Red Riding Hoods – Fleche and Other Footwork Training

This drill can be done by a fencer with their parent or friend. So it can be assigned as homework or it can be one parents can adopt to do with their fencer.

One of the big things with training the fleche is to be able to execute from any point in your movement without telegraphing that you're about to. The fleche should explosively take an opponent by surprise. They should not have the time to realize the fleche is happening or to respond.

If an athlete has to fully settle their feet before beginning a fleche, they lose the moment in which it would be effective. If an athlete has to load the body and set up the weight to be explosive, they lose the element of surprise.

This exercise is a fun one. My youth fencers love it – despite it being strenuous. I originally started using it for my college fencers to help teach them to fleche suddenly from light footwork movement. The team of beginner fencers who first adopted this drill went on to win their conference's foil title three years running. Obviously, this drill was not the only element of their success – but their ability to make sudden bursting attacks, counters, and attacks in prep, helped set them apart.

It is also adaptable. You can change the footwork involved, or even dispense with footwork altogether.

It's pretty simple. The leader tells a story. While the leader is telling the story the fencers “float” or maintain a dynamic guard (they bounce back and forth lightly or shuffle constantly between their feet, if they have trouble with this an advance-retreat in place pattern is fine).

Certain types of words trigger certain responses. Usually you only want two. You could work it as a recognition and choice drill by adding more than two – but this can be difficult and those are better as visual drills.

For example, we tell a faery tale and every time an animal word is used the fencer's fleche, every time a color word is used they do a burpee.

Number words can be an option also. Or the name of a character. Faery tales are the easiest to use, but we used The Death of Superman once. One of our youth athletes likes leading the drill and makes up stories. The important parts are

1. Keeping the story fun and interesting so athletes enjoy the exercise despite the work
2. Embellishing the story in the extreme – partially to keep it interesting; in order to add the trigger words as much as possible.

Your chosen responses can vary.

For footwork we commonly use fleche, flunge, double advance-lunge. You could use a distance pull-lunge. You could add an explosiveness exercise and do a scissor jump lunge, or a squat lunge.

For conditioning we typically use burpees or sit ups, but you could use jumping squats, or sprints, or even sit ups. It should just be a small number, or even only one, so that they can reset to their constant movement quickly. You'll also be making them do it several times throughout the story so they don't have to do a lot each time the word is said since you'll say your trigger words several times.

If you want to focus on creating a work out instead of focusing on footwork then you might try three or four cue words. You can increase the cue words in this instance because they don't have to worry about quick reaction on a precise or correct execution of a fencing movement, they are just doing a simpler exercise movement which should be more natural to them. Then set all trigger words for exercise movements. So colors trigger a burpee, numbers trigger a jumping squat, and animals trigger a sprint.

If they get the cue wrong, give them a jovial reminder of what the cues are. It's not a choice or decision drill so the error doesn't really need any firm correction – they just need to get on track so they get the most out of the drill.

Thanks

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Red riding hood image found on pintrest by Edli on Deviant Art, classic fleche image taken from Sydney Sabre

A Footwork Conditioning Exercise

Last summer I put together a sequence of footwork conditioning exercises for one of my students. He was really working at his fencing, but wasn't working out much. His footwork needed some help. It seemed like perfecting his footwork form would get easier if he had some more strength in his legs, specifically strength oriented towards the activity.

He used it through the summer and into the new season and saw a major improvement in his footwork. He then progressed from a D to a B during the course of the COVID shortened season. Another one of our fencers worked the routine and went from just starting fencing, to making it into the top 100 on the Cadet National Points List in that same shortened season.

In both their cases, they practiced multiple times a week for several hours. But footwork is your foundation and so improvements in footwork and better conditioning on the legs probably helped a lot. So this was potentially one of several factors to help them with their success.

We've been using it over our summer camps this summer, and into week two we're already seeing footwork improvements from the week one fencers.

The routine is really simple and can be done at home or at your club. You'll need a timer, a jump rope, a weight, and a length of space about as long as a fencing strip.

First step is advancing and retreating.

Advance the length of the strip, then retreat the length of the strip. First set do slowly, stay focused on your form.

Repeat at a medium pace. Focus on your form.

Repeat at a fast pace, focus on your form. This is a little harder at the fast pace but still necessary.

Now go at your maximum pace, stay attentive to form.

Now you'll work backwards. Do another fast set, then a medium set and finish with a slow set.

You're working your way up in speed and then bringing it back down. The first half works on maintaining form the second half on fixing form.

Second step is Sabre Runs

Sprint from one end of the strip to the other, then slowly walk back.

This simulates the explosive burst of going forward in a fencing action, and then the recovery from the action while you return to the line. It mimics the burst-rest interval experience of sabre.

