Obstacles to Improvement
Over the past 30-odd years I have been asked on many occasions why a given student is not improving at the pace they would like, and on many more occasions I have observed behaviour that will limit improvement even if the fencer does not realise it.
Improvement does not proceed at a steady pace, nor does it occur at the same pace for everyone. Every fencer will, at some point, experience plateaus and may even ‘get worse’ on the way to fencing better. Some of the reasons are obvious; others less so. I will try to address some that I have observed, along with possible solutions.
Training and Training Environment Problems
Often the problem lies in the training environment or class culture, which can be addressed by the instructor if they realise what is happening. Many of these problems are obvious, especially to someone on the outside looking in, but it is easy to develop blind spots about common practices that have evolved over a period of time.
I’ve Been Doing It For Three Months and I’m Not Getting Any Better
I am always tempted reply to this one with ‘Three months? Well, there’s your problem right there’, since this question is often the product of unrealistic expectations. A student who has come to most of the classes over the past few weeks cannot really expect to be an expert – but many do, and frustration leads to a drop in effort and concentration.
Unrealistic expectations must be challenged, but at the same time the student might not realise that they are in fact improving. Anyone who has been training diligently for a few weeks will be better at what they are doing than when they started… but they may not be able to see it. This is particularly prevalent where a group of peers joined the class at the same time and improve at roughly the same rate. It is not until a new intake of beginners arrives that the amount of progress that has been made becomes apparent.
As a case in point, a particular situation was repeated many times over during my 20 or so years teaching modern Olympic-style fencing at the University of Sunderland. People who still thought of themselves as beginners after their first year with us were often astounded when new starters asked them for advice or expressed a desire to reach their standard. The realisation that they had indeed made progress often helped the ‘yearlings’ become motivated to push onward.
Thus unrealistic expectations must be challenged, but students must also be shown or allowed to realise how far they have come. Someone who sees progress will be encouraged to try for more.
Intermittent Training
This is an obvious problem. A student who comes to the class every few weeks is not going to progress as well as someone who has been to every session. There is more to it than fewer training hours, however. The gaps between attendance allow barely-learned skills to decay and do not permit a structured approach to teaching or training. In short, intermittent training not only reduces the amount of training hours; it also reduces the value of these hours.
Sometimes this is the fault of the instructor rather than the student. It can be tempting to flit from one topic to another and to take the attitude that anything that has been covered is ‘done’ and cannot be revisited. Those who try to study a different system every session condemn everyone involved to forever starting at the beginning when they come back to one – or worse, the instructor may end up trying to build on a lesson taught a month ago and buried under a pile of ‘kewl stuff of the week’.
The latter issue can only be remedied by the instructor, but it is not hard to do. A series of classes, each building on the last, allows students to revise previously learned skills and use them as the basis of the next step. A scatterbrained approach to a single topic is bad enough; flitting from one weapon or system to another every session is a recipe for ongoing lack of progress. It is, however, notable that students demonstrate an incredible ability to pick up bad habits whilst forgetting everything else. Topic-hopping is a sure-fire way of creating students who cannot do anything well, and who may be able to do almost anything very badly.
Enforced gaps in training can present a related problem. In my old university class we would have breaks at Christmas and the summer, and one curious phenomenon presented itself every time: good skills atrophy fast; bad habits last forever.
Often fencers try to use atrophied skills and become frustrated – in effect their mind ‘knows’ the body can do this, but the body has forgotten how. In an attempt to remedy the situation the fencer tries ever harder, faster, more violently to bodge their way through, to get-points-and-win, resulting in a scrappy mess from which nobody really learns anything.
Denial
Some fencers are not as good as they want to be, or not as good as they used to be, but cannot admit it. The only solution is to go back to basics and grind away at drills. Get the body structure right, eliminate bad habits, and above all stop trying to rush to the payoff. In order to return to a high level of skill after a break in training or other reason for skill decay, it is necessary to accept what has happened. If ego gets in the way, the result can be an ever-increasing cycle of fakery and excuses which makes it harder to admit the problem.
I have seen this in many forms. One was an individual who desperately wanted to be a tremendous martial artist but had only ever been mediocre at best. For reasons beyond the scope of this discussion he became unable to perform even basic techniques but rather than admit this he continued to bodge his way through. This was a martial arts rather than fencing context, and it happened in a class where I was not the instructor. I advised this individual to go back to basics, which could be done by teaming up with literally anyone in the class. It could even done without admitting what was happening – an experienced training partner would benefit most beginners, who would likely not realise the full extent of the situation.
Instead this individual concealed his incompetence. Rather than working on his own skills he would persist in showing beginners clever variations on techniques he could not perform, and which they would only find useful once they got the hang of what he was stopping them from doing. He was also prone to showboating for the benefit of new starters with the assistance of compliant training partners.
