Expecting The Hit

Last night I observed an interesting phenomena from the sidelines (I do a lot of observing on the sidelines... it's the best place for it). A fencer was getting more and more frustrated when he was failing to score points and his frustration was spiralling into annoyance, then anger then outright depression. I was trying to figure out what he was doing wrong and it eventually dawned on me..... He was expecting to score the hit every time. Now there's nothing normally wrong with confidence but in this case it was manifesting itself in a semi-complete lunge, a pause and a quick glance at the box. Because the lunge was not deep enough or properly placed the hit wasn't scored and the subsequent pause resulted in him getting hit more times than actually hitting. It is vital in fencing to fully commit to any action; the point being scored always results from the point of the weapon being placed properly on the target area and nothing else. If the point doesn't register nothing else can happen. Therefore all the energy must be devoted to this end and a fencer should never relax until the point has been clearly scored and registered. In fact it's better not to expect anything until the end of the fight!