Exercises: elbow, footwork, etc

Having had a little time off regular fencing due to holidays and so on, and also because of developing some elbow soreness, I've collected some information on things to practice, including basic footwork and extension stuff, elbow stretches and so on.

I asked about elbow soreness on the Reddit fencing subreddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Fencing/comments/1tbbev/elbow_soreness/

Suggestions include:

• "ice it after every practice"
• rest, dont overdo it in practice
• beware of hyper-extending your arm
• practice keeping actions small and relaxed, with fewer binds, using a "giving motion" ("here, let me share this with you...") instead of hyper-extending
• maybe try a tennis elbow strap

Also these "therabar" rubber bar exercises:

There are other therabar exercises but I haven't gotten to them yet.

On practicing footwork and extension basics, these videos are good:










And here is a long video with many exercises. Specific exercises begin at 14:20 and get increasing difficult, far beyond what my old body can hope to do.

RCFC Thursday Night D & Under Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24056&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=96496

Well, oddly mixed pool results. I lost to John Comes off the bat, and also lost to Xiao Long Phillips, who it seemed like I should have been able to beat. But I beat Kyle Margolies 5-1 and Luke LaRocque 5-2. People were impressed with my winning against Luke, who went on to win the whole tournament. I had fenced him in a DE once before I kind of knew what to expect. My notes told me to be patient and wait for openings, and to play with distance, which is what I did. Once I was up a couple points it was easy to be patient and wait for him. Since there were only 18 fencers it was only a D1 event, and since the top four fencers already had Ds no one earned any rating tonight.

In the DEs I was slotted with Kyle Margolies, who I seem to have been fencing a lot lately. After fencing a DE with him in the last tournament and in this one's pool I thought I had a decent chance. And I was in the lead most of the time too. But in the end he made some good touches and I made some bad moves and he won 15-12. In particular: two or three too many times I made straight in attacks and ended up over-extended and awkwardly off-balance, forced into a kind of prime, half-turned position. He easily scored in those cases. He also made a nice touch to my hand near the end.

This isn't the first time I've been ahead for most of a DE and lost in the last few points. Perhaps I ought to ramp up the energy toward the end of DEs.

An unpleasant thing: Lately after fencing my elbow has been sore, seemingly more and more each time. It was quite sore after fencing the DE with Kyle tonight. It seems worse when I use the Dragonetti grip, which I did in my first pool bout with John Comes. I switched to a regular Visconti grip after that, but man it is a bit painful now as I type this. Maybe I should take a week or two off fencing and see if it improves.

D & Under Mixed Epee at SAS

http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=97559&highlight_competitor_id=91067

Did fine in the pools, won 3 lost 3. Went to 4-4 against Craig Haworth and won, which felt good—I lost to him in the finals of a U tournament, and then twice more at another tournament. I was waiting for my chance for revenge!...in a friendly-like way, of course.

Pool results:

But, having done okay in the pools I went and lost my first DE, against Kyle Margolies—and pretty badly too, 15-9. Kyle and I had fenced a DE once before, at a RCFC tournament. That time we got to 14-14 and I had scored the final point. When he saw he had to fence me he said something like "oh no!" Of course I was thinking something similar.

I went into my bout with Kyle with a decent plan, having a good chunk of notes about him I had written down when we last fenced. My notes told me to fence with patience, play with distance, pacing, and broken rhythms. To try using second intentions and beware of flicks, foot attacks, and his ability to "escape parries and takes". I planned to fence with these things in mind, and to try to use my recent practice of pushing distance to draw attacks, then hopping back and re-attacking. But my fencing was just not up to doing what I was intending. Russ, who was the director, pointed out afterward that I was fencing "stiffly", which I agreed with, and that I was getting too close. I said I had been trying to push him with distance, and Russ replied sure, but if you do that you need to keep your hand and arm back, which...yea.

In hindsight I think part of my trouble (other than Kyle fencing well) was the very long wait I had between pools and DEs. There were four pools and the one I was in finished long before the others. There was about an hour wait between my last pool bout and my DE with Kyle. His pool, on the other hand, was one of the last to finish. I didn't quite realize it until we started fencing, but that long wait brought my energy level way down and I felt like I was fencing slowly and, as Russ said, stiffly. So, a lesson: if there's a wait that long in a tournament do something to get warmed up again, physically and mentally.