By indulging his ego in this manner this individual ensured he would never regain his previous rather modest skill level. As stated above I was not the instructor; none of this was my problem. By the time he left this class, this individual was something of a laughing-stock. I did try to help him but he was too busy deluding himself to take any notice. A cautionary tale, perhaps.
Not Actually Trying to Improve
This one should also be obvious, but that is not always the case. Some students simply lack the motivation to work at improving. This can be particularly blatant, such as ducking out of certain activities or finding something that absolutely has to be discussed right now in order to avoid a drill, but it can manifest in other ways. Some students are entirely unaware they are not trying to improve, and genuinely believe they are trying hard. Thus this subject is one that must be tackled carefully.
Some students do not realise they can succeed. That may sound strange, but it is surprisingly common. Once someone has succeeded at something (and realised they have succeeded!), they will often approach new challenges with determination and confidence. Those who are used to just-sort-of-getting-by will – without ever intending it – fail to give their best and will thus not progress as well as they might.
For those who are wilful, ego often plays a part. One of my long-ago students was something of a prodigy, and rapidly reached a very high level. He then just… stopped. Ultimately he became incompetent. The problem was that he felt that routine class drills were beneath his dignity so arrived late at the class to avoid them – when he turned up at all. He would then ask for private lessons and was displeased when I refused. Any private lesson would be either wasted on something he lacked the core skills to perform, or spent remedying that lack – which could have been achieved by taking part in the class lesson I had just taught!
This individual seemed genuinely surprised when his tournament performance nose-dived. Were I to guess, I would suggest it had something to do with not training for weeks on end, neglecting the basics like footwork and posture, or something of that nature.
Another student of the same era (I suspect I might be less tolerant these days) used to come in late and avoid the footwork drills I ran at the start of every class. Eventually he left us, stating that the level of opposition was not high enough in my class. I must confess to feeling a certain satisfaction when he was beaten by one of my students in his next tournament. Oddly enough, the same individual came back to visit us for a session, and raved about how great his new class was. They always started with 20 minutes of footwork drills, he told me admiringly.
I recall that I did not reply.
Fixation on ‘Winning’
One of the single greatest obstacles to improvement is a fixation on ‘winning’ in freeplay (and sometimes drills too, which is ridiculous). Fencers with a constant get-points-win attitude tend to do the same things over and over again, especially if they have worked once or twice. In order to improve it is necessary to lose gracefully in freeplay if necessary, refusing to resort to points-getting expedients for the sake of ego. I try to foster the attitude that victory is something that happens if you fence well, rather than fencing badly to chase victory.
Those with a fixation on winning often lose sight of what they are actually doing. Charging forward in a desperate attempt to ‘get there first’ is often rewarded with points, which reinforces this behaviour – but what fencing manual advocates blindly piling in with no regard for your own safety? Repeated jabbing or endless cut-one-side/cut-the-other advances with no regard to what would happen if a riposte were to materialise are other artefacts of misplaced goals. Ultimately we see fencers hurling themselves forward in an all-or-nothing attack and simply remising over and over again until they hit something. This will get points in the right environment, but it is the antithesis of historical fencing.
The solution to this problem is tight control by the president of a bout or the instructor of a club. If expedient fencing is not rewarded it will be replaced by what works – such as good, controlled fencing recognisable as the system being taught. In short, if we let our students think they are doing well by flailing at one another, they will do it. If there is no benefit, they will not.
Rewarding Bad Fencing
Perhaps the single greatest obstacle – albeit often a hidden one – to progress in a class is due to fencers as well as instructors rewarding bad fencing. We have already discussed the problem inherent in rewarding an overly aggressive get-points-win attitude, but it is worth looking some aspects in more detail.
One key to becoming a good fencer is to be more critical of yourself than of your opponent (but being too self-critical is destructive). A near-certain way to become a bad fencer is to be lenient with yourself. Consider, for example, a fencer who has a nervous habit of counter-hitting every time they are faced with an offensive action. Arguably, the attacker should have covered the line, but leaving that aside there is a major issue here.
A potentially good fencer will realise that they are engaging in bad fencing and try to correct it, on the grounds that counter-hitting and causing a ‘double’ results in them being hit – and being hit with a sharp sword is always bad. A potentially bad fencer will likely take the opposite view: ‘I got you!’ becomes more important than ‘I’m dead too’. Indeed, fencers on this path will often rate their ‘success’ far more highly than that of the opponent, and may genuinely think they are winning because their sword touched the opponent – regardless of circumstances.
If we reward this sort of behaviour, we encourage it. Instructors can do much by changing the culture of the class, but other fencers have a part to play as well. This is in everyone’s interests. Consider the student who has reached the point where they can make an attack, parry the riposte and land a counter-riposte in a drill. The next stage is trying to implement these skills in freeplay.
