Walking a straight line

I gave some more individual lessons today and it never ceases to amaze me how many of my students make the basic error of not getting their feet right in the lunge. Either the front foot is not straight or the back foot is lifted from the floor. Either way you're not going to get it right doing that. Let's look at why....
If your front foot is not straight (either pointing in or out) simple body mechanics will make the knee bend in the direction the foot is pointing. This will twist the knee and also cause you to move laterally across your opponent. The net result of this will be your foil point either missing or hitting flat. This will happen virtually every time; I guarantee it.
If your back foot isn't flat on the floor your lunge will be weak and your balance will be wrong, probably resulting in you leaning forward to make the distance rather than thrusting forward from the back foot. Again, you are very likely to hit flat or miss completely.
As a coach it's my job to figure out what's going wrong when a fencer is not hitting and these two factors are usually the main causes, the other main culprit being not extending the arm properly or at all. I'll save that for another post....
So when you're out on the piste keep an eye on what your feet are doing; in some way they are an extra weapon out there because if you can't move them or place them properly you cannot place your point properly. Perhaps this is an aspect of 'the sword of no sword'....?