Fencing At Home

So we’re in a pretty weird time. Around the world people are stuck at home, limiting their activities, keeping distance from one another. When I was running our Division’s National Qualifier we had to begin using the new rule of saluting with no handshake and minimizing fencer contact with paperwork. That didn’t last long because pretty quickly everything shut down. Quickly enough that no one had time to respond or plan for it. So many of us are still trying to find ways to keep up with fencing and keep athletes ready for the new season once things go back to normal.

          The first thing we can do is keep working out. Fencing provides a work out, but even when we’re in our clubs and on the strip we need to do a lot of additional work out activities if we want to be competitive and successful. So now that we aren’t in our clubs we need to make sure we’re working out even more. Most areas still allow people to go out for runs so keep that up. Otherwise at home work outs.

          With the at home work outs we should get some home drills in too. I’ve been doing Zoom classes for my students where we talk about the mental end of fencing stuff. One of my students warmed up for class today by running while we waited for his teammates, when the team did a social chat he had his golf ball and was working on point control while on the chat. This is a great commitment.

So lets go over some drill ideas.

Foil and Epee

Point Control

The easy obvious one is a golf ball. If you don’t want to set up a permanent hook from which to hang a golf ball you can get a command hook with removable double sided tape to temporarily attached to the ceiling. You’ll need an eye hook and rope. Drill a hole in the golf ball for the eye hook, and tie the rope between the eye hook and the hook from the ceiling.

Start off at lunge distance. For a lot of drills we begin close and move further out, but an extension distance doesn’t give you room to aim until you start to get your point control down.

Lunge, hit the ball, stay in the lunge, and manipulate the tip with your fingers so that you can hit the ball a second time as it swings back. The remise hit will allow you to focus on fine control a little more.

Once you have that down move to an advance lunge. Once you’ve got that will you can try from an extension distance, or an extension with an advance. Or try moving in and out and lunging.

If you can’t set up a golf ball you can set up a target. Some scrap leather framed with some padding will work, but to go a simpler route take a spare pillow and some tape. Make some cross marks on the pillow with the tape and set it against a wall and use the crosses as targets.

Epeeists if you have an old shoe tape it to the floor or put a weight in the shoe. Something to hold it down. You can work on point control hitting the toe of the shoe. Again, add movement back and forth,  then add making a feint to an imaginary wrist and drop to the toe.  

Disengages

When I learned to make disengages they told us to practice with door knobs. It’s still a decent option. Take your weapon extend and move the tip under the knob from one-side to the other. Make sure the movement is done by manipulating the grip with your fingers only so it stays a small motion. You can add the double, or the completed circle, by practicing rotating in a single direction fully around the door knob. Then try the other direction.

Sabre

Set a mask on the back of a chair from an extension distance make a cut to the left side of the mask and then recut from the fingers. Rotate the hand to the top of the head and cut from the fingers and then recut again. Rotate again to the right side cut from the fingers and then recut. Make the same rotation going back. The idea is from the extension to develop quick sharp small finger motions in a controlled fashion.

If you can situate the mask roughly the height of the head of someone standing en garde you can practice making head cuts. Begin at an extension distance, then advance with extension, then lunge, then advance lunge and double advance lunge. Then add back and forth movement. Then if there is room add a recovery with a distance pull.

You can also combine moving with the head cut and the double tap rotation. Move in and out and then lunge in and make the cut rotation sequence once then recover and retreat back to your movement and repeat.

Thanks for reading. Try these out, post in the comments about how it goes and about how you’re keeping your head in the game.

If you have enjoyed this and our other posts you can follow us on Facebook to stay up to date, you can also support us through Ko-Fi. We appreciate you reading!

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.

If you have enjoyed this and our other posts you can follow us on Facebook to stay up to date, you can also support us through Ko-Fi. We appreciate you reading!

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. 

Sports Talk

Do you say “athlete” or do you say “fencer”? Do you say “I’m going to fence” or do you say “I play fencing”?

I’ve found when talking with people from college clubs, or fencing clubs in the US you get the fencing specific jargon. When talking to international fencers and NCAA fencers you get more sports style talk.

