Arh!!!!!!!!! I've been holding the french foil wrong for two years!!!!

[Bebop and Rocksteady]

Practice grip? What's that supposed to mean? How exactly does fencing with a french grip improve your fencing with a pistol? First of all, the french grip requires finger control with almost all actions. The pistol grip, however, strictly uses the wrist. Seeing how they both require totally different parts of the hand, using a french as 'practice' for fencing with a pistol grip doesnt seem to have any benefits.

The best thing would be to just choose one type of grip and stick with it, so your hand gets used to it. Believe me. After fencing with a pistol grip for more than a year, suddenly switching to an italian was totally bizzare for my hands. Like I said before, pistol grips require wrist action, my fingers weren't used to the stress on the fingers.

As for the carpal tunnel syndrome, that's scary. Never thought of that O_O

[edew]

I wouldn't recommend using one grip for practice and then another foil competition. I wouldn't even recommend using differently angled weapons (bent at the tang) for practice and competition.

That said, the pistol grip does not involve using only the wrist. Mr. Bebop obviously have no clue how to use the pistol grip. The majority of the movements required for using the pistol grip involves nothing more than squeezing the fingers. Most beats, disengages, and such require only these fine finger movements. Big sweeping parries will use anything from swiveling at the wrist to the elbow to the shoulder, but that occurs even with a french or italian grip. Making disengages with a pistol grip at the wrist is too slow.

[Bebop and Rocksteady]

Why is it that everyone continually pounces on me after everything I say that they don't agree with? I've already apologized for any arrogance I've shown, so knock it off.

*Dusts off pistol grip sword and does some disengages* I don't know what kind of grip you use, but mine requires wrist action a lot more than finger usage <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[its_me_mango]

[ 04-05-2002: Message edited by: its_me_mango ]</p>

[achilleus]

[quote]Originally posted by its_me_mango:
<strong> carpol tunnel syndrome will occur anytime anyone does repeat motions, it doesn't matter if it's a typewrite, a tennis racket or a golf swing, or a foil/epee/sabre. the trick to avoiding this is to vary your grips or small motor movements (hand) movement, so it does make sence to change your grip once in a while. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Absoultely correct that CTS is a repetitive motion injury, and while changing your grip is one solution. Competitors often use another solution, building and strengthing the muscles to avoid injury.


[quote]Originally posted by its_me_mango:
<strong>i think what e.dew is alluding to is that constant practice with one grip will assist you during competitions, and i agree, but i propose (sigh) that a person with a long fencing career ahead of them, could make substantial progress if they begin in foil/french grip and after several years move into other grips. is there a logic to this, or is it totally impracticle given that people who fence want results and they want them, now, so therefore there is no patience in this sport, and therefore, the whole point is once again, MOOT.
i think i've answered my own question.thank you. </strong><hr></blockquote>

Many coaches believe that starting with a french grip and fencing foil is the best way for a beginner to start. Partly tradition, but mostly to learn the basics of the game. So your not alone in this theory. There is nothing wrong with starting with a pistol though.

The only problem with starting beginners off with a pistol grip (besides difficulty of switching them to sabre) is that they tend to grip the weapon too tightly, thus developing large actions. However, with a good coach, this is not a problem. Back when they had only italian and french grips, people started with the italian. In fact some of the great fencers started and exclusively used an italian grip.

And lastly, your leap of logic at the end totally eludes me. Just because someone has a drive to win, their impatient? Just because someone doesn't share the same opinion that the french grip helps their fencing their impatient? And those people that disagree with you are representative of the whole sport?

Reading this newsgroup, you should be getting an idea that fencers rarely agree, and one fencer's opinion represents just that, one fencers opinion.

[edelstein]

[quote]Originally posted by D'Artagnan1673:
<strong>Its the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life!!! I was reading my buddy Nick E's book and realized that I've been holding the french grip wrong for as long as I've fenced. You are suppost to have your thumb and index on the widest part of the grip, I've kept mine on the thinner of the two. </strong><hr></blockquote>

