Woodward's TCUP

Now, those of you who are reasonably familiar with me will know I am a big Rubgy fan, and a really big England rugby fan. As we are in the middle of the World Cup at present I want to refere to something that Sir Clive Woodward (World Cup winning Coach) patented as his TCUP philosophy. This is not sitting around supping a mug of Tetley's; oh no, it's much more useful than that. TCUP stands for Think Clearly Under Pressure and is something that Sir C drummed into the England players as preparation for the 2003 World Cup competition. He wanted the players to be able to keep their heads and respond appropriately to any situation, no matter how stressful. This can also be applied in fencing. As soon as you react brainlessly without consideration to a situation you lose control of it. NB this is not the same as reacting instinctively to a opening or parry etc, I'm talking about reacting to a tactical situation.

Imagine you are leading a fight with time ticking by and then your opponent scores a few hits in a row from attacks on your preparation. All of a sudden you get panicky and feel that you have to win so you start throwing in wild and erractic attacks. Your opponent stays calm, parry ripostes and all of a sudden is ahead. The situation is a whole lot worse now and you are likely to continue to compound your errors by increasing the ferocity of your attacks. The best thing to do would be to stay calm, figure out what your opponent is doing, let the clock tick by and score when you can. Taking the game to your opponent would not be the wisest course of action.

On the other hand, if you're behind in a fight and the clock is ticking don't just carry on doing what you have been doing, it's time to do something different! Increase the tempo of the fight, make your opponent work and go for it.

A lot of fencers sort of 'just do' a match without clearly thinking about what's happening. Don't let this happen to you and remember to take a sip from the TCUP....

Back in the groove

I was back at the Salle this Saturday morning as the new term has kicked off and it was a pleasure to be there. Admittedly last week was technically the first week back but the first morning after the school holidays is always a bit disjointed. Today seemed a lot more joined up and I was very pleased with the fencing I presided over. There was a lot of good stuff going on and it's always nice for a coach to see people really thinking about what they are doing. It's fascinating for me seeing the different tactics and techniques being exhibited and wondering if the fencers are picking up on the same things. It's a bit like watching sport; you always seem to see the blindingly obvious things that the players miss. Third party perspective is very useful at times and it pays to imagine that you are watching yourself in action as sometimes it will give clues as to what's going right and wrong. You've got to use it at the right time though; this week I was giving a leadership presentation to my team and I suddenly flipped into 3rd party mode and wondered "where are all these words coming from?" and nearly put myself right off! Too much analysis can be dangerous I guess!
Anyway, I'm off for a holiday for the next ten days. I will be back at the usual haunts when I return. See you then, dear readers!

Preparing for what?

The other night I was fencing a couple of people who seemed obsessed by my blade. Tap tap tap they went, constantly preparing for something and never quite delivering. It's a common fault; after all, the blade is the thing your opponent uses to stab you with. Being overly concerned with it is self-defeating though. If you are attacked, parry it! But you never get anywhere if you're constantly preparing. Sometimes you've just gotta jump!