When sprinting push to your limit. Try and push each sprint faster. This is how sprinting works to develop muscle speed. The muscles push to use more power so they adapt to normalize that power.

Third step is Jump Rope.

Set 2 or 3 minutes on the clock depending upon capability. Jump rope as consistently as possible during that time.

You're working on cardio, but also a little bit on hand eye and foot coordination.

The fourth step is Weighted Lunging

Grab a weight. Hold the weight to your chest. Lunge and recover forward the length of the strip and then back.

When you're done repeat on your non-dominant leg.

You can add a second or third set of these depending upon capability.

The fifth and final step are Standing Broad Jumps

Take your weight and hold it to your chest. From a stationary position, standing as if in guard, jump forward explosively using only your back leg.

Repeat this up and back the length of the strip.

Repeat the process with your non-dominant leg.

This is a power exercise, so time is a component.

The best way to do this is to run a stop watch and clock how much time it takes you to do one set on each leg.

Rest for about thirty seconds and then do both legs again. Run the stop watch to see if you improved your time.

Rest for about thirty seconds and repeat again. Run the stop watch to see if you beat both previous times.

If doing this for a group you can set partners to time each other, or you can have fencers count the number of jumps they take and try to beat the number each time.

You're only trying to beat the time or number done by that leg. So all your jumps on your right leg compare to each other but not to your jumps on the left leg, and visa versa.

Notes

There is a tendency when doing this to take huge breaks when one is left to their own devices. You have to fight this tendency. One student would stretch this to an hour or an hour and a half when he could. You can finish this in about 25 to 40 minutes.

My best friend is kind of into cross-fit. When he saw a student doing this set he was not a fan because it was all such specific exercises focused on such specific sort of uses of the legs. It is specifically a series of exercises to help develop footwork. It's important to do other conditioning and physical development that is more general as well.

Thanks

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Some Thoughts on Lunging

When you get to the end, there's a challenge for people stuck at home!

I asked my college students in their meme chat, which is not affiliated with the fencing program, to ask me some fencing questions. I wanted some thoughts for things to talk about that weren't just me thinking coachy things.

The first response I got was “how do I lunge” I thought this was kind of a smart alleck question, but it's really not bad. The lunge is something we think of as so basic that it's easy to overlook details. It's also something that we can get too caught up in the details of when introducing it and so we make it seem more difficult than it is. There are definitely things I'd explain when teaching a lunge that I don't hear frequently, and there is probably stuff I should be explaining that I miss.

If I was going to give a quick run down on lunging I would say

1.     Lift the front toes just enough to release the pressure of the front foot.

2.     Push forward from the back leg to propel the body forward

Pretty basic. If you followed those instructions, maybe you lunged.

Maybe not.

Some people might point out that I didn't talk about arms. The first part of lunging is extending your front arm, right?

Well maybe it isn't. Maybe you're making a body feint and you're going to flex your shoulder first to draw a parry, or maybe you're holding back the attack, or you're going to flick, or you're close enough to finish with a bent arm.

We don't have to explain that all those options are there for a beginner, but if we start with the feet and then add the extension then we can have more room to play with the extension more easily as we move forward.

So lets add the extension...

1.     Slowly begin extending the arm.

2.     Imagine a cord between the wrist and the leg so the as the arm pulls forward the legs launch forward

3.     As the legs launch forward sharply accelerate the extension of the arm

Well...why are we adding this bit about sharply extending the arm?

We don't have to...but, frequently that final bit of speed will add to the effectiveness of the attack. It's also an easier speed variance to introduce than slowing the arm. It plays well into how a lot of people read the right of way on the attack in foil and sabre.

Where's the back arm? We need that equal and opposite reaction if we want speed right?

No. That's not how physics works. That's just something fencing coaches say.

But we can add extending the back arm, because it will help us keep our balance, it draws the back upright and helps us keep that straight, and it allows us to rotate our shoulders, which simultaneously extends the reach of our front arm, and allows us to extend more from the muscles in our back and shoulders and less from the arm so that we have greater endurance on the extension.

So we've got some basics...but now maybe some details.

People will often point out that the front toe should be pointed forward. Sometimes we say it should be pointed at the opponent but we have a meter and a half of space the opponent might not be in line with us. We frequently explain that if the toe is pointed somewhere other than forward we won't lunge forward.

I don't know why we say such things, but you can, and people do, lunge straight with their foot turned.

It's important to line the foot up to avoid injury. But not just the foot, the knee and the hip too. The force when the leg comes down for the lunge can be pretty extreme, so if our knee is twisted or our ankle is twisted and the force is pulling things in different directions it can be detrimental. So keep the whole front leg lined up properly.

This brings up too other elements of feet and legs. The over lunge, and rolling the back foot.

Both of these issues tie into the question of how long should the lunge be.

