At Home Practice
Here is a collection of things you can do at home to help hone your fencing skills.
Footwork
You can do pretty much any non-partner footwork drill at home! I know, surprising isn’t it?
If you want a set routine, here is my suggestion, and what I do to warmup at VT:
- Advances to a certain point, retreats back
- small, slow footwork, you want to make sure you are doing it right
- Two advances, one retreat to a certain point, two retreats, one advance all the way back
- the DFC classic
- Lunges to a certain point, small, quick retreats back
- check your lunge before you recover
- make sure your recovery is good as well, don’t bring your arm back too soon
- Lunge recover back, lunge recover forward to a certain point, small, quick retreats back
- Once you feel like you’re warmed up enough, shadow fence for 3 minutes
- imagine your opponent in front of you, don’t just do mindless footwork
- if you want to go for 110%, go for 9 minutes to simulate a DE
Blade Drills
Note that this isn’t called bladework, since if you don’t have a partner it is kind of hard to do traditional bladework drills, unless you have a practice dummy.
Here are some of my favorite things to do with a weapon at home:
- Tennis Balls
- hang a tennis ball from your ceiling, doorframe, etc
- have it hang at about wrist height for an opponent
- practice hitting it at various distances
- this is one of my favorite accuracy drills, and if you want to make it even harder, go for a golf ball
- note: this can damage your weapon, so maybe go for the foam practice golf balls, but this may effect the drill since they are light, your mileage may vary
- Door Knob
- find a round door knob
- stand in en guarde with your point close, but not touching, the door knob
- start circling the door knob, do not let it touch
- after a while switch directions
- this is great for training small actions
- Accuracy Pad/Lunging Pad
- you can get something like this lunging pad from LP, or make something (an old pillow works decently)
- hang it on your wall, and practice your accuracy
- note: be very careful not to hit the wall, repairing drywall is no fun