The Appel

[Mistaratsnatch]

I just learned to appel a couple days ago...but not really learned it. What is the correct way to do it? And when would you use it in a bout?
-thanx

[edew]

The appel helps you slow down: you can start fast, which causes your opponent to react. Then you touch your foot down to slow down just a bit to get around your opponent's defenses, and then you speed back up to complete the lunge to hit.

Step forward with your front foot, touch the ground lightly, and then launch your lunge.

[wflaschka]

I've had the chance to see many new fencers doing the appel -- they're standing in the on guard position, completely still, and then they stomp their front foot, and then they're standing completely still again. This sort of appel doesn't do anything constructive, it's a holdover from doing footwork in lines, and when they were learning the names for the moves.

Eventually appels become fast, tappy things. Fleeting, made with sound or without, they're used (1) to break up a predictable foot rhythm with extra beats, or (2) imply an advance/retreat that changes distance, where no such thing actually happened. Because of this their use falls under the heading of tempo; they're used as syncopation to confuse the opponent.

If an opponent is making a long attack, you could appel (with noise), and then double-retreat. This can bring the opponent up short, and stifle their attack. You might have to do this a few times against a long attack (aka, a marching attack).

You can charge down an opponent, and do an appel lunge just as they are making their parry. Your lunge will hit after they miss their parry, because they might've timed out their parry to block a simple lunge. (This would be a form of hesitation attack.)

Also -- you can make a very loud appel when putting out a Point in Line. This line probably won't hit, because the opponent will perceive the threat immediately and stop whatever they're doing. Point in Line, rattle-snake style. It's more useful for stopping an opponent with a clear and present threat, rather than scoring with.

Making the appel -- as its usage implies, it has to be something you can do quickly, without throwing your guard or balance out of whack. Ideally, when making the appel your thigh doesn't rise. Your front knee straightens slightly, and the foot is raised. Then you snap the foot back to the floor. Noise is often important (and, if you're on a raised strip, you can get a nice thunderous boom), so also practice slapping the ball of the foot on the ground when the foot lands. It's easier to get the slap with fencing shoes, as normal tennis shoes have thick, comfy treads that mute any noise you can make with them.

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by wflaschka
I've had the chance to see many new fencers doing the appel -- they're standing in the on guard position, completely still, and then they stomp their front foot, and then they're standing completely still again. This sort of appel doesn't do anything constructive, it's a holdover from doing footwork in lines, and when they were learning the names for the moves.

It does accomplish one thing: for fencers of the attack-immediately-as-fast-as-possible variety ( especially in sabre ), it's a way to force themselves to slow down a bit---give themselves time to fence, instead of merely flinging themselves headlong at the opponent as soon as the referee says "Fe----"....

[pkt]

Mistaratsnatch

Both edew and wflaschka are quite rightly, in your case, talking about FOIL appels.

An appel is in English literally a call, a call to attention. By exceuting the appel you divert your opponent's attention to your appel hopefully this would distract him from whateer he's doing.

A SABRE appel is different from a FOIL appel as described by both edew and wflaschka; but the functionality is still the same.

In wflaschka's reply this is, I think, the most common useage of an appel:

"If an opponent is making a long attack, you could appel (with noise), and then double-retreat. This can bring the opponent up short, and stifle their attack. You might have to do this a few times against a long attack (aka, a marching attack)."

What the appellent can also do is to,
1. after making the appel,
2. when the opp't hesitates,
3. take over the tempo and
4. attack.

Oh, a sabre appel is done with the whole foot with one's weight on the back foot. A sabre appel is usu. followed by an attack, but not necessary an attack. It could be folowed by a retreat if the attacker did not change his tempo.

OPEN EYE!

Enjoy yourself and PRACTISE, PRACTISE, PRACTISE.

pk

[MikeHarm]

You use it to accent a beat, and to help with the varience between hard and soft movement while working the neurology of your opponent.

[J.Harris]

Is this similar to the ballestra? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[wflaschka]

It begins like a ballestra would, with the front knee straightening and the foot rising.

But the ballestra is a hop. The appel is just a foot-tap.

[pkt]

Originally posted by wflaschka
[b]It begins like a ballestra would, with the front knee straightening and the foot rising.]

I must have been doing my balestras wrongly.
It just ain't so.

Originally posted by wflaschka
But the ballestra is a hop. The appel is just a foot-tap.

That's more like it.

The beginning of the balestra WITHOUT THE HOP is more like the foil appel. Nothing like the sabre appel. a SABRE APPEL IS LIKE A FOOT stomp.

pk

[The0ne]

just use a half step, it looks a lot more real, and it's infifnitely cooler. . . If you see someone appeling around the strip, it looks kinda bad, and after a while you just get used to it and it has no effect. Half-step is deadly, because you can do like a million things off of it. . .

[wflaschka]

Originally posted by pkt
I must have been doing my balestras wrongly.
It just ain't so.

Huh? There ain't no other way to start a ballestra.

[Tireur]

Huh? There ain't no other way to start a ballestra.

A lot of people confuse the ballestra with the jump forward and give a little leap, calling it a ballestra.

It's just a quick, snappy short jump, ending with both feet flat, covering very little distance.

wflaschka is correct.

