Fencing.Net - Your Guide to Olympic Fencing

Simple Attack:

Attack from right.

In this action, Fencer Right comes off the on guard line with an advance and a lunge — and scores! This action is from the 2003 World Championships, and both competitors can do much, much more complicated fencing. But a straight attack was all that was needed, and the straight attack works.

Sometimes, the simple attacks land for no good reason. When simple attacks seem unsafe, irrational, and ill-advised, this is one of the best times to use them — the opponent isn't expecting it.

Then again, simple attacks are usually easy to defend against. They start too quickly to be obscured with preparations, they finish too quickly to benefit from deceptions. With a simple attack, what the defender sees is what the defender gets… which is the way defenders like it.

If you're going to attack simple, make it surprising and make it land. Accellerate faster than the opponent can move, and hit through the parry. The main aspect of this action is that fencer right attacked with utter conviction and commitment. He believed in the attack, and carried it through. He hit through the opponent's parry.

(From the 2003 World Championships, Men's Individual Foil Final.)