Cavalier Attitude

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Trench warfare

–

–don’T use your head, use your feeT!

Most of us come into fencing with the hypnotic lure of clashing steel ringing in our heads. Any two kids who pick up sticksand “play swords” will immediately start whacking those sticks together. As trained fencers, we would be expected to movebeyond that!One of the hallmarks of fencing, regardless of style, is footwork.* In fact, it’s apocryphal that fencing spawned ballet. Nearlyevery historical treatise describes it’s own very particular footwork patterns or techniques... St. Didier, Agrippa, Thibaust,DiGrassi, Viggiani... you name it. And certainly, modern competitive fencers are drilled in footwork, lunges, and distance untilthey do it in their sleep.So it’s a peculiar thing that many fencers neglect this area of their training. It seems endemic in nearly every gym exceptthe most competitive: fencers love the blade-work, but seem loathe to do the footwork.Why would that be? I can’t say for sure, but I tend to think that some of it has to do with the artificiality, abstractness andthe complexity of the blade work in fencing. Regardless of the type of sword you use, good blade work requires so muchdexterity, sensitivity and focus that it’s easy to forget the rest of your body and focus on the blade—until you get hit.

Training

People do have natural, instinctive programming for attacking and defending, and these are good enough for general,occasional situations. For most people, the instinctive way to protect the body is to cover the threatened area with thehand or arm and brace the body for impact. This instinctive program is like the “lite” versions of software that comesinstalled with a new computer. It’s good enough for general use, but if a person has specific needs, they’re going to haveto get better, more specific software to do the job right. For a fencer, that means he’s going to have to get betterinternal programming, and the way a fencer installs new programming can only be done through

training and repetition

.That’s why it’s so very vital that, to be a good fencer, a lot of training has to focus on footwork. After all, one of the higherideals of any martial art is to integrate the mind into the

whole body

, and to be able to

 t m  b  ,

andthat is a state that is very much lacking in untrained modern man. Whether attacking or defending, a fencer, or any martialartist, is best served using control of his entire body.One of the most important things a fencer has to learn is how to use the distance between him and his opponent to hisadvantage. It’s important for attacking and vital for defense.Many beginning fencers would argue: “I understand I need my footwork to get close enough to the opponent to hit him,but aren’t my parries all I need to defend myself? It just seems like commons sense.”1

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A parry is a good way to defend yourself, but the parry by itself is really

the last line

of defense between your opponent’sblade and your body. If you parry, but you don’t move, you’re trusting everything to one last, and often desperate, actionof the blade..

Trench warfare

Lets take a look at history, for a moment.In WWl, the military had to contend with a new kind of battle. With tanks and automobiles and morepowerful artillery, it was bigger and badder and especially, faster, than any warfare before. One of the waysthey tried to secure defensive lines against the onslaught of the fast-moving foe was to dig trenches rightinto the battlefields and fill then with soldiers. When the enemy attacked, it was the duty of the men inthe trenches to charge forward when they were given the command, meet the enemy, and stop them anyway they could. They’d “go over the top” to face and repel an already advancing army. 70% of them wouldbe killed almost instantly, the rest would engage in some of the worst, ugliest fighting ever seen, eye-to-eye and hand-to-hand, sheer terror with guns, bayonets, knives and fists. The trenches were the last lines of defense. They could not retreat because the trenches were behind them—they had nowhere to go but holdthe ground until they died or the enemy did.That’s enough history for now.If blades cross and the distance between the fencers is close or getting closer, it’s like that trench warfare. If you parry with-out removing the target (stepping away), you’re left with no place to go. If your first parry doesn’t work, you’re going tohave an uphill battle to keep defending yourself or strike back against your opponent.For historical fencers, even sidesteps, volts, inquartatas and so forth, will leave you vulnerable if you end up too close anddon’t have a ready riposte/follow-up attack to stop him from renewing his attack against you.Some opponents are very mobile, while others aren’t. You can’t control what your opponent does. But as a fencer, yourability to deal with that opponent is up to you. You have to be able to adapt, and your defense is your responsibility.Parries are the last line of defense—

trench warfare

—and you know that means no second chances. If you have more thanone line of defense, you’d use it, wouldn’t you?YOU DO! The first and most practical line of defense is DISTANCE. Classically, parries usually are accompanied with“displacement” of target (moving backward or to the side). Your opponent can’t hit what he can’t reach. This is no smallissue in fencing. The

safest place

for a fencer is where the opponent can’t hit him. In the street that might translate torunning away or locking himself in the bathroom, but in fencing, the safest place is being

just a little too far away

from hisopponent to get hit.

i t p  t t   , t t  t

first

  .

Due to the length of the blade, not only is distance involved in not getting hit, but some parries don’t even work well at close distance.2

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On top of that, if your opponent is doing a compound attack, say a 1-2 or a doublé attack (both of these are sequences of 2 disengages, usually with an advance and a lunge), and you try to parry it without retreating, your ability to parry effectivelywill be very much disadvantaged, since these attacks are particularly effective on an opponent who doesn’t get awayquickly enough. In that case, the retreat is vital!As for specific parries:• beat parries will work in almost any distance, including close-in• lateral parries will work at fairly long distance• circular parries almost only at long distancesWe can go over the “why” some other time, if you like, but take my word for it. No, on second thought, DON’T take myword for it. Do some experiments. Try it out for yourself.

wt  t t t, ?

The right distance from your opponent is the farthest away you can be, yet still reachand hit when you chose to, by closing the distance slightly. Imagine you’re standing far enough from your opponent thatyou could hit him by just extending your arm. You could hit him at any time you wanted to,

but he could do the same toyou, too

. That’s not a very secure place to be! Now imagine if you retreated just one step further back. Now, if he tried toattack you, you’d have a tiny measure of fencing time to see the attack coming, since he has to close the distance betweenthe two of you to get into striking range (just as you do). Since many styles of fencing utilize a lunge rather than just anextension of the arm as the basic attack, a good en guarde distance from your opponent is usually the distance of a lungeplus one step. In practice this

usually means that if the blades cross each other more than about 6 inches, someone’s usually already close enough to be hit!

Remember Jeff’s formula:

Timing is everything.

Distance

IS timing, and timing is everything.

Now all of this extends beyond just defense. If it follows that defense only works if you keep your body far enoughaway from your opponent’s sword, then it also follows that

you can have a distinct advantage attacking an opponent whoisn’t retreating far enough or fast enough

. If this sounds unfamiliar, I hope a light-bulb has just gone off for you. If youropponent is allowing you to get close, he’s putting himself in reach, so all you need is to have good attacking skills (advances,lunges, passes, or whatever is right for your style) and you can pick him off like the proverbial clay pigeon the moment hesteps in.If you’re studying historical weapons, keeping distance and/or displacing target is vital if you’re going up against an opponentwith

a flexible weapon

like a cloak, belt, or a morningstar. Such weapons are best evaded, but if you have to parry theirattacks it’s best to do it at the blow’s full extension, or it may wrap over your parry & hit you, which is part of what they’resupposed to do. In the world of modern fencing, “the flick” will easily whip around a parry if the opponent is too close.

eVen More:

The less of your blade technique you show your opponent, the less opportunity you’re offering your opponentto pick-up on and use against you. It’s hard for them to do any kind of “attack on the blade” (i.e., beat attack, bind, oppo-sition) if you don’t offer the blade until you’re ready. Using distance more than blade keeps your opponent in the dark.3