Broken blades

Well, after years of fencing and never even seeing a blade break I've now had two broken on me within a week. Last week Travis broke an epee with a big hit to my hand, and this evening Donovan broke one on my arm.

I think I will take it as a sign that I'm getting better. :-p

2nd place again

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=20276&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=83443

SAS Unrated tournament, got 2nd place out of 23. My 6th tournament to date (wait is that right—two MTFC U tournies, BladeFest Vets, Leon Open, RCFC Vets, and this, yep, six) and finally I felt not only comfortable with how things work at tournaments, but like I could get into the right head space (and body space) in the pools—although part of it may have been that I was simply better than most of the people fencing.

Did well in the direct eliminations too, although as time went on it became harder to stay in the fencing head space—especially after longer delays between bouts. Finally lost the final bout, to Craig Haworth, a young guy I had never met before. And since the tournament was for unrated fencers only, despite there being 23 only one E rating was given out, to the person who came in first. I was so close! Ah well.

I mostly used a "maneuvering defensive" strategy, with attacks to the hand (which almost never worked), threats to the foot (ditto), and fleches with feint to 4 disengage to 6 (which worked great against everyone except Craig). Also a variety of defense-based things, like counterattacks and attempts to set traps through setting and breaking patterns, and noting opponent patterns. Also did quite a bit with "broken time" attacks/counterattacks, trying to catch people off guard. And a bit of breaking up larger patterns—like after a lot of slow starts after the call "fence!" I might throw in a fast real attack. All in all, a lot of thinking, which was fun. By the final bout my brain was a little tired of thinking. That's my excuse! No..Craig was good, and he clearly had scoped me out in advance and was prepared for my tricks. And I wasn't able to come up with enough variations on-the-fly to change things up enough to make a difference.

Blades, parries, fleches

Went in late to Wednesday practice. It's Nathaniel's 7th birthday and I wasn't planning to go in at all, but by 7:45 or so T said I might as well, so I did. If nothing else I wanted to test my newly wired epee. The place was packed when I arrived around 8:30. After testing the epee, realizing I had put the bell guard on wrong, taking it apart and putting it back together again and making sure it worked, I fenced more or less non-stop until nearly 10:00. Fenced George, Jeff, Travis, and Jim. In my rush to get there I didn't put in my contacts, so I fenced with my glasses off. I can fence just fine without being able to see clearly, but it was a little distracting. The straps on my mask kept unconnecting, which was also distracting. And I used the newly wired epee, uncanted, and with its "sawed-off" Visconti grip, which is also distracting! Still I had fun and did pretty good in some ways.

I tried a bit of the "parry 2, advance with rear foot" thing, but it mostly failed to work and even earned me a mini-lesson from Travis. He said I was doing a "weird seconde" that was way too large, and anyway one should do parry 8 instead of 2 usually, he said. He is probably right. Travis and I fenced to ten. Early on his point caught on my glove and the blade snapped off. First time that has happened in a bout I was in.

I also tried sticking to the left side of the strip, which did seem to discourage fleching from some people, like George. Also experimented with drifting to the right side of the strip, to see if it could encourage fleching. And, with George at least, it seemed to. It almost felt like I could get him to fleche if I wanted, by drifting right and waiting. This could be a useful tactic if it works on more people. Of course I need to also be able to successfully defend against a fleche, which I failed to do with George.

In the end Jim and I fenced for a long time, which was a great way to end. We did a lot of "blade play". He does a lot of extentions, disengages, and general circling. I had fun trying to work out various deceptions based on things like circling one way, then the other, setting up patterns of, say, mild beat 8s, then change to a circle 6 kind of thing. Or doing some blade play with a mostly extended arm, then slowly pulling back, trying to draw him in a little closer than he should be. We had a lot of double touches. Maybe more doubles than singles altogether. Anyway, altogether a very fun night.

Strip positioning

A few nights ago I was half asleep, half-dreaming about fencing. It occurred to me that since most people fleche to the inside—my left side of the strip—perhaps I could hinder fleches by fencing close to the strip's left edge. Not only would that make it hard to fleche me without running off the strip, but it would give me more room to fleche my opponent. As I thought about it I seemed to recall some fencers tended to fence to their left edge of the strip—my right side—which would do for them exactly what I was thinking—making it harder for me to fleche and easier for them.

So on Monday I spent a lot of time hanging out toward the left edge of the strip. Sure enough people did not fleche me much. Also, people often followed my lead and moved toward that edge of the strip. But I only fenced a few people, so this notion requires further testing. The last person I fenced was John Varney, who did not drift over to the edge of the strip and fleched just fine against me. His fleches tend to hit well before he passes you, so being near the edge didn't help much with him.