There is no chance of that happening if every exchange is a scrappy mess of jumping about, charging in and grabbing at blades, or if the opponent is fencing (and here I use the term rather loosely) in a manner that makes practicing these skills impossible. What happens in this case is that nobody ever learns to do anything beyond the first attack or maybe first riposte.
It is possible to counter these behaviours and to create an environment where fencers can use freeplay to develop their skills. Doing so is partly about fostering a culture of ‘fence well, don’t get hit’ rather than ‘hit the opponent a nanosecond before they hit you, and do it anyhow you can’. Specific kinds of fencer behaviour can also be redirected in a more helpful direction.
The Feeling of Obligation
Sometimes fencers feel they must do something because the opponent is not, and end up playing to the opponent’s bad fencing. For example, some fencers will withhold their weapon, keeping it where it cannot be engaged or bound. This may seem very clever to some, since it prevents a better fencer from binding the blade and delivering a stroke. However, this situation can lead to bad fencing being rewarded.
If the opponent can be incited to make a parry from their withdrawn position, all well and good since it is likely to be clumsy and ineffective. However, many will simply counter-hit resulting in the ‘biased double’ discussed above. I personally have seen opponents jumping around in triumph because they committed suicide to land a hit on me, suggesting that this behaviour was self-reinforcing.
Of course, one should not attack unless it is safe to do so – this is a fundamental part of historical fencing. So what can we do if the opponent holds their weapon where we cannot control it? The answer is that one should not attack unless it is safe to do so. If the opponent is a counter-hitter, we cannot attack safely so we should not attack at all. By refusing to play their game we deprive them of the reward – in their eyes – of a double hit that they view as being in their favour.
This does mean perhaps spending an entire bout doing nothing but looking for a safe opening, perhaps sniping the hand from time to time. Boring? Perhaps, but a shift in perspective turns this into victory. Not getting hit with a sword is a form of winning, after all. I have done this, and had opponents complain that I did not attack them and thus created a boring bout. Well, yes. If they want to fence in a way that prevents me from committing to an attack I consider to be ‘good fencing’ I am not under any obligation to make one that will inevitably be counter-hit. If they want an interesting bout they will have to fence properly.
The Perceived Need to Pursue
Some opponents will retreat in the face of any attack. One way to deal with this is to pursue vigorously, rushing forward or making over-committed lunges that compromise body structure and balance. This is not desirable, however. Abandoning the principles of good fencing to chase an opponent guarantees learning nothing useful.
So what of the opponent who backs up and backs up and backs up and…. Let them. But do not reward this behaviour by giving them an effectively infinite space to retreat into. My preferred tactic is to advance deliberately – not rushing or chasing – until the opponent has run out of room, then refuse to allow them to reset. There is no need to make an over-committed attack in the hope of catching them as they flee; instead imagine a duel situation. On duellist advanced, the other retreated. It is obvious who won. In the class, move back just enough to come on guard safely and begin again. If the opponent does not like fencing up against the back wall of the salle they will have to stop going there!
The key to this situation and the one above is mindset. Rather than feeling obligated to ‘do something’ the fencer should be aware that they are doing something, something good and correct, by not attacking under sub-optimal circumstances. Instructors can teach their students to see who is dominating a situation and to view this as success. The upshot of this is that when attacks are made they are careful and measured, sometimes leading into parry-riposte exchanges which reward the fencer with better skills, better posture, and a better plan. This is the culture we need to foster in order to facilitate better fencing.
Blade Grabs and Rough-Housing
I am of the opinion that a well-executed command of the blade, near the hilt, and an attempt at a recognisable disarming technique is a valid and important part of historical fencing, but the routine use of blade grabs is an obstacle to progress. I will discuss the safety aspect below, but for now let us consider the implications of blade-grabbing. Yes, historically it would have happened, but if permitted it becomes a crutch for many fencers and an obstacle to progress.
Some fencers will not parry at all, nor prepare an attack, but instead resort to grabbing at the opponent’s blade at any opportunity. Once they have hold of it, fencing has ceased and a grapple has begun – it is simply not possible to parry and riposte if someone has hold of your blade! This is interesting or fun under the right circumstances, but often grabbing at the blade is used as a crutch by poor fencers – who then never get any better because no exchange goes beyond one thrust.
Similarly, those who charge forward making one mighty swipe then crash into their opponent and take them to the floor are preventing any further actions of the blade. This is a useful expedient for getting points in tournaments that allow or encourage it, but this sort of conduct makes an exchange of attacks and parries unlikely to occur. This becomes a self-reinforcing spiral – fencers do not learn to defend and respond under freeplay conditions because their opponent always grapples, so they too resort to grappling. If this is place you want to go, fine, but when there is more grappling than fencing something has been lost.
