Are you a camper or a sniper.....?
I have recently become part of the online gaming community of 'Call of Duty - Black Ops' (yes I know I'm 43 but a man's got to retain some vestige of his childhood...) and have realised I have a distinct tactical leaning toward sniping. I much prefer to find a good hiding spot and take a difficult long shot than run around like a headless chicken blatting everything that moves. Nor do I care to lurk in a corner and ambush people who run past (although this does seem a reasonably valid tactic at times - even though it is despised as 'camping' by the majority of gamers).
I've noticed that this penchant for the long game is reflected in my fencing as well. I much prefer to play the tactical game and get a few good hits in rather than hack away in an attempt to win. There are some advantages to this technique; First, if you get a good hit you can really enjoy it because you've been working for it. Second, you can take time to plan things and improve your game. Third, if you change up a gear it can surprise an opponent and finally, you know what you've been trying so you can learn from experience. However, there are disadvantages in that it can take time to get into a fight by which time the situation can be irretrievable, also, it is a more sedentary style so may not keep you at optimum performance levels and make it harder to change gear should you decide to do so. Most importantly (or is it?) is that I lose more fights than I win right now. So if you adopt this style you may be sacrificing short term success for long term gain so you need to decide whether this way is for you.
In a previous post http://autumnlightning.blogspot.com/2008/05/nightingale-sings.html I discussed the three famous Japanese rulers of the 16th/17th century, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. Dave Lowry relates in his book 'Moving Toward Stillness' how most martial artists fall into one of the three character types of these great archetypal warlords.* I guess the same holds true for fencers but I'm not going to lay it out for you; if you're of the same interests as me you'll either already know or will be prepared to dig around to find out the answer.... which one are you?
* It's a great story by the way......
I've noticed that this penchant for the long game is reflected in my fencing as well. I much prefer to play the tactical game and get a few good hits in rather than hack away in an attempt to win. There are some advantages to this technique; First, if you get a good hit you can really enjoy it because you've been working for it. Second, you can take time to plan things and improve your game. Third, if you change up a gear it can surprise an opponent and finally, you know what you've been trying so you can learn from experience. However, there are disadvantages in that it can take time to get into a fight by which time the situation can be irretrievable, also, it is a more sedentary style so may not keep you at optimum performance levels and make it harder to change gear should you decide to do so. Most importantly (or is it?) is that I lose more fights than I win right now. So if you adopt this style you may be sacrificing short term success for long term gain so you need to decide whether this way is for you.
In a previous post http://autumnlightning.blogspot.com/2008/05/nightingale-sings.html I discussed the three famous Japanese rulers of the 16th/17th century, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu. Dave Lowry relates in his book 'Moving Toward Stillness' how most martial artists fall into one of the three character types of these great archetypal warlords.* I guess the same holds true for fencers but I'm not going to lay it out for you; if you're of the same interests as me you'll either already know or will be prepared to dig around to find out the answer.... which one are you?
* It's a great story by the way......
posted by Dave at
9:07 PM
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