Likewise, Don Penner didn't move to the left edge either. In fact he stuck close to the right edge (from my perspective—for him it was the left edge). John tended to stay in the middle, but Don was so much to the right that we were quite askew on the strip when I went to the left edge. Afterward I told him how I was trying out this idea of using the left edge and he seemed to be doing the same thing. Was he doing it to prevent people from fleching him, I asked. He said not really. People can and do fleche to the outside—which is perhaps something else I should try as it might be an unexpected form of attack. He said he used the left edge to facilitate some of his favorite attacks, including, if I remember what he said, a kind of fourth position on guard and flick, as well as a parry 2 combined with a forward step from the back leg. He pointed out how if someone lunges and you parry 2, your tip will likely end up near their knee. I had been trying to convert my instinctive parry 2s into parry 8s because I found my parry 2s tended to force the other person's point onto my own legs. But Don's idea of advancing with the back leg seems like it might avoid this problem while letting your own point be driven down toward your opponent's legs. Being near the left edge of the strip might make this tactic stronger too. Definitely something to try.

Don said that due to his habit of hanging out near the left edge and using a kind of fourth position on guard, Marshall said he fenced "like a left hander".

Another attack idea I had had while half asleep and tried out with some success was a fleche with a feint into 4 and disengage into 6 (that is, my feint into my opponent's 6 and disengage into their 4, if they are right handed). Basically it is making some threats in 4 and waiting for them to advance, then extending in 4, starting the fleche and disengaging into 6 during the fleche. It worked fairly well against a few people, although not so well against Don or John (not surprisingly, as they are so good).

Epee repair

The new blade I ordered came and today I replaced the broken one. I ordered a pre-wired blade, with a tip already on, so I wouldn't have to learn how to do all that at once. Even so it took me a while to do it—mainly dealing with the wires and connecting them to the socket. I think I finally got it together right, but being at home I can't test it. I also didn't cant it, not having a vise at hand or quite trusting myself. I'm not quite sure how to properly cant a blade. It seems okay without a cant. I can always add one later, right?

Frazzled

After a long day of difficult kids, too brain frazzled to practice fencing with the plan i had had. Instead I mostly just charged headlong, waving the sword around semi-randomly. Okay, maybe you could call it "practicing fleches", maybe. Also had some fun trying a little of the thing I saw Monica doing at the tournament the other day—blade down, facing rather forward, left hand forward a bit and sort of waving a little as if to say "come on, I'm open, you can hit me". I found that style does work to draw attacks, especially if you let the distance get a bit close. Of course I got hit quite a few times by doing it, but it was still fun to play with. Way more than an "invito", it's a full-fledged challenge.

Sadly I was a little late and there were not quite so many people. I only got to fence the same few people I seem to always fence—David, Jim, George. Did pretty good against David, though more often with parry-ripostes than fleches; did so-so against Jim, more often with fleches than blade play; and against George went to 14-14, which was exciting. He got the final point. With him blade play and fleche results were about equally mixed, sometimes working sometimes not.

I also got to fence Monica, which I was hoping to get the chance to do, after fencing her at the tournament. I'm sure I could learn quite a bit from her. Unfortunately after a short bit my epee malfunctioned. We had fenced just enough for me to think we should just stop, rather than trying to find a working club epee. Ah well. On the other hand, I learned she uses a Zivkovic grip and got to try it out...now more convinced than ever its the way to go. Hers is a KIII and felt good but too small. I'd like to try a K. She said the Z is very good. I have been thinking the Z would be very interesting, but it is so oddly shaped I would really want to hold one before deciding.

Epee video, "four distances"

I thought this was interesting and worth further considering and study:

About "four distances", defense and attacks,

1. Duck
2. Retreat and riposte
3. Fleche
4. Advance lunge to close target

Flèche videos

Let's see if I can add videos to this blog.

How To Fleche

Interestingly, some people say you should flèche from a lunge, which is not what I've always heard. From a lunge you need to push off the front foot. But when Russ was teaching it to me he said to "collapse" the front foot and push off the back. I suppose it depends on whether you are flèching from a lunge or a more typical on guard stance.

Flèche photos

Perhaps the proper spelling is flèche, as in French, but I think fleche is acceptable in English too. Then again, maybe not. The OED doesn't seem to agree, but then also seems to insist on épée. Merriam-Webster also only mentions flèche, and only épée too. Well I don't know. And I'm lazy, so I will write fleche and epee.