For beginners I try to tell them to let the lunge end naturally. If you extend the back leg and just let the front leg glide forward then the back leg should stop when its done and the front leg will settle in that point. Trying to push further is where we run into the over lunge and the rolled back foot. If students have trouble with this idea, its simple enough to tell them not to let the front knee come past the front ankle and not to roll the back foot. Frankly explaining potential injuries there is usually enough to keep people mindful.

Once students can lunge comfortably without these mistakes adding in shorter, medium and longer lunges can be useful.

More than that I follow the instruction of my last coach, AK, who distinguished between attacking at reach and attacking at distance. In his approach your reach is where you can comfortably attack while being in control of the situation and being in balance enough to easily recover and escape. In your reach you can address a parry or distance pull, and you can recover and pull distance if needed. An attack at your distance is an attack from your maximum length, the point from which you can make an advance lunge using your full lunge capacity.

If we want to add to the idea of differing lengths of the lunge, I think this is a good approach.

What if students point out that high level athletes often lunge onto the side of their foot?

I think it's good to just own this right away. Lunging onto the side of the foot is dangerous because if you can't control the force of your lunge and you move incorrectly you can tear things in the ankle. Athletes with more awareness of their bodies and how they move and the extent of their ability to lunge can and do add length by rolling the foot without allowing a weight shift that would likely create damage.

While we're talking about the feet the height of the front foot is a good detail to address. When I was learning to fence, one of my coaches always called me out for rearing up and raising my front foot really high. I didn't think I was doing it. I probably was. I honestly don't know when I got really focused on not raising the foot, but its really important to me now.

I can get a group of 20 or so fencers to all lunge simultaneously with the softest little sound when it finishes because their feet just glide. 

If you raise your foot too much you're taking time away from your forward motion so you're slowing down your attack. This could lose you right of way or it could lead to you getting hit in prep or with a counter attack.

Additionally, your knee can only take so much damage over time. So raising your foot really high and slamming it down unnecessarily creates a lot of unnecessary impact for your knee, your feet, and your shins.

An exercise a coach once introduced me to was putting a quarter under your toe. When you lunge your heel should only come off the ground about the height of the quarter so when you lunge the quarter will slide forward. If placed right, it will slide in a straight line if your lunge is straight.

If we move up somewhat we can get to the hips. Once I was taking a lesson, and Coach just pushed on my waist a little to realign my hips. He didn't really say anything about it and he had this look on his face like I should have known to have them lined up that way. It made a huge difference in my movement. I was pretty shocked and it has always stuck with me how such a small detail could be so important.

It's a little hard to explain in text. Basically as you sit down into your lunge position, roll the hips forward slightly towards your front leg. This will pull in a little on the muscles of your back butt cheek. Some people find it also helps to tuck the butt in a bit. The result is kind of an almost shelf like hinge between the leg and the torso, so basically priming the hip joint for movement.

Later when working with AK he explained that this was setting the hip for the right type of movement in the hip flexor which allows for an effective lunge. You can lunge without doing this, but the lunge will be way better if you do this.

Once your hip is in place it lets us look at the back leg extension. Earlier I said to extend the back leg. At this point we can start saying EXPLODE the back leg. You want an explosive full extension of the back leg. Even on a short lunge, you'll adjust by angle rather than by reducing fullness. A pretty common mistake people make is to have a bent back leg. This reduces the length and power of the lunge and can also put strain on the leg.

If we have our hip lined up right the back leg explosion is pretty simple. Once you've loosened your front foot's grip on the ground, and the front leg is ready to go for a ride, then forcefully push the back foot into the ground. You would think you have to push at an angle, but if your hip is set right, then just pushing will launch you forward with the right motion.

Comparisons I like to make on the push are drawn from Dragonball Z. I thought we had hit a point where kids wouldn't know DBZ anymore, but that doesn't seem to be the case. In the Great Saiyaman story the characters explain that they fly by using their chi to push against the Earth. I like to think of exploding the back leg like you're pushing the Earth away with your back foot. So push with force intended to launch yourself, because that is literally what you are doing.

What part of the foot you push with might differ from coach to coach. Personally I focus on movement from the balls of the feet, so I think ultimately the ball of the foot is the best part to push with, but you can push effectively from the heel or with the whole foot as well.

Well, that's quite a bit on the lunge. There is probably more I could say on it, but those are my thoughts so far. Hopefully there are some ideas in there that might help improve your lunges, or improve how you explain lunges, or maybe you'll have some thoughts that'll help me in how I think about lunges.

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At home challenge: Since people around the world are stuck at home now...take the things you've learned in your fencing clubs and the ideas from this article and become the coach! Teach a family member to lunge. Post some photos or a video to your social media of your family working out and learning to lunge! Put your links in the comments.