Coachly thoughts for the new School Year…2003 – 2004!

  Wow, time certainly flies.  It’s been rather a while since I read over the other coachly thoughts and wrote one.  But Summer happens!

  Now that summer has stopped happening, we can get back about the fun and general mayhem that is fencing.  The first order of business is the long-awaited Coachly Thoughts on the development of one’s personal fencing style.  Without further ado…

  It is a long-held fallacy that there is One Right Way to do everything.  The obvious implication is that there are unnumbered Wrong Ways to do things…but the exact determination of what the One Right Way IS varies from person to person.  For example, ask any five fencers to show you what the best on-guard is.  Unless they’re clones, you will get five differing examples.  Everyone adjusts what they learn as on-guard to best suit themselves.

Now granted, it is entirely possible that one could fall victim to laziness and have a sloppy on-guard that does not serve their purposes at all.  That’s not so much a “wrong” on-guard as it is not the best one for them. 

A more personal example would be this:  At this point, most of you have seen me on-guard.  You’ve no doubt noticed that I do things I tell you not to do like lean forward slightly; I also keep my back heel off the ground when I am on-guard.  The way that I hold myself in on-guard works very well for me and my fencing style (well, except when I get lazy and let my back shoulder come square to my opponent like I’m coaching or something), but it doesn’t work well for Jess, Becky or Peter for that matter.  Each of them have either adapted or begun to adapt what they’ve learned over the years (and not all from me, so don’t think I am on a personal-ego-soapbox here) and what they’ve done works for them.  More or less, anyway.

Okay, so how exactly does one go about discovering their own style of fencing?  First and foremost, you start by learning proper techniques.  That is, you learn how to advance, retreat, lunge and otherwise locomote around the fencing strip properly, which is to say with the greatest economy of motion possible. 

Economy of motion?  It’s not a new concept, and I’ll bet that unless you’re a charter member of the Ministry of Silly Walks you practice this notion daily.  Put simply, it’s the attempt to generate the maximum benefit for the least expenditure possible.  You could be doing this almost anywhere:  bargain-hunting at the mall, simply walking, trying to convince your opponent that yes, you really ARE retreating from him…It’s a long list!

All we’re doing is introducing you to the fencing version of this most fascinating concept.  Swimmers and other sports-people are already familiar with the no-wasted-motion notion, and I need to move on and stop rhyming.

As your fencing practice begins and progresses, you will no doubt learn that the more flexible you are, the better a fencer you will become.  Hence, stretching your muscles out before and after fencing practice is a very good idea [coach’s note to self:  take your own advice!].  This improves physical coordination as well, and this also results in improved fencing ability.  You’ve probably seen a few of the drills in the other Coachly Thoughts, and if you haven’t then I suggest you check them out.  I will be adding more drills as time goes on and I remember to write them down!

  Anyway, once you’ve learned the PROPER technique (and I simply can NOT stress this enough, it’s why I am so annoying to everyone about ‘fix this, move that there, you’re not dancing,’ and the ever-popular ‘STOP GALLOPING.’) you can begin to experiment.  With your weapon in hand (and yeah, I am deliberately avoiding making any weapon-specific references) start doing some footwork and EXPERIMENT.  Take steps that are slightly larger, then try taking smaller steps.  Take smaller, faster steps or slower, larger ones.

If you’re really feeling spunky (yes, I said spunky.  Cope.) mix it up more and take slow, small steps or faster large steps.  Some of these will feel awkward, but that’s all right.  You’re just learning these, so don’t disregard them out of hand because it’s unfamiliar.

Oh, an aside:  Don’t get too comfy with the kamikaze lunge (not naming names!) because if you miss – and you will miss – it puts you in a VERY vulnerable position.  It also puts a LOT of unneeded stress on your front knee and muscles.

The ultimate goal here is to learn a wide variety of techniques that you can employ against your opponents as you need to.  If you limit yourself to only one way of doing each particular technique, you’re really hurting yourself.  Before long, your fellow clever college fencers are going to figure out how fast you move, what you like doing and what you don’t.  They will also learn how to exploit what you do and use it against you.  And if they don’t, I will.  Then I will show everyone else what to do against you.  But don’t worry; I am an equal opportunity instructor.  I will point out EVERYONE’S foibles, including my own.

 I generally don’t like quoting from other people, but this is too appropriate for me to let it slide:

“Be like water.  If you put water in a glass, it becomes the glass; put it in a bowl and it becomes the bowl.  Water has no form, it adapts.  Water can flow or it can crash.  Be like Water, my friend.”