I was at a clinic once being taught by a really good French foil coach. The clinic was amazing. There were some pretty good coaches there learning stuff from some pretty awesome coaches. There were also a lot of rec coaches who didn’t know too much. A moment that stood out for me was when we were going through vocab, someone used a French fencing term. The coach running the clinic began to poke fun at him for being an American trying to use French.

Going to college events I’ve seen beginner referees trying to referee in French with bad pronunciation and incorrect words.

Sometimes people treat fencing like a weird niche activity instead of treating it like a sport. The romantic flair of Erol Flynn overtakes the high paced, physically and intellectually challenging athletics involved.

Fencing’s uniqueness has its benefits. It gives a backdrop for fencing culture that can build community and connections.

Knowing French fencing terms as sort of an international language of fencing can be useful. I had a student who trained and competed in South Korea for a year, and her temporary club mates thought she was a beginner because she didn’t know any of the French fencing terms. They realized she wasn’t once she started constantly medaling in competitions. It’s convenient that we have language that we can use to approach fencing when connecting with the world wide community of fencers.

On the flip side…what are athletes looking for when they look for sports and sports clubs? Are they looking for a place that will teach them to perform or are they looking for a place to be different? Clubs should be able to provide a space for both.

Fencing’s unique jargon, connection to history, and association with sword fighting and dueling provides a built in space for people looking for a unique recreational activity.

Those same elements can also be a barrier for drawing in competitive athletes.

I’ve had athletes ask how to get more competitive people and experienced athletes onto the team, or into the club or into the sport in general.

Treat it like a sport. From day one.

Focus on the opportunity to develop as a competitor from day one.

Encourage athletic training and work outs from day one.

Before people get to day one they have to be interested. Show them competitive success. Show them the physical complexity and intensity of training. Refer to it like a sport.

If athletes see it as something that can challenge them and develop them as athletes they will be interested. But that has to be up front. If it looks like playing Robin Hood they might be less inclined.

We keep Robin Hood and Zorro for the kids looking for that, but we need to remember we’re a sport, and keep that on the front line if we want kids to go in knowing that they have the opportunity to be successful athletes.

If you have enjoyed this and our other posts you can follow us on Facebook to stay up to date, you can also support us through Ko-Fi. We appreciate you reading!

Winding The Clock

 A conversation with a friend during a work out recently brought up the issue of sleep. He complained that he didn’t feel he had performed as well as he should have at a NAC because he couldn’t reset his sleep well enough so he did not get much sleep. I’ve had college athletes run into issues with this. Teenage athletes often make poor choices about sleep. So here are some things to keep in mind.

First, you won’t perform well if you’re tired from lack of sleep. Being tired from fencing is something you can reduce by building endurance in training. You can engage in training exercises to help you overcome performance drops when you’re tired from effort. But being tired because you didn’t sleep the night before could slow reaction times, it can reduce your ability to make choices, it can lower your attention and focus. Your ability to see, assess, and respond will drop even if you can still move around fine. You could easily lose some of your drive to win.

So we need to plan to be able to sleep.

High School and College athletes sometimes want to go out with friends or party the night before an event. Events are usually on weekends, social time is usually on weekends it can be an unfortunate match up. While adults working as officials might say “Guess I’m not going out that weekend since I’m refereeing in the morning.” Young athletes might feel like they can handle it. One of my middle schoolers once thought he could convince his friends to leave him alone so he could sleep if he stayed over at a sleep over party the night before a qualifier.

As expected…they kept him up more because he asked to be allowed to sleep.

I’ve had college kids oversleep and miss meets, or need teammates to come to dorms to wake them up. It hasn’t happened in a long time but some have shown up drunk or hung over. Most commonly you get them up late at night and then not awake enough to perform the first round or two.

How do you avoid this?

Don’t tell them not to have fun.

Allow some fun. Make sure they schedule it early enough that they can finish early and get to sleep. Make sure they have guidelines for good choices so the don’t over do it. Trying to convince them, college students or high school students, to just stay in and do nothing won’t consistently work. Giving a little room but with guidance for good choices can help.

Even better…set up a social activity. If you have a team, set up a team dinner, and some games or social time. A scrimmage or fencing game can work too. Then remind them to hit the hay when they’re done.