Anyway, just collecting some pictures.

Also, found this one while searching. Um, ...what?

Thoughts after tournament

Well, one of the things I learned from this last tournament, the RCFC Vet Tournament, is I'm not quite used to fencing at tournaments. The pools especially. They are so different from the kind of fencing done at the club during open epee. Each pool bout is short and they are interrupted with periods of waiting. This makes it hard to get into a "fencing zone", mentally and physically. After my last tournament, where I won most of my pool bouts but got hit a lot (winning 5-4 or 5-3), I realized the importance of not being hit so much in the pools, even if you win bouts. This time, the fencers were better on average and I ended up losing all four of the pool bouts, but even so did okay point-wise, scoring 4-5 every time except against Michael Chin, which I lost 2-5. Okay, so I get it how every point matters in the pools, but perhaps I should try to win some of the bouts too! How to jump into that "fencing zone" in the pools? Hmm...

One idea I had is to keep score in my head during open epee practices, counting up to 5 and then pretending, in my head at least, that that pool bout is over and a new one is starting, and changing my own style, just to see how it goes. And perhaps working on changing style will be useful anyway. Some obvious ways to change style might be switching from using lots of blade contact to using absence of blade. More generally, there are those four basic styles I was reading about. Actually there are two version of the "four styles" in my notes:

1. Permanently Pressing: Tend to use false actions that turn into real attacks. Against such a fencer try to "shut them down" by using many false attacks, counterattacks, and sudden close actions, making it harder for them to know when their own attacks should develop.
2. Maneuvering-Attacking: Tend to switch among many different types of attack, and rather than defend tends to retreat in the face of strong actions. The rapid switching between attacks can overwhelm defensive strategies. Against them one idea is to push them back to their end of the strip, forcing them to defend. Also try using counter-time actions and mixing simple attacks with broken-time attacks. A goal should be to "shut down" their attacks before they can develop.
3. Maneuvering-Defending: My notes say this is the most difficult kind of opponent, and by implication should be an excellent style to try. Such fencers "have strong technical skills" and "carefully prepare traps...either on attack or defense", and can move from attack to defense quickly and easily. Ideas for fencing against this style include "unorthodox" fencing, avoiding blade play, constantly vary timing and rhythm. Also, second intention stuff: show them your favorite attack, excepting it to be stopped, and have a second intention ready to go.
4. Permanently Defending: Tend to just wait and try to score with counterattacks and ripostes. Tries to draw their opponent out to "pre-determined targets". (this sounds very familar, Don!) Against them, try pushing them back to the end of the strip, making it harder for them to set up actions. Use counter-time (counter counter attacks), feints with parry-riposte, perhaps close distance so simple attacks score. (all this sounds familiar too, Don!)

If I can just remember these things when trying my "pool practice" idea—switching my own style between Permanently Pressing, Maneuvering-Attacking, Maneuvering-Defending, and Permanently Defending.

Anyway, I seeded rather low (19) and didn't get a bye. There were 22 fencers so the top 10 got a bye. My first DE was against Stephanie English of RCFC, who seeded 14th. She is a leftie and I soon felt fairly confident on the strip, eventually winning 10-8. George Capestany won his first DE too, 10-7 against Donald Lake. This means he gets an SAS patch, which made him very happy. My second DE was against Monica Jacob-Exum, who was in my pool and very good. She seeded 3rd. I don't think I have fenced her at SAS, or even met her before, but she is very nice and fun. Our DE bout was fairly close. The score was tied off and on for a bit until she pulled ahead at the end and won 10-7. Her style worked against most of the tactics I had been practicing recently—blade contact stuff, footwork/distance tricks, infighting, etc. She tended to use an absence of blade, which leaves me not knowing what to do other than feinting and trying to draw out attacks. She has also excellent footwork and retreats—she never fell for any of my attempts to gain distance. And several times I thought I could hit with a sudden advance-lunge or fleche but she would just calmly retreat just enough so my point fell a few inches short. In terms of those four styles above, perhaps she tends to be Maneuvering-Defending, which my notes say is the hardest to deal with. Hmm. She's fun to fence though. I knew from watching that she sometimes tries sudden toe touch attacks, so I was ready to withdraw my foot and attack if she tried. She tried once or twice with neither of us scoring. One time she did some kind of low attack with a sudden very low crouch. My counter failed and neither scored. Maybe it wasn't quite what she had planned because after, once we recovered and had distance she jokingly said she was hoping I "wouldn't see her" way down there. And I jokingly responded "where did she go??"

