A wise fencer lamented that fencing is nothing like a horse race. “You can’t put a donkey in horse race and reasonably believe it can win because it runs funny.”
But that’s the reality of fencing.
Then why do so many intermediate and advanced level fencers put in hours and hours trying to perfect the way they perform a specific action. Many people watch other successful fencers and say, “Wow that guy has a great 6 parry. If only I could do a six parry like that, I would be so much better…” Some of these people actually become obsessed with this process of perfecting “technique.”
[Note: Beginner fencers are in a different situation. They still need to do many repetitions of the same muscle movements to learn the basics. I’m talking about fencers who are trying to take the next step competitively in most of my posts.]
What most of these people don’t understand is why they should be doing actions this specific way in the first place. They just accept that a 6 parry should be done this way because someone told them that’s how you do it in the past. Why isn’t everyone stopping to answer this why question for themselves?!
Take some time to be introspective, or better yet start talking to your coach. Get them to explain to you why you are doing what you are doing. What is the strategy you are trying to accomplish? And why does moving my body in this way help you follow through with that strategy? The answer, “because this is technically correct,” is a load of crap. You and your coach need to be on the same page and have the same understanding of what the underlying game-plan is. Once you accomplish this, you can both work to optimize how you execute your actions to make that strategy work.
The underlying purpose of taking lessons and drilling specific actions should be about optimally applying the strategy you are trying to implement. If a “technically” correct action does not accomplish this, why not execute the action differently in a way that does?
You don’t get extra points for doing something pretty in a bout. An “ugly” action gives you the same number of points. What really matters is that the idea driving your fencing strategy is sound. Maybe this explains how fencers who don’t look very “technical” are often so successful. Far too often fencers who are successful using their own, unorthodox technique are dismissed as bad fencers for thinking outside the box in building their fencing technique. There is probably something valuable you could learn by respecting this type of fencer because there is usually a pretty well thought out strategy behind what they are doing. And heck it’s working for them. Maybe you should try understanding why it’s working for them on a deeper level instead of just getting frustrated feeling like you just lost to an inferior fencer.
Too many fencers waste their time trying to force a poorly thought out ideal of perfection in fencing and don’t take the time to process more important variables in fencing like building a tactical strategy, how to create the ideal situation to implement that strategy and how to adapt to the other fencer.
My coach gave provided a particularly illustrative nugget about fencing to me recently. “You are never going to be able to do the same touch twice.” Due to the ridiculous number of variables that exist in a fencing bout, you are never going to execute the exact same action because all of those other variables have to be exactly the same for it to work exactly the same way.
Your fencing technique should be flexible and trying to force yourself to be perfect at one specific muscle movement by an arbitrary standard of what fencing is “supposed to look like” will make you less able to that. I’ve seen so many fencers get so very frustrated by the futility of trying to do the same “perfect” action in bout after bout. I’m sorry but fencing doesn’t work like that. You can’t just pour in more repetitions and expect to be able to control all of the strategic variables in fencing the same way that you can for sports like running or swimming. This key difference is part of why a lot of pentathletes who get into the sport after being excellent runners or swimmers struggle more with fencing and horseback riding.
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Jonathan Yergler
The Fencing Athlete 
Reblogged this on The Fencing Coach and commented:
My good friend Jonathan Yergler has launched his blog! Check it out!
Excellent post. I was a collegiate rowing coach for many years and I believe rowing is every bit as technically challenging a sport as fencing. I would strive to teach each athlete the fundamentals during their freshman year and then give them to the varsity coachs to develop. The goal of rowing is to get your boat to the finish line first. Nothing more, nothing less. I have raced against very many boats that looked picture perfect on the water but had little success during races. Some of my fastest crews were some of my “ugliest looking” crews.
Excellent post. I was a collegiate rowing coach for many years and I believe rowing is every bit as technically challenging a sport as fencing. I would strive to teach each athlete the fundamentals during their freshman year and then give them to the varsity coaches to develop. The goal of rowing is to get your boat to the finish line first. Nothing more, nothing less. I have raced against very many boats that looked picture perfect on the water but had little success during races. Some of my fastest crews were some of my “ugliest looking” crews.
Thank you for reading! It’s great to have the cross-sport perspective as well.
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Good artilce. Reblogged on Fencing.Net.
Thank You!
Agreed up until “you’ll never get the same touch twice.” You can absolutely get the same touch twice. Four times, even:
Otherwise, great post! My father always told me about boxing: “it’s not a beauty contest” – and the same is true of fencing.
YouTube didn’t link to time – check out 2:54, Yakimenko vs. Pillet
Thanks for reading!
My counter argument would be that what you’re looking at is not necessarily exactly the same touch. It all depends on how broadly you are defining what “the same” is though I suppose. Sure you can score several times with a beat attack to a certain line of target in the same bout, but the exact execution will tend to be slightly different each time (hence the suggestion that it is futile to focus on technical “perfection”). Maybe the positioning on the strip is different. Maybe reaching the target requires a little more of a reach. Heck, since each touch influences every other touch in a bout to some degree, that fact that you scored on the last touch changes the mental environment as well which will affect a similar action’s execution.
The rub is the element of sameness. On the one hand no touch is exactly the same. On the other hand we know what we do well and what has to fall in line to make it work. I want to create very similar conditions with different fencers to lead them into my strongest action.
The paths may start from different places, but my goal is to take them to the same destination. They all converge at some point, some sooner and some later, the last steps for a favorite action may be nearly identical.
