Something for Everyone
It was the ladder week at the club today so whilst the youngsters went through their paces I had the opportunity to give some individual lessons. This is where a coach really gets to know the fencer, even for a short duration of time and I believe each student should come away from a lesson with personalised advice. All my lessons start with the same basic warm up which gives me a chance to assess things if I don't know the fencer, before throwing in something specific. Here's some of the things I worked on...
Fencer 1: A capable young lady who prefers attack to defence. So I worked on different parries and ripostes with her (I'm like that). Also did some work getting her to use all the piste rather than a few feet by getting her to beat attack on my forward step. If the rhythm was too obvious she wouldn't get me before I parried it. It's a common flaw in fencers that they don't move their feet enough.....
Fencer 2: Another young lady with good technical ability but who is slightly diffident in attack. In this case I went through some compound attacks with her, explaining that she has the competence to do these well and they will work better in situations where she doesn't feel confident attacking directly.
Fencer 3: A 16 year old lad who is quite powerful but lacks a little sharpness. Got him doing feint disengage attacks and lo and behold his feint wasn't in line thus his final attack had a tendency to miss or go flat. Got him feinting at me and then showed him how it all became a lot neater, but then how success depended on him doing the finger movement before the lunge.
Fencer 4: A young lady who has a tendency to hit flat. I noticed that she was holding her free arm straight down in front of her torso so when she lunged she had a tendency to lean down to the left. Advised her to brace her shoulders a bit more as this would help her point arrive on target. Quite a productive 90 minutes, especially as I got to preside a few fights and observe others. All in a morning's work for a coach....
Fencer 1: A capable young lady who prefers attack to defence. So I worked on different parries and ripostes with her (I'm like that). Also did some work getting her to use all the piste rather than a few feet by getting her to beat attack on my forward step. If the rhythm was too obvious she wouldn't get me before I parried it. It's a common flaw in fencers that they don't move their feet enough.....
Fencer 2: Another young lady with good technical ability but who is slightly diffident in attack. In this case I went through some compound attacks with her, explaining that she has the competence to do these well and they will work better in situations where she doesn't feel confident attacking directly.
Fencer 3: A 16 year old lad who is quite powerful but lacks a little sharpness. Got him doing feint disengage attacks and lo and behold his feint wasn't in line thus his final attack had a tendency to miss or go flat. Got him feinting at me and then showed him how it all became a lot neater, but then how success depended on him doing the finger movement before the lunge.
Fencer 4: A young lady who has a tendency to hit flat. I noticed that she was holding her free arm straight down in front of her torso so when she lunged she had a tendency to lean down to the left. Advised her to brace her shoulders a bit more as this would help her point arrive on target. Quite a productive 90 minutes, especially as I got to preside a few fights and observe others. All in a morning's work for a coach....
posted by Dave at
5:59 PM
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