[pkt]

wflaschka & Tireur,

I am not debating what a balestra is - I learned my balestra from an INS [Frence Institut Nationale des Sports - spelling?] maitres d'armes as well as from a Polish master.
I'm just disagreeing with wflaschka's description of it above.

this is the description from E.D.Morton's "Martini" A~Z of Fencing:

Balestra. A short jump forward, used as a preparation of attack (q.v.). The toes of the front foot are raised, the leading heel is cleared of the ground and the sole meets the floor with a considerable stamp some eighteen inches or two feet further forward. Simultaneously, the rear foot, just clear of the ground, is brought forward a corresponding distance. It is important to keep the legs bent throughout for if the knees should be straightened, it is impossible to follow the balestra with an immediate lunge. Similarly, it is essential that on the completion of the action, the weight should still be distributed equally between both feet; should the centre of gravity have been allowed to come too far forward, with the rear foot already leaving the ground the attack will inevitably lose half its drive and penetration. (See also False Balestra.)

False Balestra. The jump is performed without gaining any ground at all, generally as part of a second intention phrase with the object of drawing a stop-hit or attack on the preparation from one's opponent.


I repeat:
"... the leading heel is cleared of the ground and the sole meets the floor with a considerable stamp..."
and
"It is important to keep the legs bent throughout ..."

vs wflaschka's, "... with the front knee straightening and the foot rising."

Major differneces, I must say.

I think wflaschka's avatar is the beginning of his version of a balestra by his description... to me it's the beginning of a short step... [as he snickers, hee...hee and winks and shuffs his elbow in wflaschka's ribbs with a nudge, nudge.]

PK

[pkt]

Originally posted by Tireur
...

...covering very little distance.

...

The distance is 18-24 inches by E.D. Morton's reckoning. A QUANTUM LEAP!
[However you wish to interpret those last 2 words depends on whether you're a physicist or a layman. Which usage I mean? Both, of course. Can you say knickers? Merriam-Webster: short for knickerbockers; Date: 1881
1 : loose-fitting short pants gathered at the knee
2 chiefly British : UNDERPANTS]
:smart aleck:

PK

[J.Harris]

yes, i do always find it funny when you yanks call them knickers

[wflaschka]

It begins like a ballestra would, with the front knee straightening and the foot rising.

I'm having trouble visualizing the (foil) appel or the ballestra beginning in any other way. Of course both legs stay bent -- this is included so that the Martini definition doesn't cause people to visualize some sort of vertical leap. After the toe goes up... then what? For the appel, does the fencer use the massive muscles of the thigh, and the ball-joint of the hip, to effect a toe-tap? For the jump, does the fencer leap into space with the back foot?

I think not. The front toe rises because the knee is straightening, the foot leaves the floor because the front leg is getting straighter -- not because the fencer is using the miniscular, easily-fatigued muscles around the ankle.

With the knee straightening (but of course not going straight), the fencer's torso doesn't rise. Balance is kept. The front foot has pivoted out from the knee, and returned, but nothing else in the fencer's guard has changed.

The advance, appel, jump and lunge all begin the same way -- with the least bodily commitment, and the most recoverability. The guard and balance is maintained as the knee straightens, and then bends again. The action is fast and decisive because it doesn't use the small muscles of the ankle and the gigantic muscles of the thigh, but rather the non-muscle mechanics of a bending knee. Fencers with high-tops and ankle-braces can still do appels, advances, jumps and lunges for just this reason.

The A-Z definition of the ballestra is largely correct -- though I personally wouldn't use this text for its descriptions of physical actions. My copy is from 1990, according to the price tag, but its assumptions about fencing physicality sometimes seem grounded in pre-modern fencing. I find it more useful for esoteric fencing terms, like the appuntata or deciphering the relation between a deception, derobement and disengage.

(About my avatar -- that's just me in the middle of a short lunge during a lesson. The straight leg is especially important during a lunge, because far too many new fencers do the toe-and-thigh thing and lunge with a bent knee, which means (1) their whole body has to rise to get the foot off the floor, and (2) they have to use the knee to stop their lunge when they land. This shortens the lunge, ruins the guard, and eventually will hurt the knee. So I try to show the straight leg (and the sole to the opponent) even when I'm standing up like a lazy bum.)

[MyraTrue]

so to throw a little more sand into this: ballestra and appels in epee?

I've been told that you NEVER ballestra in epee (said for the reason that "the ballestra is always followed by a lunge and is thus useless in epee"). I can see similar uses for an appel in epee as have been mentioned in foil. I suppose I'm asking because I'm watching footwork gradually become a complacent creature. It needs some mixing up, and appels might not hurt.

Someone pointed out the other day that the ONLY time I ever yell is when I appel. Oops... give away?

[edew]

Why not ballestra in epee? Epeeists are always bouncing anyway. Making a lunge from a bounce is exactly like making a lunge after a jump in the ballestra.

[MyraTrue]

Thank you, Eric. I agree with you- I see no problem with a well used Ballestra.

But my old coach did.

[Inquartata]

Originally posted by J.Harris
yes, i do always find it funny when you yanks call them knickers

Not as funny as we find you guys' use of the word 'fag'...