I try to take a ‘clean’ approach to freeplay, especially with less experienced opponents. I have little to gain from destroying a beginner with an all-out attack designed to get as many points as possible in the shortest time. Instead, I want to fence. Ideally we both get to practice, learn and improve. If my opponent shuts this down by grabbing at the blade all the time, I usually ask them not to so that we can have a more satisfying bout and learn something. If they persist, I do not put my weapon where they can grab it.
That can mean doing nothing but sniping their weapon hand for the entire bout, but so be it. If the opponent is resorting to expedients to get points, I will not reward this behaviour by letting them succeed. This is about more than winning – someone who learns they can ‘win’ by grabbing at the blade will do so, and since they do not practice other actions they will not be able to perform them. Which leaves… more blade grabs. Trying to fence against someone like that is a waste of my time. If I have agreed to grapple beforehand, we can have a play and explore the skills required, but there is an important issue to consider here.
If you grab a blade, your opponent has two options – stand there and politely be hit, or start grappling. People who grapple all the time and make few blade actions may get better at grappling but bladework will not improve. If this situation is not desirable, blade grabs must be prohibited. There are also safety concerns here. A fencer with no grappling experience might grab the blade and be dumped hard on the floor by an opponent who thought they wanted to grapple. This is understandable – after all, what is the alternative? The blade-grabber has created a situation whereby their opponent cannot do anything else.
A Cautionary Tale
I have, upon occasion, asked an opponent not to grab my blade and been told ‘oh, it’s okay, I’ve studied (wrestling system)’. What this person is saying is ‘it’s okay for me to grab your blade and initiate a grapple because I know how to smash you hard into the floor’. What if I have no grappling experience? Is it still okay to grapple me and perhaps use a takedown or throw?
It is not.
In my case, I do have grappling experience. A 3rd Dan in Ju-Jitsu, among other things. So is it okay to grapple me without asking first?
It is not.
I have a chronic back injury. Sometimes I am more or less fine, at other times I am seriously limited. I know what I can and cannot do. On one particular occasion, I agreed to do some smallsword fencing against a particular individual. I was fine for this, but had anyone asked about grappling I would have been horrified as I was recovering from a serious episode. My opponent did not ask, and I had no reason to suppose he would initiate a grapple since our group has an ask-first policy of which all members are aware.
My opponent on that occasion was one of those people who dabbles but wants to be good. I did not see the harm in a friendly bout in the class, but he wanted to get points any old how. The bout was scrappy and unsatisfying, and I attempted to demonstrate clean technique to make the point that it works if you train properly. This was a mistake.
With no warning my opponent rushed in, grabbed my blade and kicked me hard in the side of the right knee with his shin. He was wearing a heavy leg protector. There was some damage to the knee, but I did not notice at the time as my opponent wrenched me round by my blade – in the opposite direction to my buckling knee. I felt my lower back tearing and avoided further damage only by delivering a hard left hook.
Had this opponent asked to ‘fight’, I would have declined. Had I for some reason accepted I would have been prepared for his rough-housing and might have defended against it. However, since I thought we were having a polite smallsword bout I was not prepared for what happened.
The result was another course of physiotherapy and a period of the worst pain I have ever experienced. By my standards, that is saying something. I lost almost all nerve function in my left leg. It was nearly two years before I got any back, and now I have around 80% function.
That’s all I’m ever getting.
This happened because someone who cannot be bothered to learn to fence properly wanted to win, so took liberties and tried to rough-house his way to scoring some points. My injury was not life-changing as such, since I already had back trouble and associated nerve issues, but it will affect me for the rest of my life.
So… I urge instructors to teach their students that it is NOT acceptable to grapple just because you know how. Even a skilled opponent can be permanently damaged by an unexpected grapple. An unskilled person who is hurt in this manner may well quit fencing, which is not desirable. And of course in addition to these safety concerns, there is the matter of actually learning to fence. If students are permitted to rough-house their way out of any situation they will do so – it requires less skill to grab for the blade or charge in stabbing than to make a proper fencing action.
Thus in many cases the single biggest obstacle to improvement is the culture of the class. Those that want to get-points-win will use any expedient they can find, and most of what they do prevents others from using good, clean fencing in freeplay and thereby actually improving. Worse, they will land hits and feel they are succeeding.
This can be countered by creating a culture whereby it is only possible to ‘win’ by fencing well and cleanly, which in turn opens the way for fencers to try out what they have learned in an environment where they have some chance of succeeding at it.
In summary, if instructors can create an environment where not only drills but also freeplay are conducted in the manner of the system being studied, and with a view to allowing students to practice what they have learned, many obstacles to improvement will be removed. At the same time, students must not reward those who fence badly by allowing their expedients to get them points. It may be very apparent to you that your opponent is repeatedly committing suicide, but they may be of the opinion they are beating you. I have seen this sort of self-delusion first-hand, and it never leads to becoming a good fencer or martial artist.