I’ll agrees on the “ugly” touch angle. When I was competing in foil, my best action was a parry 2, riposte.
It wasn’t pretty by ANY standard…big sweeping motion, my elbow came up, and the parry itself swung way out (I think I hit Peter Bouchard once while he was directing me at PCCs), but I managed to land it more often than not.
“Do what works” is always a good idea to follow.
There IS a place for well executed technique (aside from the beginners still figuring out which end of the weapon to hold) — A sabeur waltzing forward with his weapon arm cocked so his blade is pointing into his 4 and is horizontal is BEGGING for a hit to his forearm — but in general, I agree with the post.
Thanks for reading! In response I would argue that good technique is only as useful as the underlying strategy it is enabling you to execute. For example, I would argue that the waltzing saberist is displaying great technique if the underlying strategy is to bait the opponent into extending to reach that forearm target and then using that opportunity to beat the blade and take over right of way. I believe that thinking of ‘good technique’ as something unchanging and standard in fencing is what is outdated. Let me know what you think.
“When your spirit is not in the least clouded, when the clouds of bewilderment clear away, there is the true void” (Musashi, 1645). The secret of Void is this… there is no perfect technique… I’m glad of reading this article because I was thinking on the same fact about fencing (and other martial arts, Eastern and Western the same), success isn’t just made by training physically a lot (it is necessary, but it isn’t the only framework in fencing), but even more by studying new possibilities and new escenaries in a fencing bout; even if there are essential rules in fencing, there are huge possibilities of making techniques as better as our combat style and our own body may adopt at the moment. Some coaches are also obsessed with making their students practicing against their own “duel cosmovision,” making them being stuck at the moment of confronting their adversaries, possibly the root of the problem with “perfect techniques” is there, in coach-student relationship. Of course, coaches help their students to shape their techniques, but students sometimes need to “play” with flexible strategies and tactics in a bout, even by their own. That will make students’ experiences grow up in a balanced way.
Huge fan of the Musashi quotation! Thanks for reading!
You’re welcome! And thank you for writing this article, it made me remember the essence of fencing (and other martial arts).
This posting is very true. I knew a fencer who developed the most effective counter-six parry I’ve ever seen, either domestically or internationally. While many fencers can do rapid counter-sixes, the problem is what happens when they eventually make contact with the opponent’s blade. If their momentum carries the parry too far, this either causes the riposte to be delayed too long or allows the opponent to slip off the parry. The fencer that I knew, though, developed the ability to make each circle a distinct action and so was able to come off the parry as soon as he made contact with the opponent’s blade. It was very effective. He worked on this parry until it became a reflex whenever anyone attacked in the high-line. It became the only high-line parry that he practiced. Then, at an important international competition, he met a Russian fencer who had perfected the disengage. I was told that the bout was almost comical. As soon as the referee said “allez” the Russian ran at the American while doing disengages. The American’s parries were just fractionally slower and he’d get hit. His coach and teammates on the sidelines kept shouting “parry four” but the American had made the six parry so reflexive and hadn’t done a four parry for so long that he couldn’t and the bout was over with almost no time elapsed on the clock.
When I practiced I always spent time working on actions that I did NOT do well. I tried to make them more effective or find situations where they were more effective. It’s important to remember that it’s called practice because you’re suppose to practice then, not try to win. That’s when you should be working on strategies and tactics that you’ll need to win bouts in competition. If I found that there was an action that was particularly effective in practice, I would deemphasize practicing it. If there’s an action that you’re scoring touches on 50% of the time and you figure out ways to make it work 75% of the time you do it, that’s more beneficial than taking an action that you already find successful 75% of the time and work to bring it up to 77%.
It’s important to realize that no offensive action and no defensive action in fencing can be made 100% effective. For every fencing action, there are at least two counter actions that can be used against it. So you have to work on strategy and tactics so that you know alternate actions that you can do, which of those alternate actions will likely be most successful, and when to switch to them.
Be water, my friend
Really looking forward to the future content here!
Great article. I’m headed out to practice now (sabre) and will use this basic idea. There is a time to use some ‘canned’ moves just to see what’s up with your opponent, but then one needs to make note of things about your opponent that lead to some strategic moves, no matter if you’ve practiced them a lot or not. For me, I notice it takes a bit of courage to do that (“maybe I’ll look clumsy”), but as George Masin said above, practice the things you’re not good at (and after some practice, you won’t look clumsy).
Really good point. The diversity in successful fencing styles is evidence of this entire argument.
Thanks for this article. Would you like to add a “FOLLOW THIS BLOG” box for your fans to tick?
I have to agree that perfect techniques can be rather limiting. Fencing, by its very nature, is a creative and free-flowing sport with a lot of variables and a lot of possibilities. I’ve seen some fencers who are technically very beautiful; their lunges come out to the same point every time, their parries follow the exact same path and angle and leave the point in the most precise and perfect spot, and everything they did was clean, smooth, and gorgeous to see.
They also were some of the easiest people to fence against, because often they had very little deception worked into their game. After they do their parry or their lunge or their fleche even once, you can figure out their preferred distance, speed, and angle of attack and know that it will almost always be the same every single time. The most difficult fencers I’ve bouted against were not the people who had smooth and clean technique, but were the people who so muddled their actions and struck from so many different and odd angles that you simply couldn’t even begin to predict their next move.
While perfecting a technique may seem like an admiral goal, I think that it kills the most important creative element in fencing that allows people to adapt in unconventional and off-the-wall ways. It may not be pretty, but it can be pretty darn confusing for your opponent!
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