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Title
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How to Train for a Foil Competition
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Date
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January 1939
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volume
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4
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issue
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1
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pages
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4-5, 12
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content
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en
HOW TO TRAIN FOR A FOIL COMPETITION
The Professional
There are three ways to train for a foil competition: training under a professional, using alternate exercises, and bouting. Naturally, the first method is to be preferred. Your professional knows your physical and psychological characteristics as well, if not better, than you do yourself. He has worked with you and watched you in competition more carefully than anyone else. He is experienced and knows the needs and requirements of a foil competition. He is also a keen student of fencers and knows the characteristics of the men who will oppose you. He knows which men will give you the most trouble and why. Since he is your trainer and fencing is the delicate sport that it is, it is only natural that training under him for a foil competition is the best you can obtain.
This article was written primarily for the fencer who has not had the good fortune to have a professional. It is written for the thousands of American fencers who either have no professional, or whose professional has so many pupils that he cannot give each of them the long, intensive lessons that are needed prior to competition.
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Alternate Exercises
Lacking a professional, the best results may be obtained by the use of alternate exercises. Even with a professional, the use of alternate exercises for a half hour to an hour daily will make you function just that much better. For alternate exercises are not merely a substitute for a professional; they are an essential part of the standard training of any fencer. You will see Olympic champions exercising alternate plays for long periods before they are called upon the strip for their bouts. You will see the better fencers in any club off in the corner, practicing these valuable exercises by themselves. A good fencer does not rush around to find someone with whom to "go five touches." Rather he finds some patient fencer who will alternate in practice with him to smooth out some parry or attack.
Before we enter upon the actual explanation of a program of alternate exercises, let us state here that fencing, contrary to general belief, contains no secret thrusts or parries. The possible movements are limited in number. It is the combination of these known movements that is limitless. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you learn the simple, essential movements correctly and practice them repeatedly and in fresh combinations, correcting yourself as you progress and assimilating as you learn, you will, over a period of time, acquire a completely rounded game. It is even simpler than that, for a completely rounded game is not an essential.
Any boy, fencing for two years, may know all the attacks and parries that a World Champion uses. The only real difference between the two is that the Champion makes his movements smoother and chooses his time for making these essential movements with greater care. You will notice here that I have made no mention of speed. Speed is important but it ranks third while technique and timing are of prior importance. In alternate exercises, it is essential to remember this order of importance, for in these exercises you must stress technique and timing above speed.
One must, naturally, have a partner to practice alternate exercises. It is his duty to give you constructive criticism during your practice just as it is your duty to criticize him during his practice. Remember to repeat each exercise at least three times apiece before advancing to a further exercise. It is also advisable for each fencer to repeat the exercise himself three times before changing about for the other’s practice. Treat the body as a machine during the exercises. Warm it up slowly and do not try fast tempo anywhere until all the muscles and ligaments have been stretched and exercised.
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The One Two
Now for an order of sequence. This sequence should be progressive, starting with the elementary disengage, extension, and lunge from the two most important positions of quarte and sixte. The next step should be one-two attacks from both lines. Do these slowly and smoothly and continue repeating them alternately until both of you feel that your original disengage and extension is smooth and with a real threat, enough so actually to draw the parry of the opponent. Your opponent must use a simple parry for this exercise. You must make the one of your one-two definite enough to draw that parry. This practice is important for that very purpose. So many one-two attacks are made in routine fashion. They do not draw the parry, as intended, and the attacker finds his opponent holding his line unchanged with the final attack outside. It is through alternate exercises that one can measure the effectiveness of his one-two and correct any deficiencies in threat.
After practicing any attack such as the one we have just described, it is well to use it further for practical parry and riposte practice. Repeat the one-two attacks now with the defensive partner privileged to parry the two at any time and riposte directly or with a disengage. He must play fairly with you by making his first parry a simple quarte-sixte or a simple sixte-quarte parry (depending upon his original line). His second or final parry may be another simple parry or a counter (circular) parry, according to choice. Once this type of practice begins, he should frequently lapse to a single parry and test your full attack. Check yourself too to see whether you, with a fear of the parry and riposte, have been anticipating the second parry and failing to go “all out” on the attack. When your attack has full intention to hit, always go “all out” to hit hard, the harder the better, for a hard, full attack carries authority with it and even though successfully parried often “gums up” the riposte through its sustained momentum.