We can do nothing about that – if someone has been shown how to succeed and chooses not to, that is their problem. However, if they are stopping others from progressing they need to be corrected or they will drag the whole class down with them.
Improvement does not proceed at a steady pace, nor does it occur at the same pace for everyone. Every fencer will, at some point, experience plateaus and may even ‘get worse’ on the way to fencing better. Some of the reasons are obvious; others less so. I will try to address some that I have observed, along with possible solutions.
Training and Training Environment Problems
Often the problem lies in the training environment or class culture, which can be addressed by the instructor if they realise what is happening. Many of these problems are obvious, especially to someone on the outside looking in, but it is easy to develop blind spots about common practices that have evolved over a period of time.
I’ve Been Doing It For Three Months and I’m Not Getting Any Better
I am always tempted reply to this one with ‘Three months? Well, there’s your problem right there’, since this question is often the product of unrealistic expectations. A student who has come to most of the classes over the past few weeks cannot really expect to be an expert – but many do, and frustration leads to a drop in effort and concentration.
Unrealistic expectations must be challenged, but at the same time the student might not realise that they are in fact improving. Anyone who has been training diligently for a few weeks will be better at what they are doing than when they started… but they may not be able to see it. This is particularly prevalent where a group of peers joined the class at the same time and improve at roughly the same rate. It is not until a new intake of beginners arrives that the amount of progress that has been made becomes apparent.
As a case in point, a particular situation was repeated many times over during my 20 or so years teaching modern Olympic-style fencing at the University of Sunderland. People who still thought of themselves as beginners after their first year with us were often astounded when new starters asked them for advice or expressed a desire to reach their standard. The realisation that they had indeed made progress often helped the ‘yearlings’ become motivated to push onward.
Thus unrealistic expectations must be challenged, but students must also be shown or allowed to realise how far they have come. Someone who sees progress will be encouraged to try for more.
Intermittent Training
This is an obvious problem. A student who comes to the class every few weeks is not going to progress as well as someone who has been to every session. There is more to it than fewer training hours, however. The gaps between attendance allow barely-learned skills to decay and do not permit a structured approach to teaching or training. In short, intermittent training not only reduces the amount of training hours; it also reduces the value of these hours.
Sometimes this is the fault of the instructor rather than the student. It can be tempting to flit from one topic to another and to take the attitude that anything that has been covered is ‘done’ and cannot be revisited. Those who try to study a different system every session condemn everyone involved to forever starting at the beginning when they come back to one – or worse, the instructor may end up trying to build on a lesson taught a month ago and buried under a pile of ‘kewl stuff of the week’.
The latter issue can only be remedied by the instructor, but it is not hard to do. A series of classes, each building on the last, allows students to revise previously learned skills and use them as the basis of the next step. A scatterbrained approach to a single topic is bad enough; flitting from one weapon or system to another every session is a recipe for ongoing lack of progress. It is, however, notable that students demonstrate an incredible ability to pick up bad habits whilst forgetting everything else. Topic-hopping is a sure-fire way of creating students who cannot do anything well, and who may be able to do almost anything very badly.
Enforced gaps in training can present a related problem. In my old university class we would have breaks at Christmas and the summer, and one curious phenomenon presented itself every time: good skills atrophy fast; bad habits last forever.
Often fencers try to use atrophied skills and become frustrated – in effect their mind ‘knows’ the body can do this, but the body has forgotten how. In an attempt to remedy the situation the fencer tries ever harder, faster, more violently to bodge their way through, to get-points-and-win, resulting in a scrappy mess from which nobody really learns anything.
Denial
Some fencers are not as good as they want to be, or not as good as they used to be, but cannot admit it. The only solution is to go back to basics and grind away at drills. Get the body structure right, eliminate bad habits, and above all stop trying to rush to the payoff. In order to return to a high level of skill after a break in training or other reason for skill decay, it is necessary to accept what has happened. If ego gets in the way, the result can be an ever-increasing cycle of fakery and excuses which makes it harder to admit the problem.
I have seen this in many forms. One was an individual who desperately wanted to be a tremendous martial artist but had only ever been mediocre at best. For reasons beyond the scope of this discussion he became unable to perform even basic techniques but rather than admit this he continued to bodge his way through. This was a martial arts rather than fencing context, and it happened in a class where I was not the instructor. I advised this individual to go back to basics, which could be done by teaming up with literally anyone in the class. It could even done without admitting what was happening – an experienced training partner would benefit most beginners, who would likely not realise the full extent of the situation.