It's funny, if that's so, I've been also holding my French grip wrong too, by the thin side, I also read Nick's book and I read over and over that paragraph, studied the photo there, but I couldn't grab it like that because the angle of my grip fits (the slight curve it has that goes in the hand) my hand all right when putting the index and thumb around the thin side, but when holding it by the wide side, this small curve feels awkward. Then I thought, well, perhaps the wide side of the grip should be parallel to the thin side of the blade, so I turned it 90° so I could hold it by the wide side keeping the thin side of the blade in the same place, but it was worse, so I ended up still grabbing it by the thin side, but you are now starting to worry me with this posting. All my foils came like that when new, and the seller was also a fencer and he himself put the foil parts together, and he put them like that, so I've always thought that's ok, nobody has told me anything either. Oh oh, this is confusing me. I've even seen grips with all the sides the same size, ie, square, what then? Oh oh, what should I do then? Hold it by the wide side even if the curve does not fit my hand as well as it does when holding it by the thin side? How did you notice you were finally holding it properly?

[Scaramouche]

[quote]Originally posted by edew:
<strong>I wouldn't recommend using one grip for practice and then another foil competition.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Why not? Pistol grips give you the ability to move faster and attack the blade with more strength sure but practicing with a French forces you to think more about the moves so when you're using pistol you don't have to. Plus it develops the muscles in the wrist, hand, and arm better (which I think has been mentioned in this thread already).

Of course I'm not saying this just because my coach told us tonight that we should do just what you recommend that you shouldn't.... Anyway I think it's a good idea but that's just me.

SOMETHING UNRELATED to the comments I just made. I'm not clear on what everyone has against Evangelista. I have no opinion on the subject but I'm curious to know why everyone else seems to think so very little of him.

[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: Scaramouche ]</p>

[edew]

Because you want to get that muscle memory into your fingers, your hand, your arm. All it takes is a small angular difference to make an attack land on target or miss the target altogether.

When you're getting lessons and training, you should be working on point control with repetitive actions. Those repetitive actions will drill in the muscle memory on where to go. Your fingers and hand have no idea where the point is because they can't see where the point is. Your eyes should not be looking at where your tip is because the eye-brain-hand data transfer will take far too long to process. You need to know what if you do X, it will hit on the chest and if you do Y, it will hit on the flank. You don't want to guide your point to the target by sight. You'll be dead before you can get your fingers to adjust.

So, if you train with weapon A and fence with weapon B, where the difference include a grip change, then you're going to be missing things. But, hey, go right ahead mix up your weapons. I'm more than happy to fence someone who uses a pistolgrip for competition and a french grip for practice.

[edew]

[quote]Originally posted by Bebop and Rocksteady:
<strong>Why is it that everyone continually pounces on me after everything I say that they don't agree with? I've already apologized for any arrogance I've shown, so knock it off.

*Dusts off pistol grip sword and does some disengages* I don't know what kind of grip you use, but mine requires wrist action a lot more than finger usage </strong><hr></blockquote>

Ok, my apologies. I don't know what pistolgrip you're using. In any case, if you're not able to move your fingers, then you're using a mis-sized pistolgrip. Still, you are supposed to be using your fingers to make the fine-point moves.

[achilleus]

[quote]Originally posted by Scaramouche:
<strong>

Why not? Pistol grips give you the ability to move faster and attack the blade with more strength sure but practicing with a French forces you to think more about the moves so when you're using pistol you don't have to. Plus it develops the muscles in the wrist, hand, and arm better (which I think has been mentioned in this thread already).

Of course I'm not saying this just because my coach told us tonight that we should do just what you recommend that you shouldn't.... Anyway I think it's a good idea but that's just me.

[ 04-02-2002: Message edited by: Scaramouche ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

If you don't learn how to properly use a pistol grip through practicing with it, your actions will be large. Doesn't matter how good you are with a french grip.

Also, a french grip has advantages that you won't be able to utilize with a pistol. This can be a huge problem if you come to rely on these benefits if you aren't able to utilize them in a tournament. And the converse is definitely true. If you don't know the pistol grip inside, out, you won't be able to use all it's advantages.

Note that the top fencers that use french grips, there aren't many, have a very different style than those that use pistols. Why? because the grips lend themselves to different techniques.

Using both is a quick way to master neither.

And as for strength, there are other ways to build it, try weights. Most athletes find they work wonders...