For athletes in general, regardless of age, sleep for tournaments involving travel can be tough. It’s pretty normal for people to have trouble adjusting to sleep in new surroundings. It can be harder to get to sleep and if you do get to sleep the sleep may not be as sound or refreshing.

Sleep aids aren’t a good solution for this because it might be harder to wake up sharp the next morning, or they might make you need more sleep than you have time for.

The best solution is to travel a day early. If its an important enough event and your competition is Sunday, arrive Friday night if you know you need adjustment to be able to sleep. Or Thursday night if you’re fencing Saturday. If that’s not a possibility, bringing a pillow from home, an air freshener that matches what you use in your bedroom, or something familiar that will help you feel more at home can help. Meditation and relaxation exercises might help solve it too.

The final sleep issue we see a lot is a poor sleep wake cycle relative to your tournament schedule. If you’re on spring break or summer vacation, or if you’re in college and keep weird hours, or if you’re just home and have an open schedule and tend to be up late and sleep late…you probably will have trouble getting to bed on time to get enough sleep for your tournament.

Athletes are often clever enough to try and adjust when they’re going to bed a few days before hand. I frequently here from them how they didn’t start early enough so it didn’t work. Usually the problem is they move the wrong direction when winding the clock.

Human circadian rhythms are set off from the day and night cycle. So when we adjust them we have to be careful how we do it. Trying to force our bodies to go to bed earlier than we’re used to can be pretty hard. It often does not result in us waking up earlier. Even if it does it does not usually result in a comfortable reset that sticks.

If we want to reset our sleep wake times we need to wind forward. So if you’re used to going to bed at 3am and waking up at 11am but you’ll need to be up at 6am to be ready to leave by 7am to reach the venue by 8am for your 9am event. You need to be able to get enough sleep comfortably to be able to wake up at a time way different than you’re used to, be refreshed, and able to warm up and function normally.

To do this a few days earlier start adjusting your sleep time so you go to bed a few hours later and wake up a few hours later. So instead of 3am go to bed at 7am. Then go to bed at 11am. Then 4pm. Then 8pm. Then you’re set. Your sleep wake cycle will have adjusted and you should be able to comfortably sleep at your new time, wake up correctly refreshed, and keep that new cycle if you want it.

Hopefully this advice is helpful as you plan to get good sleep for your tournaments. Hopefully you understand how important good sleep is and are planning to make sure you get it, not just for tournaments but in general!

If you liked this, follow us on Facebook for more.

Awards, Scholarships, and Stuff

Well, around the world, everything is pretty crazy at the moment. But we're seeing a lot of people do the right thing and stay home and find solutions to help keep communities going without exposing people to more danger or risk. A lot of parts of government are trying to support and encourage this, and hopefully a lot of employers are being compassionate to their workers with this.

For  Triweapon Fencing, UMBC Fencing, and Fencing Institute of America Baltimore we've been working together to provide non-traditional options for our fencers to maintain their education and interest in fencing.

But fencing isn't always just about learning a sport, or about learning to support the sport through refereeing, or tournament management or armoring. Fencers are people, and the sport only has meaning when we treat the fencer as a person in tota.

This is how my coach did things, and it's how I always try to approach things.

For college fencers they are losing their National Championship in April. Locally we've lost our regional championship and I assume many other regions have as well. Seniors are losing their graduation ceremonies, and their experience of their last semester on campus. With all of these things gone it's a loss of several opportunities for athletes to be recognized for their hard work.

USA fencing is trying to figure out how things will work for Summer Nationals and the IOC just postponed the Olympics. Moving stuff like this around or losing stuff like this can feel disappointing, but it's better than the alternative and it's pretty epic that globally we can all pull together to find solutions to protect people.

But still...while we find ways to keep fencing going by sending out blogs, or videos, or giving people bouts to watch or teaching online...we can't let the community part drop either.

For my UMBC team we brought back our annual cook out last year, and this year planned to bring back the end of year awards we traditionally did with that cook out. For my youth fencers we do awards during December, and graduations and other ceremonies in August...so they might be ok. But for the college kids we'll be working to figure out how to still provide recognition.

I hope other programs do the same.

With that in mind, I am imagining USA Fencing is still doing their annual awards and scholarship programs. The deadlines for those will be coming up soon. Clubs usually post info in their clubs (we have hand outs up in our vestibule). But postings and hand outs don't help right now.

