Watch Romankov deal with this attack using nothing more than distance and good hand technique. Fencer right attacks with a lot of fakes and preparations, but Romankov has already been tipped off by the rehearsal where the attack wants to land. He guards his outside line when it seems wise, but mostly he's waiting for that last attack to the chest. When riposting against a fencer with a long, low attack - or a fencer who falls forward during their attack, frequently the front target is hidden.
In this situation, you can either flick to the back, or placidly receive the touch against when the opponent remises. Notice also, fencer left is being attacked in her deep low inside line - but she still doesn't make a parry seven. Parry seven is not exactly useless, but then again, it isn't the parry that many high-level fencers use to defend the seven target. Attack parry riposte for left. This riposte is neither clean nor pretty, but notice how calm and deliberate fencer left is, when she does her action.
This is one situation where a rushed or mechanical riposte would've missed, going over fencer right's duck. Right prepares, left attacks on preparation. Right parry ripostes, left counter-parry ripostes, touch!
The trick with counter-parry ripostes and all fencing is maintaining your composure. A fencer never knows when their opponent has one more action up their sleeve, so it's wise to be calm and deliberate for as long as possible.
In this clip, fencer left keeps her composure by using second intention. Her first attack into opponent's preparation isn't really meant to land, so she's ready to manage the opponent's riposte.
But there's more! Fencer right was probably inviting her opponent to attack into her preparation. She invites, receives the attack, and parries. Normally a good plan, but too bad for her, fencer left is ready for this. You're in the finals, and your nation and team-mates need you to win.
That's no excuse to let your arm get tense. Fencer left receives an attack and makes a difficult riposte to the high outside line, making it look easy. It's only because her hand was relaxed, and took its time to complete its riposte, that she scored. Slow and steady wins the race, sometimes.
Note how fencer left jumped forward with her hand low. She was able to be so calm and relaxed because the whole action was a setup. She invited the attack from the right, and was completely ready with the parry.
The tip-off is the solid footwork; a surprised parry riposte would have been accompanied by sloppier distance. Attack from left, parry riposte. Counter-parry riposte. Counter counter-parry riposte. Most of the threats created by both fencers are handled with distance. Simply by retreating out of reach, most threats can be nullified. When fencer left does her first attack, fencer right keeps such good distance she decides to not use her blade at all.
The hand movements of both fencers are casual, just-in-time, and never over-committed. They don't need to be. If your distance is good, then parries are almost unnecessary. They are merely added insurance against an attack which has already been handled.
With good distance, blade contact is idle and unhurried, small and controlled, because it hardly matters if they find the blade. It's only when these fencers close distance that the urgency reaches their hands.
If the distance is bad, then your hand has one setting only: As fast as possible, because you're always fixing emergencies. Since surprise is generated by change, then a hand that always moves as fast as possible is not surprising but rather predictable. It's much better to have a hand that can change when you need it to: Slow fast, fast slow. Surprise is change in speed. Fencer right attacks once, twice a small one , three times.
For the first two attacks, fencer left gives ground and parries, but she's out of distance to score with a riposte. It seems like fencer left ought to work harder for a riposte, but she's just biding her time. She's working smarter, not harder. For each of her opponent's attacks, she gives ground.
Her opponent becomes comfortable with this idea… indeed, her opponent starts changing the distance so she can get more reach with her attack. If fencer left is going to retreat, then she'll just chase her down! But fencer left is expecting this. When the next attack arrives, she doesn't even retreat. She roots to the ground, parries and ripostes. In this action, fencer right charges forward. Her opponent sees distance closing, and launches a direct, simple attack of opportunity.
She's ready, however - making a strong parry 4, she is perfectly situated to finish on the flank. Lefty to righty, flank shots can be prefaced by a strong beat or parry 4 one of the strongest hand moves a fencer can make , which leaves the opponent's tip far away from target.
The flank itself sometimes seems small, but with the vagaries of movement in the bout, it can actually extend from the hip to the shoulder. A whole swath of target that can only be protected by the comparatively weak 6 and 8 parries. The fencer can also lunge a bit to the side, for better access to the flank, but a side effect is that this exposes more of the chest to the opponent.
This action finishes very much like Counter with Close-out under Attacks. The regular parry riposte combination has a predictable hand rhythm - first the parry, then the riposte. If your attack is parried, there's always time or it often seems like there's time to take a counter-parry, if you're quick and prepared.
Fencer left is launching an attack, feeling pretty ready for anything. What comes, however, is a complete surprise. The close-out disposes of the normal back-and-forth rhythm. The parry is the riposte, it happens in one move. Add to that a sudden closing of distance, and an esquive, and you have a situation where that attacking fencer's tip is leveraged into space, and the attacker impales on the opponent's blade. Closeouts aren't always easy to do.
First, you need your opponent to commit to a certain target, not only so you can find the blade but so you can get leverage against it when you do find it. Then, when you take the blade, you must take it fort - against foible the closer to your bell guard the better , so that the more the opponent extends to hit, the further away from your target their tip goes.
Then, you have to be ready with distance, so that you're not too far away to hit. Once all that is achieved, the actual close-out movement is a simple matter of riding the opponent's blade back up to their target. In this clip, fencer right takes a slightly different approach. She puts the point on target, and finding her blade close to her opponent's, closes out afterwards. Despite being one of the foundational actions in fencing, there is nothing simple about a disengage.
It's difficult to execute against high-level fencers who spend years building omniscient parries. It's also the first thing discarded under pressure by a fencer, who must often sacrifice control and wit for speed. Fencer left is across from a German, and knows the Germans' predilection for sweeping parries. She executes the safest kind of deception there is, a low-high attack, which draws her opponent into trying to find the parry at the expense of distance.
The term disengage used to mean un-engaging the blade, as from an engaged position. Nowadays, it's used almost interchangeably with the term deceive. D-robement also means the same thing, but in the context of an extended arm, say with a Point in Line. These are all ways of Refusing the Blade - yet another term for avoiding the opponent's actions on the blade, and thankfully one that we don't use anymore.
Fencer left chases her opponent down, unleashing a lunge at the end of her attack. This all seems quite manageable, to fencer right. She eventually stops retreating, makes a parry, and leans into the attack. But the whole nature of the action changes when fencer left throws in a final disengage.
Her low attack draws a parry 8 from her opponent, but fencer left has already changed her attack to the high line. She catches her opponent so off guard that it takes a moment for her to be able to extricate her blade after the action. Small, precise movements like this often seem more difficult than they are. When a fencer can reign in the urge to make big, sweeping movements, their tips will stay nearer to the opponents' targets.
This makes the target easier to hit. In this action, it's a simple matter for fencer left to put her point on target, even when fencer right is closing distance, ducking, and trying to parry.
Fencer right knows, from prior actions in the bout, that her opponent has a weak wrist. Left's wrist breaks loses its fixed position , which complicates point control, and weakens all her actions.
So when left attacks, fencer right takes a parry, and just ripostes through the counter-parry. Activate your free, 90 day membership to British Fencing today. Membership insures you to fence at any British Fencing club. Find out more today. Free images and assets for BF Affiliated Clubs. Search, select and request assets for social media and websites. Sign up to receive regular highlights from the exciting world of fencing - celebrating the best of our unique and inspiring community.
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