It's all in the hands... (and fingers)

I was teaching a lesson at the club recently concerning the bind and was able to examine yet another fencing paradox. The bind of itself is a very strong move, controlliong and deflecting the opponent's blade. However, whilst it is powerful, it depends on the exponent having 'soft hands'. By this I mean the strength of the move is not executed by excessively powerful hand movements, more by the power of the wrist and arm. If too much power is put into the hand or fist when making the bind then the point will be out of line with target area and every second it is out of line is a useless second. By using soft hands i.e. not excessively tightening the grip through the fingers, the point can be angulated to still be in line with the opponent's target area even if the line is octave or quarte. If the grip is too tight then the blade will swipe the air as the bind is made and will be more likely to land flat. So when executing a strong attack it must be done softly!
In terms of epee there are some differences in that epee attacks tend to be delivered with the arm in a much straighter on guard position due to the conventions of the weapon. This tends to make the grip stiffer as  a straight arm tends to cause the muscles of the hand to tighten as a matter of course thus binds in epee also tend to have to overcome a stronger grip from the adversary as well. However, it still holds true that if the hand is too stiff the point will once more be removed from the target area which can be costly, particularly as the target in epee can often be a smaller area such as the hand. Keeping the grip relaxed through the fingers really does make all the difference in these types of attack.
So there you go, not a particularly philosophical post this time but hopefully a useful one!