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The Double
Now we come to the most beautiful, the most difficult, and probably the most practical attack in the French or deceptive style of foil play — the double. The double of disengage and deceive requires accuracy, timing, confidence, and competitive calm. It is the true test of one’s hand. If you did nothing else in the fencing room but practice doubles through quarte, sixte, septime, and octave, doubling through all four positions into the high line and low line alternately, your fencing technique would show immeasurable improvement. The very fact that doubles are harder to do than one-twos has made the circular parry more effective and more commonly used than the simple parries. Therefore, since you will generally be opposed more often with counter parries than with simple parries, it is most necessary that you practice doubles often and carefully. Furthermore, since it is harder to double past the line through quarte than through sixte, you will find the counter of quarte the favorite parry of most fencers. Concentrate then on the double through quarte. Perfect that attack particularly and you will be improving your hand, your confidence, and your fencing effectiveness more than by any other single practice.
Again the defensive partner should come in for his practice in parries and ripostes. For fairness, his first parry should be a counter of quarte, or in guard in the quarte fine, or a counter of sixte, if in the sixte line. His second parry may be a repetition of the first or a simple parry which cuts the line. Again your partner must test your effectiveness by not always making the second parry and check to see if you are flinching from an anticipated parry and riposte.
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The Beat
About here in the practice it is advisable to rest the legs. You have each been lunging three times and then standing on guard to serve as a platform for the partner’s three lunges. Each of you may easily have made at least 60 lunges since you started the exercises, and that is a very good start on the workout you plan to give yourselves. However, it is sensible now to rest the legs awhile and give the wrist a harder workout. We should take off time here to practice beats.
The beat is a most valuable movement for both offense and defense. On the offense, it carries surprise and sting and serves to disconnect the opponent just that fraction of a second that is the fencer’s time-objective. On the defense, it serves to distract an opponent all set to attack and hence may disrupt his planned attack completely or alter his rhythm enough to make that attack ineffective. The double-beat has the same merits as the beat, but has more value defensively than offensively.
You and your partner should both go on guard in quarte, much closer than you would dare stand in a bout, and practice beating one another’s blade in turn. These beats are made from the wrist with a slight opening and closing of the fingers. There should be no slide in the resulting beats. Each beat should be clear in sound with the beating foil stopping at the exact point of contact. The beaten foil when contacted should appear to spring out of line anywhere from two to six inches and then snap back with the same rhythm to execute the return beat. In practicing beats, it is important to remember that one foil or the other must always be “in line.” If your foil carries through after you make a beat, you are not beating correctly. Check this with your eye, check the rhythm with your ear, and check the actual snap of your beat with both the ear and the feeling in your wrist and fingers. This practice need not be very extensive; continue it only long enough to assure yourself that your beats are working correctly. However, if you have fenced less than a year there is no better practice for developing your wrist muscles and a feeling for fencing.
Now both move to the sixte guard. Here the beats should sound and feel the same as they did in quarte but are executed from the elbow rather than from the wrist. The foil is held a little more tightly with the fingers, and there is more difficulty in putting snap into the foil from the slight opening and closing of the fingers.
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The Double Beat
We should next move on to the double beat. With you and your opponent standing on guard in quarte, with foils crossed and touching, you double beat by bringing your point around under the opposing foil and beating on the inside, then circling back to your original position and beating on the outside. The snap here comes from rotating the wrist slightly as you circle under the blade and back as you return to the outside. This should be practiced by one man while the other stands on guard steadily in quarte to permit the practice for several times. These double beats should be light and fast and may be practiced in steady rhythm or in a beat-beat-pause, beat-beat-pause sequence. The inside and outside beat should have the same strength and sound alike if properly executed. The practice is primarily for the wrist muscles and to develop feeling. The double beat has a practical value in a bout through its nuisance value. In preparing an attack, it holds the opponent’s attention and nullifies the possibility of his taking the attack during your preparation. Defensively, it distracts your opponent as he is prepared to attack and may change his offensive intentions back to the defensive. Double beats are more useful than they are given credit for and are not used by French foilsmen as often as they should be. They are excellent and should certainly be given some time in your exercises during every practice.
We have rested our legs now and may continue to the strenuous legwork and parry practice that we have been leading up to. By now we should feel sufficiently warmed up to go “all out” in all our attacks and answering movements. However, until each practice unit is working smoothly we should keep our first few practices of each new movement slow, not adding tempo until we are satisfied that its component parts are being done correctly.