Instead this individual concealed his incompetence. Rather than working on his own skills he would persist in showing beginners clever variations on techniques he could not perform, and which they would only find useful once they got the hang of what he was stopping them from doing. He was also prone to showboating for the benefit of new starters with the assistance of compliant training partners.
By indulging his ego in this manner this individual ensured he would never regain his previous rather modest skill level. As stated above I was not the instructor; none of this was my problem. By the time he left this class, this individual was something of a laughing-stock. I did try to help him but he was too busy deluding himself to take any notice. A cautionary tale, perhaps.
Not Actually Trying to Improve
This one should also be obvious, but that is not always the case. Some students simply lack the motivation to work at improving. This can be particularly blatant, such as ducking out of certain activities or finding something that absolutely has to be discussed right now in order to avoid a drill, but it can manifest in other ways. Some students are entirely unaware they are not trying to improve, and genuinely believe they are trying hard. Thus this subject is one that must be tackled carefully.
Some students do not realise they can succeed. That may sound strange, but it is surprisingly common. Once someone has succeeded at something (and realised they have succeeded!), they will often approach new challenges with determination and confidence. Those who are used to just-sort-of-getting-by will – without ever intending it – fail to give their best and will thus not progress as well as they might.
For those who are wilful, ego often plays a part. One of my long-ago students was something of a prodigy, and rapidly reached a very high level. He then just… stopped. Ultimately he became incompetent. The problem was that he felt that routine class drills were beneath his dignity so arrived late at the class to avoid them – when he turned up at all. He would then ask for private lessons and was displeased when I refused. Any private lesson would be either wasted on something he lacked the core skills to perform, or spent remedying that lack – which could have been achieved by taking part in the class lesson I had just taught!
This individual seemed genuinely surprised when his tournament performance nose-dived. Were I to guess, I would suggest it had something to do with not training for weeks on end, neglecting the basics like footwork and posture, or something of that nature.
Another student of the same era (I suspect I might be less tolerant these days) used to come in late and avoid the footwork drills I ran at the start of every class. Eventually he left us, stating that the level of opposition was not high enough in my class. I must confess to feeling a certain satisfaction when he was beaten by one of my students in his next tournament. Oddly enough, the same individual came back to visit us for a session, and raved about how great his new class was. They always started with 20 minutes of footwork drills, he told me admiringly.
I recall that I did not reply.
Fixation on ‘Winning’
One of the single greatest obstacles to improvement is a fixation on ‘winning’ in freeplay (and sometimes drills too, which is ridiculous). Fencers with a constant get-points-win attitude tend to do the same things over and over again, especially if they have worked once or twice. In order to improve it is necessary to lose gracefully in freeplay if necessary, refusing to resort to points-getting expedients for the sake of ego. I try to foster the attitude that victory is something that happens if you fence well, rather than fencing badly to chase victory.
Those with a fixation on winning often lose sight of what they are actually doing. Charging forward in a desperate attempt to ‘get there first’ is often rewarded with points, which reinforces this behaviour – but what fencing manual advocates blindly piling in with no regard for your own safety? Repeated jabbing or endless cut-one-side/cut-the-other advances with no regard to what would happen if a riposte were to materialise are other artefacts of misplaced goals. Ultimately we see fencers hurling themselves forward in an all-or-nothing attack and simply remising over and over again until they hit something. This will get points in the right environment, but it is the antithesis of historical fencing.
The solution to this problem is tight control by the president of a bout or the instructor of a club. If expedient fencing is not rewarded it will be replaced by what works – such as good, controlled fencing recognisable as the system being taught. In short, if we let our students think they are doing well by flailing at one another, they will do it. If there is no benefit, they will not.
Rewarding Bad Fencing
Perhaps the single greatest obstacle – albeit often a hidden one – to progress in a class is due to fencers as well as instructors rewarding bad fencing. We have already discussed the problem inherent in rewarding an overly aggressive get-points-win attitude, but it is worth looking some aspects in more detail.
One key to becoming a good fencer is to be more critical of yourself than of your opponent (but being too self-critical is destructive). A near-certain way to become a bad fencer is to be lenient with yourself. Consider, for example, a fencer who has a nervous habit of counter-hitting every time they are faced with an offensive action. Arguably, the attacker should have covered the line, but leaving that aside there is a major issue here.
A potentially good fencer will realise that they are engaging in bad fencing and try to correct it, on the grounds that counter-hitting and causing a ‘double’ results in them being hit – and being hit with a sharp sword is always bad. A potentially bad fencer will likely take the opposite view: ‘I got you!’ becomes more important than ‘I’m dead too’. Indeed, fencers on this path will often rate their ‘success’ far more highly than that of the opponent, and may genuinely think they are winning because their sword touched the opponent – regardless of circumstances.