Anyhow, fencing her gives me another thing to work on—tactics for fencing against absence of blade and that "maneuvering-defending" thing. One obvious idea is fleches. And watching the final bouts of the tournament—Mikol Ryon and John Varney especially—I saw plenty of excellent fleches. Definitely something to practice.

Vet's tournament results

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=19695&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=81378

I've many things to say about this tournament, but not right now. Let's just see if that link works.

Minor milestone

Minor milestone, finally beat George in one of our open fencing to 15 things. Close though, 15-14, ended with a double touch. Maybe he wasn't fencing as well as usual, who knows, but I'd like to think there was some benefit to my focus this week on patience and waiting for tempo openings. I certainly spent a lot more time than I used to waiting and not attacking. Still need to protect my hand and arm better.

Ended the afternoon fencing John Varney to 15, which is always humbling. I think I scored 3, maybe even 4 to his 15. Sheesh! Still, fencing him can be educational. He exploits tiny moments of tempo advantage I don't even see. His infighting is also great and interesting. Several times we got close and I managed to land close hits but his hit first, and sometimes in strange ways. Perhaps sometime I should chat with him about infighting.

Also fenced Jim, who was quite challenging. At one point he did a well executed fleche with a curious and somehow familiar blade movement. We briefly talked about it—he said he had just learned it during a lesson with Russ and quickly explained it. I'm not sure I quite got it, but I think it starts with moving to an 8 position as the fleche starts but then swings up into 6. Soon after I tried just that on him and it worked. Something to try more.

Thursday vet tournament plans

Tempo, footwork/distance, patience & focus, focus, focus!

Wait for one-tempo opportunities. Use infighting if opponent allows it.

While waiting, minor actions to do:

• Thrusts toward bell guard (protect with own bell guard).
• Circular "screwing" thrusts around blade, either way.
• Sweep 8, thrust to top of hand, parry 8.
• Circle 6s, if blade caught lunge with opposition or fleche to infighting.

Overall: Patience, distance, wait for one-tempo chances. Focus!

Epee problems!

It was bound to happen, and surprising it hadn't happened sooner. I've finally had an epee break. Two epees, actually, both within 30 minutes! First the one I have been using the most. It suddenly stopped registering hits but nothing looked wrong. That happened while I was fencing David. I began the evening fencing Logan and had had a couple of rather large bends to the blade, so I thought it might have had to do with that. Anyway, after playing a little with it and not getting it to work I put it aside and got my other epee. After fencing George for perhaps 20 minutes we both heard the sound of the tip flying off. At first I thought just the tip had come off but soon realized the barrel had too—in fact the blade had broken inside the barrel. Marla came and helped look for the tip. She found it and was the first to realize a bit of the blade was stuck in the barrel.

And all this a week before a tournament, of course! It's a mixed epee vet tournament. Marla and I are both going. Knowing this she immediately gave me two of her epees (she has four), so I would have two working ones for the tournament. Now nice of her! We fenced a bit after that, which gave me a chance to try out her epees. The grips are a bit small for my hands but that is okay. One of them has an interesting paddle-like end and says "K1" on it, making me think it is a Zivkovic. She wasn't sure. Looking it up now I'm pretty sure it is a Zivkovic. But not quite. Zivkovic's website lists handles including K, KII, and KIII, but not "K1". And their K handle has fewer finger grooves than Marla's. But maybe the designs have changed a little since she got hers.

Zivkovic's current "K" handle

Zivkovic Z handle

Zivkovic ZII handle

In any case, the smaller size gave me a couple blisters after just 20 minutes—perhaps I will use my old leather glove instead of his newer, better fitting but thinner one—but I liked the "paddle". Now I'm more curious than ever about trying one of the Zivkovic's designed for larger hands, and without finger grooves, I think. Unfortunately it doesn't look like Zivkovic makes a handle for larger hands without finger grooves, except perhaps their Z or ZII, which don't have grooves but do have an odd extra-large "paddle". So, I still think I need to actually hold and feel the various Zivkovics rather than buying one sight unseen.

Anyway, on the broken epees. After Marla very kindly gave me two of her epees and left I sat down in the armory room to see if I could get my main epee working again. My secondary one clearly needs a whole new blade and tip (and wire, I think). But my main one looked fine—it just wasn't registering hits. It's tip looked a bit banged up, and I had been noticing the tip seemed to be less stable lately. So I figured I'd switch it with the relatively unbattered tip that had broken off my secondary epee (just the very tip, not the barrel). Well, that seemed to fix it. I noticed that one of the old screws on the main epee was hard to unscrew and seemed banged up. Maybe that screw had somehow caused the whole tip to malfunction. In any case I think I now have my main epee working, plus Marla's two spare epees, so I should be ready for this tournament.