[edelstein]

Continuing with the original thread,
I've found only 2 websites that mention how to hold the french, one is: <a href="http://students.syr.edu/student_orgs/sports-rec/FENCING/grip.html" target="_blank">http://students.syr.edu/student_orgs/sports-rec/FENCING/grip.html</a>
but it doesn't say anything like "check that you're holding the grip by the wide side" or so, nor the photo shows it clearly,
the other is only a reference to a book, it's in <a href="http://www.fencingmaster.com/books/toc_2.html" target="_blank">www.fencingmaster.com/books/toc_2.html</a>
it seems to have a whole chapter on how to hold grips but I don't have it.
Either they all take for granted that one will hold it by the wide side or it seems to be obvious?! not for me

[Lordy]

This all just goes to show you that when you reach the bottom line, fencing competitive foil with a french grip is useless, silly and quite funny looking.

[shyHeidi]

[quote]Originally posted by Scaramouche:
<strong>
SOMETHING UNRELATED to the comments I just made. I'm not clear on what everyone has against Evangelista. I have no opinion on the subject but I'm curious to know why everyone else seems to think so very little of him.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

I'm not sure what everyone else has against him either, but I'm gonna guess that it has something to do with the fact that he presents his opinions as facts. The only fencing book I have is a NickE book, and I really enjoyed it, thought it was really well-written... but then when I came to this forum I realized that he presented a very limited view of fencing, and presented it as if it was the whole story. He knows alot about his little classical world, but sticks to it so much that it's almost mis-leading. Being the beginning fencer that I am, I'm quite impressionable, and was really finding myself sorta scrunching up my nose at the idea of sport fencing after reading that book. Took me awhile of reading posts from sport fencers on here before that was ironed out of my system.
I dunno, maybe everyone else has some different reason that remains a mystery to me, but that would be my guess. I mean, if he would admit that his way is just one way of doing things, instead of the way, then it'd be totally fine... <img src="graemlins/blah.gif" border="0" alt="[Blah]" />

[Pierfrancesco]

[quote]Originally posted by Bebop and Rocksteady:
<strong>The pistol grip, however, strictly uses the wrist. </strong><hr></blockquote>

I may have only been using a pistol grip for a couple of months, but i find you use the fingers just as much as on a french grip, and this is certainly what my coach tries to ingrain into me.. USE THE FINGERS!!!!

[Scaramouche]

I still don't see how practicing with one grip and competing with another truly affects your fencing ability. I'd think fencing French, which is harder, in practice would have no bearing on the fact that you use a pistol in tournaments, which is the easier grip of the two <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[Bebop and Rocksteady]

[quote]Originally posted by Lordy:
<strong>This all just goes to show you that when you reach the bottom line, fencing competitive foil with a french grip is useless, silly and quite funny looking.</strong><hr></blockquote>

That's the second incredibly clueless statement you've made. My suggestion is that before you make your remarks, you try one out for a bit. If you still think french grips are a waste of time, then you're in denial

[Lordy]

Bebop? Who do you think you are? How long have you been fencing? You know nothing, you neonate! Nothing! Why does our sport always attract the most unathletic, hopeless nincompoops who have more opinions on "good fencing" than attacks in there repertoire? Let me say it again, "You know nothing, you silly, unrated, been-fencing-a-month hack.

P.S. Maybe once you leave Hack-land you'll realize that you can't do a fraction of the things with a French that you can do with a good Italian Visconti.

[Bebop and Rocksteady]

I've been fencing a good two and a half years, which isn't a lot compared to most of you, but that doesn't make me an idiot.

Hackland? That's quite a assumption, considering how you never see me fence.

One more thing. I fenced with all three weapons, french, pistol, and I currently use italian. Like I said before, try out other grips and methods of fencing before you make assumptions.

[lochinvar]

Bebop and Rocksteady:

Don't let Lordy get to you.
He's a New York fencer. They're all like that.
Ignore it.

[D'Artagnan1673]

I don't know. I think Lordy is on the right track. Bebop comes in and just starst blasting everything in site expoudning like an expert. Now I did the same thing but shut up pretty quickly when I realized that other people actually have opinions. Bebeop on the other hand posts a whiny thread about how come we all just can't get along and then goes and insults Lordy.

Now I also disagree with Lordy about the French being silly. However, I will use a little grace and eloquence in my responce rather than a base insult.

The French grip does give you a very good feeling for the blade or sentiment de fer Also, with the French grip, you loose all the power that you get with the pistols, forcing you to consider other elements of your game. I am not saying that you can't use the others with a pistol, but it is easier not too. Grace and form flow with the French grip. Also, I think it is rather fun to fence French in a tournament, provided they don't mop you off the strip. It gets people thinking.