If we reward this sort of behaviour, we encourage it. Instructors can do much by changing the culture of the class, but other fencers have a part to play as well. This is in everyone’s interests. Consider the student who has reached the point where they can make an attack, parry the riposte and land a counter-riposte in a drill. The next stage is trying to implement these skills in freeplay.
There is no chance of that happening if every exchange is a scrappy mess of jumping about, charging in and grabbing at blades, or if the opponent is fencing (and here I use the term rather loosely) in a manner that makes practicing these skills impossible. What happens in this case is that nobody ever learns to do anything beyond the first attack or maybe first riposte.
It is possible to counter these behaviours and to create an environment where fencers can use freeplay to develop their skills. Doing so is partly about fostering a culture of ‘fence well, don’t get hit’ rather than ‘hit the opponent a nanosecond before they hit you, and do it anyhow you can’. Specific kinds of fencer behaviour can also be redirected in a more helpful direction.
The Feeling of Obligation
Sometimes fencers feel they must do something because the opponent is not, and end up playing to the opponent’s bad fencing. For example, some fencers will withhold their weapon, keeping it where it cannot be engaged or bound. This may seem very clever to some, since it prevents a better fencer from binding the blade and delivering a stroke. However, this situation can lead to bad fencing being rewarded.
If the opponent can be incited to make a parry from their withdrawn position, all well and good since it is likely to be clumsy and ineffective. However, many will simply counter-hit resulting in the ‘biased double’ discussed above. I personally have seen opponents jumping around in triumph because they committed suicide to land a hit on me, suggesting that this behaviour was self-reinforcing.
Of course, one should not attack unless it is safe to do so – this is a fundamental part of historical fencing. So what can we do if the opponent holds their weapon where we cannot control it? The answer is that one should not attack unless it is safe to do so. If the opponent is a counter-hitter, we cannot attack safely so we should not attack at all. By refusing to play their game we deprive them of the reward – in their eyes – of a double hit that they view as being in their favour.
This does mean perhaps spending an entire bout doing nothing but looking for a safe opening, perhaps sniping the hand from time to time. Boring? Perhaps, but a shift in perspective turns this into victory. Not getting hit with a sword is a form of winning, after all. I have done this, and had opponents complain that I did not attack them and thus created a boring bout. Well, yes. If they want to fence in a way that prevents me from committing to an attack I consider to be ‘good fencing’ I am not under any obligation to make one that will inevitably be counter-hit. If they want an interesting bout they will have to fence properly.
The Perceived Need to Pursue
Some opponents will retreat in the face of any attack. One way to deal with this is to pursue vigorously, rushing forward or making over-committed lunges that compromise body structure and balance. This is not desirable, however. Abandoning the principles of good fencing to chase an opponent guarantees learning nothing useful.
So what of the opponent who backs up and backs up and backs up and…. Let them. But do not reward this behaviour by giving them an effectively infinite space to retreat into. My preferred tactic is to advance deliberately – not rushing or chasing – until the opponent has run out of room, then refuse to allow them to reset. There is no need to make an over-committed attack in the hope of catching them as they flee; instead imagine a duel situation. On duellist advanced, the other retreated. It is obvious who won. In the class, move back just enough to come on guard safely and begin again. If the opponent does not like fencing up against the back wall of the salle they will have to stop going there!
The key to this situation and the one above is mindset. Rather than feeling obligated to ‘do something’ the fencer should be aware that they are doing something, something good and correct, by not attacking under sub-optimal circumstances. Instructors can teach their students to see who is dominating a situation and to view this as success. The upshot of this is that when attacks are made they are careful and measured, sometimes leading into parry-riposte exchanges which reward the fencer with better skills, better posture, and a better plan. This is the culture we need to foster in order to facilitate better fencing.
Blade Grabs and Rough-Housing
I am of the opinion that a well-executed command of the blade, near the hilt, and an attempt at a recognisable disarming technique is a valid and important part of historical fencing, but the routine use of blade grabs is an obstacle to progress. I will discuss the safety aspect below, but for now let us consider the implications of blade-grabbing. Yes, historically it would have happened, but if permitted it becomes a crutch for many fencers and an obstacle to progress.
Some fencers will not parry at all, nor prepare an attack, but instead resort to grabbing at the opponent’s blade at any opportunity. Once they have hold of it, fencing has ceased and a grapple has begun – it is simply not possible to parry and riposte if someone has hold of your blade! This is interesting or fun under the right circumstances, but often grabbing at the blade is used as a crutch by poor fencers – who then never get any better because no exchange goes beyond one thrust.
Similarly, those who charge forward making one mighty swipe then crash into their opponent and take them to the floor are preventing any further actions of the blade. This is a useful expedient for getting points in tournaments that allow or encourage it, but this sort of conduct makes an exchange of attacks and parries unlikely to occur. This becomes a self-reinforcing spiral – fencers do not learn to defend and respond under freeplay conditions because their opponent always grapples, so they too resort to grappling. If this is place you want to go, fine, but when there is more grappling than fencing something has been lost.
