It's not life and death

Why do fencers hesitate and fail to complete their attack? Is it lack of confidence? Lack of skill? Lack of belief? Whatever it is, it is quite a common sight to see a fencer commence a perfectly valid attack, usually involving a lunge and then pull back at the last minute and fail to score. Luckily, modern fencing isn't real combat these days so failure tends not to be lethal any more!
A lot of the time it seems to me that the fencer simply doesn't believe that they are capable of scoring the hit and therefore they hesitate and ultimately fail in their goal. I think this may be a cultural condition of modern education methods where everybody ends up being graded, sorted, examined and categorised according to one thing; results. There is a tremendous psychological pressure to succeed, particularly amongst young fencers. The great thing about fencing being a sport rather than real combat is that you can afford to fail. The consequences aren't too dire (apart from a slightly disgruntled coach) so why not just open up and try something different, it's not a matter of life and death after all....