Bladework

Get Away and Go Drill

Setup and notes

  • This is essentially just the smooth drill with weapons.

Drill

  • The attacker is only allowed an advance lunge, the “defender” is allowed any number of retreats.
  • Once the attacker recovers, roles are switched.
  • No bladework is allowed.

Tea Tray Drill

Setup and notes

  • Set fencers en guarde at lunge distance to the chest.
    • if one fencer is shorter, their lunge should hit the taller fencer’s chest.
  • The only valid footwork is a lunge and recovery.

Drill

  • This is essentially a bouting drill, but without moving.
  • Each fencer is trying to hit the other with any action they want, as long as their back foot does not move.
  • You can “keep score” with this, if you do, moving the back foot counts as a touche for the other fencer.

Parry Drill 1

Setup and notes

  • This drill can be done moving or stationary.
  • This drill can also be done at most any distance, I will be referencing extension distance.
  • There are two roles, coach and student
  • As in everything, ensure the student is making parries small
  • If the student does the wrong parry, tell them to finish the parry anyway, since you do not want them to get the muscle memory of stopping if they thing they have done something wrong

Drill

  • The coach can choose between the below cues to give to the student.
    1. extend to the inside of the hand/elbow, cue for parry 6.
    2. extend to the outside of the hand/elbow, cue for circle parry 6.
    3. extend to the chest, cue for parry 4
    4. extend below the guard, toward the flank/front leg, cue for parry 8 or 2
  • The student must recognize which cue is given and execute the proper parry and riposte to the proper target.

Parry Drill 2 (Drill of the Beast1)

Setup and notes

  • This is another drill that theoretically should be very smooth and shouldn’t stop until halt is called.
  • This drill can be done with any parry.
  • There are two roles, attacker and defender.

Drill

  • The attacker will extend to a line and advance.
  • The defender will do the proper parry for the line, and retreat.
  • The attacker will return their arm to en guarde, extend to the same line, and advance.
  • The defender will do the parry again, and retreat.
  • The attacker will return their arm to en guarde, extend to the same line, and advance for the final time.
  • The defender will parry and riposte and does not retreat.
  • After the riposte, the roles switch.

1 This name comes from when you do this parry in 6, for obvious reasons

Cat and Mouse Drill

Setup and notes

  • There are three levels of progression in this drill, only progress when fencers seem to get the hang of the current level.
  • This drill has 2 roles attacker (cat) and defender (mouse).
  • At each level no one is leading footwork, the attacker is trying to get into lunge distance, the defender is trying to manipulate distance to make the attacker think they can hit.

Drill Level 1

  • The only action the attacker has is a lunge to any target.
  • The only action the defender has is a retreat to get away from the lunge.
  • The goal of the attacker is to manipulate distance so they can hit the defender.
  • The goal of the defender is to manipulate distance to not get hit.

Drill Level 2

  • Everything in level 1 as well as the following points.
  • The defender now has the option to parry and riposte on the attacker’s lunge.
  • The attacker can retreat from the riposte.

Drill Level 3

  • Everything in level 1 and 2 as well as the following points.
  • The attacker now has the option to feint disengage followed by a lunge from the defender’s parry after the retreat.
  • The defender can now retreat after the above mentioned lunge.

EDGAR Drill

Setup and notes

  • There are two roles, attacker and defender.
  • This is almost a bouting drill, but it’s staying the the bladework section for now.

Drill

  • The goal for each fencer is to score a touche.
  • The attacker can only attack, no retreats.
  • The attacker should be putting constant pressure on the defender.
  • The defender can only defend, counter attacks, stop hits, and attacks in prep are fine.
  • Switch roles once 5 touches have been scored total.

Bouting Drills

Target Drill

Setup and notes

  • This drill works best if there is a referee.

Drill

  • One fencer is just fencing a normal bout to 5.
  • The other fencer is given a target they must hit.
    • For newer fencers a coach should give the target
    • For more experienced fencers, you can let the ref (assuming they are also a more experienced fencer) pick the target
  • If they hit this target once, they win.

Three, Six, Nine Drill

Setup and notes

  • This is a longer drill and should be done on strip with electric scoring.

Drill

  • Fencers are fencing a bout to 10.
  • Once a fencer reaches 3, 6, or 9 touches, the other fencer gets to take something away from the fencer that just scored, examples are listed below.
  • Newer fencers can take target area and broad actions, but more experienced fencers should be more specific.

Examples of things to take

Valid examples:

  • “You cannot parry 6 riposte”, this is a pretty good valid action.
  • “You cannot counter attack”, this is less good, since it is a bit vague, but still okay.
    • Something like this should be avoided for more experienced fencers
  • “You cannot counter attack off my lunge”, this is a better version of the above example.
  • “You cannot fleche in the line of 6”, this is a good, specific action to take.
  • “You cannot hit my elbow”, this would be good for a beginner, but not acceptable for experienced fencers.
  • “You cannot score on your end of the strip”, this is technically valid, but should be avoided, at least in my opinion.

Invalid examples:

  • “You cannot lunge”, this is too vague and therefore not valid.
  • “You cannot parry 6”, this is also too vague.
  • “You cannot advance”, again, too vague.
  • “You cannot hit me”, obviously not allowed.