This upcoming tournament is "RCFC Thursday Night Veterans Epee". There are currently 15 fencers preregistered, including 5 Us (me, Donald Lake, and others I'm not sure I know), 4 Es (Marla Clem, John Comes, Michael Chin (a great foilist—I didn't know he did epee)...), no Ds, 2 Cs (Johannes Klein and Serge Timacheff, uh oh), 2 Bs (Cynthia Glover and Martin Haase), and 2 As (Richard Glover and Mikol Ryon). Should be....interesting!

Two Vass Quotes

Two quotes from Imre Vass, Epee Fencing [with some paraphrasing—the English translation of the Hungarian is sometimes needlessly awkward].


Thrust with opposition

The thrust with opposition can be done to the opponent's body, inside upper target, and upper arm.

The opposition position of the hand or guard is high on the left. Make sure the thrust lies, when concluded, along a straight line connecting the student's eyes and the coach's eyes. The student should make sure that he sees his coach's eyes lying along the right edge of the guard of his own weapon. In this way, the correctness of the opposition can be checked to within a millimeter.

Arc thrust or flick

[For the flick at the opponent's sixth position]

The flick can be introduced as a kind of coupé—a coupé with the opponent's blade absent. Care must be taken to prevent exposing your wrist prematurely or excessively as you raise the point. Wrist and elbow must remain relaxed. Unlike the coupé, the raised point does not return to line. The point, directed by the wrist, moves downward and forward. Then the motion of the hand is sharply arrested and, with a relaxed motion like shaking water from the fingertips, the hand "bounces" upward even as the point continues its downward and forward course.

This movement requires intensive practice. Until it is perfected, it is ineffective for the fencer and annoying to his fencing partners [!]. Once learned, however, it is a formidable addition to the fencer's arsenal, providing the possibility of an attack with minimum risk at virtually any angle from virtually any position.

Monday notes

This evening I fenced "new" George, the former saberist, David, Jeremy, Jay, and George. Although I still have much to work on and improve it is nice to be able to see how far I've come from June. And not just in terms of fencing but general physical fitness. I almost never get totally exhausted like I used to every time I went fencing. Well, yesterday I was pretty exhausted by the end, and I had only fenced three (and a half) people—just each one for a long time and working hard. They were: a younger kid whose name I don't know (last name Henry?), who I did very well against, working on footwork, "check steps", second intentions, etc; then switched to foil and fenced Rick briefly, then that Russian (I think) foilist, for a long time; then back to epee and finishing up with a good 20 minutes or more fencing Russ.

Afterward Russ mentioned some things I could improve (smaller blade movements, extending before advancing, etc) and some things I do well, like infighting and "running away". Okay, perhaps he phrased it more like "retreating quickly from fleches", allowing a chance to parry and riposte. He mentioned how that was working well against Kevin in the Bladefest tournament. So today I went in thinking about, among other things, keeping distance and/or playing with distance/tempo, and infighting.

Notes from this evening's practice:

• Remember to extend arm first before advance-attacking! I keep getting hit on the arm, often because I'm advance-attacking with a bent arm.
• Tempo and footwork stuff: More patience! More sustained focus and attention, in order to catch those fleeting moments of opportunity. A very active form of meditation. :)
• More infighting practice. Also working on how to create infighting situations.

November things to practice

• Footwork - stealing tempo; slow-fast advance, jumps, "check" advance, fleches.
• Smaller movements / keeping point in line.
• More minor activity; beats, shallow thrusts, blade mvts, footwork: frustrate opp's preparations, devise second intention plans, etc.
• On guard in 4.
• "1 2 attacks"; thrust, withdraw arm, thrust again with fast advance, fleche, etc.
• "Second intention" attacks; shallow attack, deal with response/counter, deep attack.
• Low line attacks, to thigh.
• Attack to top of hand, parry 8, attack to inside/bottom of hand, counter parry 6, deep attack.
• Infighting techniques; footwork to create infighting; "reverse" on guard.
• Drawing a high line attack then countering with a ducking low attack, "passata-sotto".
• Binds with "hand turn", with using forte.
• Learn parry 1? try for more/better parry 8 instead of parry 2 (mine tend to be too big)
• Glides "from any position"?
• Flick / thrown thrust / arc or arcing thrust.

That over the head thing

Don't know what this kind of thing is called. Something related to "parry 9"?

It is probably "supposed" to be like this.

And these are just ugly...