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Simple Beat Attacks
Our first practice following our practice of beats should naturally be the simple beat attacks. These are among the most valuable attacks in foil because of their simplicity, directness, and usual lack of any need for more than a direct lunge. On guard now in either quarte or sixte, start practicing the beat-lunge. A sharp snappy beat and, as the beat is made, a direct extension in the opened line and a straight lunge in that momentarily-exposed line. It must be straight, fast, and true for the split-second time allowance is little enough to accomplish your purpose. Practice these in both quarte and sixte. The next step is the change beat and deceive or the change beat and disengage. An alternative would be the change beat and lunge but this is only possible against a stupid opponent whose reactions need not be considered here. The change beat is the first half of the double beat we have just been practicing. It is the dropping of the point under and around the opponent’s foil and beating on the inside. Your opponent naturally tends to close the line after your beat on the inside and will do so either with a counter, closing the line as before, or a simple parry closing the threatened line from the other side. If your beat starts his counter you must deceive and lunge. If your beat starts his simple parry you must dip under his hand with a disengage as it crosses over. The usual reaction is the counter and therefore the change beat and deceive is the more valuable practice attack.
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Attacks With Pressure
There are two kinds of pressure attacks which must next be practiced with the variations explained in the above paragraph on beats. By substituting the pressure for the beat in the above explanation, we have these attacks outlined. There are, however, two types of pressure and these may be varied two-fold by making the pressure in either case light or hard. A pressure varies from a beat in that it makes little or no sound and is a push against the blade rather than a blow. One type of pressure is done while extending the arm, a sliding along the blade with point forced in line with the pressure as the arm is extended. In this case you have the right of way and the opponent must press back if you are pressing from the outside or parry if you have disengaged and are pressing from the inside. In the other pressure, you press with arm bent just as you beat before. This has little value as a primary threat, but upon resistance permits the disengage lunge or, if countered by the opponent, permits the deceive of that counter. This pressure has great value in the preparation of an attack but gives no right of way until the arm is extended. It ranks high with the coupé as the best invitation for a stop thrust in foil fencing, for an attempt of this type of pressure, that a wily opponent deceives, usually finds your foil badly out of line through its very attempt at pressure. It is good to practice this pressure with its dangers well in mind with a partner keyed to stop thrust you if he can.
Such practice will better equip you for its careful use in competition.
We have as yet made no mention of marching or balestre attacks. From the article thus far it might be assumed that the opponent each time was required to stand frozen and permit the direct lunge to serve as all the footwork necessary in each attack. On the contrary, you should intermix marching attacks with each practice just as you have mixed in riposte practice with each type of attack. First, make several direct attacks and then have your opponent step backward, forcing you to march forward with the extension of the arm before the final lunge. You march by moving the front foot forward and bringing the other foot behind it to the original "on guard" position. This may be done in two ways: first by making a fast march which has the purpose of sneaking up on the opponent, second by jumping forward with both feet almost simultaneously to surprise the opponent. By one method you glide in upon your opponent, by the other method you practically jump upon him. Each has its purpose and both should be practiced. This variation in legwork plus the ripostes which it makes each intent of practice almost a study in itself. Fencing truly offers infinite variety.
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Conclusion
Books have been written about the various refinements of the movements thus far explained here, necessarily in brief. It is really up to you to get yourself a partner and try ‘alternate exercises.’ In practice, you will develop your own routines. There is no end to the combinations of movements that make up the total of fencing. We have dealt here with a suggested program. We have left out the practice of remising, fleching, counter-riposting, and even that important attacking weapon, the coupé. The coupé, for instance, is an upside-down disengage. Instead of dipping under the opponent’s blade as in the disengage, you cut up over the opponent’s blade with the same eventual result. By substituting the coupé for the disengage in all or part of the times the disengage is mentioned anywhere in this article, a whole new series of practice sessions is possible.
And so it goes with all the variations of handwork and legwork that the sport offers. The important thing is to practice intently with the idea of learning and perfecting the movements themselves. After that, one must “get” the feel and timing of the combinations so they become units of thought and action. Once this is accomplished, you will have the equipment to enter competition. What is more important, you will have the confidence in your ability to carry through with these by-now familiar routines. Your body will be trained and in the bout, you will be free to think about your opponent. If he is not similarly trained, he will be thinking about himself and one more victory will be marked up to the credit of “alternate exercises”.