Also, I went into the DE thinking so much about using broken rhythm, pacing, distance, second intention, and so on, I ended up forgetting some important basic things, like keeping blade motions small, using fingers, decent footwork, and such stuff. Afterward Kyle told me not only could he tell I kept trying to take his blade (which I was doing more out of habit than because it was a good idea), but that as the bout went on my motions got larger and larger, making it easier and easier for him. Most of all though, I think I was "cold", physically and mentally, by the time we started, and wasn't able to apply my "plan" nearly as well as I might have if I had done something to get back in the zone.

Whoever won that first DE would have to fence TK Goldenbaum, a fencer I hadn't heard of before but who had seeded 3rd and was from Portland. Going on just those two facts I thought it would be unlikely I would be able to beat him—and had I won against Kyle I still would have had to have won against TK in order to earn an E rating. So even before I started against Kyle I had more or less put the thought of an E out of mind. But I shouldn't read too much into pool results (or being from Portland!). Kyle beat TK 15-3. TK kept fleching from out of distance, and Kyle repeatedly caught him in 6 parries, scoring over and over the same way. I think TK's pool might have been easier than the others, although he did beat both Carlo Malaguzzi and Mark Blom—although in both cases 5-4, so.

Kyle was a U and, having won against TK, earned his E. His third DE was against Adam Chase. If Kyle won that bout he would earn a D rating. It was a dramatic bout to watch. Adam is a pretty aggressive fencer but Kyle did very well with parry-ripostes, binds, and counterattacks, like my notes about him suggested he might. Kyle had a decent lead a few times but in the end it wound up 14-14, and Adam scored the final touch and won. Then Adam had to fence Andrew Lee, who was doing quite well. Andrew had beaten Rick Zehr 15-1, then Mark Blom 15-13, then Steven Benack, 15-9 (Steven was the 2nd seed). He fenced Adam on the raised strip as it was the semifinals by then. Andrew, who is only 14 (Adam isn't much older than that himself), has improved a lot since I first fenced him last year. He has a fairly calm, defensive style with good, controlled technique. He is good with his parries and ripostes, but also has a nice fleche to balance his defense, and is pretty fast on his feet in general, in a way similar to his father, Tobias. This was just the kind of style to use against Adam, who is strong and "well rounded" as a fencer, but can tend to drive a little too hard, sometimes over-committing and sometimes getting frustrated, which rarely helps one's fencing. Anyway, Andrew won fairly handily, 15-9. However, by getting 3rd place Adam earned his D.

I took and edited some videos, and added slow-motion for some of the touches. They are in HD and worth enlarging. Even so the quality is not great. Also my camera only has so much memory, so these are fairly short videos showing only a few touches each (and sometimes not the best touches either, but hey)

A brief bit of Adam Chase and Kyle Margolies:



Andrew Lee and Adam Chase:



In the other half of the DE tree Cameron Brown was the 1st place seed. He was in my pool so I got to fence him and watch him. He was quite good, with a wide range of tactics, lots of ducks, feints, foot attacks, flicks, and such. He was also very confident. From time to time he made mistakes, and often used very large motions which made it easier to take advantage of mistakes. I managed 3 points to his 5 in the pools. Still, he's young, strong, very fast, and has a large bag of tricks. In the end he fenced Andrew Lee for first place and won 15-10 (which was Andrew 5th DE bout (Cameron had a bye so only had 4 DE bouts)—me, I've almost never had more than 2 DEs). I didn't see all of his bouts, but it appears none were particularly close. He beat Brook Stehler 15-5, then Craig Haworth 15-10 in an exciting bout. Then Cameron fenced Royal Elder, who had just beaten Carlo Malaguzzi 15-14. Cameron and Royal fenced on the raised strip and Cameron won 15-10.

Craig Haworth and Cameron Brown:



Carlo Malaguzzi and Royal Elder:



Andrew Lee and Cameron Brown:


All in all it was an enjoyable tournament. There were 28 fencers, making it a C1 event. Oddly there were only a few from SAS. There were a good number of local people I'm increasingly familar with, from RCFC, WFA, and MTFC, like Craig, John Comes (Matthew Comes is a C so couldn't compete, but was there giving advice to his WFA clubmates), Carlo, Kyle, Mark Blom, Steven Benack, and of course Andrew Lee, whose parents were there too. Then there was a bunch of people I wasn't as familar with, some local but a good number from Portland, some from Bellingham, and some from Idaho ("Vandal Swordplay" club, in Moscow, Idaho). In all it was an interesting crowd. And although I did only so-so, well, I had fun and hey, I beat Craig finally.

I think there will only be one more tournament for me before 2013 is over—another D and under epee event, at RCFC in a week and a half. So far only 11 people have signed up, so it may be one of those "just for fun" events, unless I win outright of course.