I was going to send an email out to my students, but figured it might be better to post here in case other people miss announcements because of missed practices, so everyone in the community gets the chance to be reminded that they've worked hard, we still appreciate their hard work and success, and here is the info for some of the opportunities to get recognized for it.

Currently the websites don't say the awards are postponed or suspended. So hopefully they're still running as planned. Check out the links below!

https://www.usafencing.org/all-american-team

This first one recognizes your work as an athlete and acknowledges high school students who have earned or renewed a rating during the current season.

The deadline is 11:59pm May 1st 2020. You will need a school transcript.

https://www.usafencing.org/athletes-scholarships
https://app.smarterselect.com/programs/64246-Usa-Fencing

The Absolute Fencing All Academic Team Scholarship acknowledges athletes who do well academically. Fencers can apply just for recognition, which requires a little less work, or they can also apply for a scholarship. The scholarship consideration will require a teacher recommendation letter and an essay by the fencer.

A school transcript is also required.

The deadline is 11:59pm May 1st 2020.

So check these out and get the recognition your hard work deserves.

For more updates like this, and ideas, thoughts, and items of interest for fencers, coaches and parents, follow us on Facebook and please share us with friends and team mates!

Two Ways of Considering Errors

Recently I was listening to an older fencer talk with a younger fencer. He asked the fencer why he was doing something he was doing. The fencer gave an answer, and honestly, what he was doing was not the most adaptive choice he could have been making. The older fencer responded that the kid wasn’t wrong in his choice because he scored the touch so it must have been right.

Later in the night I was giving a lesson and the athlete I was working with commented that when he kind of follows instructions he can sort of make the action work, but that it seems more solid and consistent when fully follows the instruction. This should kind of be obvious, the more correctly you do something, the better the result.

My response to him was something along the lines of “You’re at a point where almost right isn’t good enough.”

Thinking about it later made me think on the two different approaches to the idea of an error. Both students could score with what they were doing. One would continue his error because it worked in practice, the other was going to fix it.

The student continuing the error will eventually find that against a more serious opponent or a better opponent, the bad choice won’t work as well. The student working to improve his mistake will have a tool he can use in a broader number of scenarios than he can use now.

A tough thing with recognizing that we have to do things right even if the wrong thing works is that sometimes our mistakes get rewarded and our efforts to correct how we make an action get shut down.

In a bout a student might do something ridiculous that scores because his partner does something poorly or ill chosen. Or it might just be too weird for their opponent to figure out how to stop. A student recognizing an error and trying to fix it might think he’s fixed it and might just be fencing a better opponent, or someone who knows how to stop that action, or someone who gets lucky with a weird touch. They might take steps to fix their action and the steps might just not be enough to fix it…yet. Not scoring might reinforce not using the action or not making the correction, and so sometimes we have to help illustrate the incremental improvement, or how the execution is better even if its not yet successful.

On the flip side, sometimes we have to make the awkward choice of explaining that something was not a good choice even when it seems like it worked. Students don’t always get this when it’s explained because the positive reinforcement from scoring is stronger than us telling them otherwise. Even if we show them that the mistake loses against a better executed response, the positive reinforcement of scoring is stronger than the positive punishment of getting scored on. So if we let the mistake go long enough it can be tough to extinguish it.

A helpful element in this is if the student has a cohort of teammates they’re close with and they all have a sense of what the right way to execute the actions are, even if they can’t all consistently do them. Not only do they help remind each other to correct errors but having that culture of being committed to correctness allows the students to focus on it themselves as well. When they begin to correct themselves as soon as they notice the mistake it can help get them on track before the error is reinforced.

While having some sort of negative response to poor execution isn’t necessary, I’ve had college students who would assign themselves push ups if they realized they were executing actions incorrectly. I’ve had youth fencers successfully extinguish some basic errors in their teammates with the same approach. Self-directed and peer directed correction can be pretty powerful and offset the strength that reinforcement through scoring with the wrong choice would otherwise have.

The biggest piece of this though is just instilling a sense of the importance of correct execution and the broader success that it will lead to. That said, students still need to understand that once they have it right then they have room for personalization and innovation. 

Follow us on Facebook for more.