Adaptation

Last night at the Salle I observed some brilliant adaptation by one fencer during a series of bouts. This fencer was particularly adept at flick hits and ripostes so it was lucky that these bouts were being run under the old timings. However, what he did demonstrate was the ability to change his technique when he needed to, which is not necessarily a characteristic of many 'flickers'. On the first occasion he was fencing one of my students who I had primed with the idea of stepping in and closing distance against his flick attack and scoring on his preparation. I was pleased to see my student make this work in practice as well as theory but was then equally impressed when the flicker changed his next attack to a simple lunge, thus defeating the counter-attack. I thought this was a pretty smart response and a good example of adapting to circumstances.
The next example was when the flick attack failed to work against a left handed fencer, landing flat on two or three occasions which exposed him to the counter attack. The flicker took longer to work this one out but eventually lunged to the left handers flank, rendering the counter attack useless as it was out of time.
These are just two good examples of how a fencer must be prepared to change their approach when required. Blindly following a strategy that isn't working is foolish and will simply lead to defeat. I posed the question to my group last night "How many times should you fleche in a bout?". I was pleased with the answer of "Once" as this indicated an understanding that repetition is not always a good thing. I was more pleased with the answer "As often as is required" as this demonstrated a deeper grasp of principles.
Musashi describes adaptability in his very eloquent "Mountain and Sea" section of the Fire Scroll. "Act as the sea when the enemy is like a mountain, and act as a mountain when the enemy is like the sea...."