Fencing speed bouts
The speed of fencing matches has increased over the years and, at the same time, the amount of time allowed for combat has decreased. Nowadays, the standard for pool bouts is 3 minutes of fencing time, compared to 6 minutes for men’s weapons and 5 minutes for women’s foil that were the rule when I started fencing. the 1960s. Although 3 minutes does not seem like a long time, almost no saber combat requires the full 3 minutes, relatively few battles last the full time in foil, and the epee probably has the most combat running in the foil. full time limit. That suggests that while the 3-minute limit is important in training, shorter times can also have benefits. Get into speed combat.
At the 2008 Olympics, Hungary fell 19 to 33 for the United States in women’s foil as the frustrated Hungarian Mohamed Aida stepped onto the court for the final period of the team match. She executed an astonishing 14 keys for just 2 response keys in 3 minutes, or 4.7 keys per minute at a 7 to 1 ratio. Hungary lost 33 to 35, but Aida’s performance almost won the day for her country. In the 15-touch individual bouts, with a fencing regulation time of 9 minutes, the fastest time to win with 15 braces was 21 seconds for saber to 4 minutes 31 seconds for epee. The ability to fence fast when down is obviously critical in team events, and fencers in individual events must be prepared to be just as fast.
One of the best ways to train for fencing matches is to do fencing practice matches, a lot of them. So it seems logical that one of the best ways to learn fast fencing when timing is important is to do it in fast fights. I have found two useful approaches.
First, put a time limit on fenced practice matches without a referee. Instead of using fencing time, the time between fencing commands and stopping, use a real time limit equal to the fencing time limit of the match. From the first “fence” to the last “stop” is 3 minutes, including time spent walking back to the guard line, adjusting the mask, discussing whose touch it is, etc. Using an organized rotation, this can be turned into the fencing equivalent of speed dating, moving fencers to new opponents every 3 minutes.
When you do this for the first time, the highest score in 3-minute matches will drop from 5 to 3, or even 2, especially among intermediates with no tournament experience. However, fencers will adapt to the reduced fencing time by closing faster and eliminating time wasters that consume practice time.
Second, fence for a maximum number of fights in a set period of time. My Salle runs Fence Til You Drop as a fun event every January 1, with the rule that the winner is the fencer who does the most matches, won or lost, in 2 hours. Because the goal is to get people moving after the Christmas and New Years holiday season stalemate, we don’t worry about the index or profit and loss indicators. However, it would be quite easy to add them to the equation to more closely model the competition and eliminate losses as quickly as possible as a strategy. To increase performance, we closed dry: the record set in January 2012 is 75 fights in 120 minutes.
These approaches can be useful as part of a training program. They shouldn’t be the only way your fencers do fencing matches. The standard competition group and knockout bouts have a tactical rhythm that depends on the interval between the parry and the fence to plan the next touch. Being able to manipulate that interval with delay techniques has always been an important part of combat tactics. However, sprint sparring prepares fencers for the specific case when time is limited and hit production needs to be fast, and it can contribute to athlete conditioning and increase sparring performance in their practice sessions. As such, it should be in the fencing master’s technical repertoire.