistc ones. Use it or lose some of it!

[2Sirius]

JEC -

Can I have my post back now? I promise to dispose of it in a safe and environmentally friendly way. Just goes to show that a little knowledge....

[nahouw]

Originally posted by JEC

Complex pattern motor learning involves the synergistic activation of muscle ensembles to perform an action. The complex pattern movements of tennis, judo, fencing and playing piano have some similarities but considerable differences. The plasticity underlying the learning of this complex motor learning is not primarily stored at the NM junction or spinal cord, but in associative motor cortices, basal ganglia and cerebellum. Some of the plasticity processes that you initially mentioned might underlie some of those effects.

What I think that 2Siruius was saying when he said that by repetition, you CAN cause reflex pathway to require minimal stimulus to fire, is in effect that through a fencing lesson that introduces uncertainty, and hence, the possibilty for awareness of potential actions, that you can instill in the student the awareness of the potentialities, and hence then indoctrinate them into an automatic patterned reaction.

Sometimes in my lesson, while working on something, my coach will add a surprise action afterwards to make sure I am paying attention to parry it; by being surprised sometimes (i.e. caught off-guard), I have learned the reflex to be aware that even if we are working on something that he said, that may not be the end of it. So, now I go through a quick pattern of all the potentialities (sabre), even if he wasn't intending to add something afterwards to see if I was paying attention -- through this stimulus, in which he was bringing to my attention that I was not paying attention, I have learned that even when he says we are working on something, I have heightened senses that he might throw a monkey wrench afterwards (conditioned response based on by prior bad behavoir). When I do this alot in a lesson, he tells me to relax, because he sees by my inculcated response that I am in fact paying high attention.

[JEC]

Originally posted by nahouw
... by being surprised sometimes (i.e. caught off-guard), I have learned the reflex to be aware that even if we are working on something that he said ... I have heightened senses that he might throw a monkey wrench afterwards (conditioned response based on by prior bad behavoir). When I do this alot in a lesson, he tells me to relax, because he sees by my inculcated response that I am in fact paying high attention.

I agree nahouw. It is the ability to recognize a specific threat for which, your brain has learned to respond in a patterned fashion. Elite fencers have a bigger repertoire of both response patterns and recognition threats. Technical perfection as you restated in the other thread is having such as big repertoire that one becomes unpredictable to the less skilled fencer.