I try to take a ‘clean’ approach to freeplay, especially with less experienced opponents. I have little to gain from destroying a beginner with an all-out attack designed to get as many points as possible in the shortest time. Instead, I want to fence. Ideally we both get to practice, learn and improve. If my opponent shuts this down by grabbing at the blade all the time, I usually ask them not to so that we can have a more satisfying bout and learn something. If they persist, I do not put my weapon where they can grab it.
That can mean doing nothing but sniping their weapon hand for the entire bout, but so be it. If the opponent is resorting to expedients to get points, I will not reward this behaviour by letting them succeed. This is about more than winning – someone who learns they can ‘win’ by grabbing at the blade will do so, and since they do not practice other actions they will not be able to perform them. Which leaves… more blade grabs. Trying to fence against someone like that is a waste of my time. If I have agreed to grapple beforehand, we can have a play and explore the skills required, but there is an important issue to consider here.
If you grab a blade, your opponent has two options – stand there and politely be hit, or start grappling. People who grapple all the time and make few blade actions may get better at grappling but bladework will not improve. If this situation is not desirable, blade grabs must be prohibited. There are also safety concerns here. A fencer with no grappling experience might grab the blade and be dumped hard on the floor by an opponent who thought they wanted to grapple. This is understandable – after all, what is the alternative? The blade-grabber has created a situation whereby their opponent cannot do anything else.
A Cautionary Tale
I have, upon occasion, asked an opponent not to grab my blade and been told ‘oh, it’s okay, I’ve studied (wrestling system)’. What this person is saying is ‘it’s okay for me to grab your blade and initiate a grapple because I know how to smash you hard into the floor’. What if I have no grappling experience? Is it still okay to grapple me and perhaps use a takedown or throw?
It is not.
In my case, I do have grappling experience. A 3rd Dan in Ju-Jitsu, among other things. So is it okay to grapple me without asking first?
It is not.
I have a chronic back injury. Sometimes I am more or less fine, at other times I am seriously limited. I know what I can and cannot do. On one particular occasion, I agreed to do some smallsword fencing against a particular individual. I was fine for this, but had anyone asked about grappling I would have been horrified as I was recovering from a serious episode. My opponent did not ask, and I had no reason to suppose he would initiate a grapple since our group has an ask-first policy of which all members are aware.
My opponent on that occasion was one of those people who dabbles but wants to be good. I did not see the harm in a friendly bout in the class, but he wanted to get points any old how. The bout was scrappy and unsatisfying, and I attempted to demonstrate clean technique to make the point that it works if you train properly. This was a mistake.
With no warning my opponent rushed in, grabbed my blade and kicked me hard in the side of the right knee with his shin. He was wearing a heavy leg protector. There was some damage to the knee, but I did not notice at the time as my opponent wrenched me round by my blade – in the opposite direction to my buckling knee. I felt my lower back tearing and avoided further damage only by delivering a hard left hook.
Had this opponent asked to ‘fight’, I would have declined. Had I for some reason accepted I would have been prepared for his rough-housing and might have defended against it. However, since I thought we were having a polite smallsword bout I was not prepared for what happened.
The result was another course of physiotherapy and a period of the worst pain I have ever experienced. By my standards, that is saying something. I lost almost all nerve function in my left leg. It was nearly two years before I got any back, and now I have around 80% function.
That’s all I’m ever getting.
This happened because someone who cannot be bothered to learn to fence properly wanted to win, so took liberties and tried to rough-house his way to scoring some points. My injury was not life-changing as such, since I already had back trouble and associated nerve issues, but it will affect me for the rest of my life.
So… I urge instructors to teach their students that it is NOT acceptable to grapple just because you know how. Even a skilled opponent can be permanently damaged by an unexpected grapple. An unskilled person who is hurt in this manner may well quit fencing, which is not desirable. And of course in addition to these safety concerns, there is the matter of actually learning to fence. If students are permitted to rough-house their way out of any situation they will do so – it requires less skill to grab for the blade or charge in stabbing than to make a proper fencing action.
Thus in many cases the single biggest obstacle to improvement is the culture of the class. Those that want to get-points-win will use any expedient they can find, and most of what they do prevents others from using good, clean fencing in freeplay and thereby actually improving. Worse, they will land hits and feel they are succeeding.
This can be countered by creating a culture whereby it is only possible to ‘win’ by fencing well and cleanly, which in turn opens the way for fencers to try out what they have learned in an environment where they have some chance of succeeding at it.
In summary, if instructors can create an environment where not only drills but also freeplay are conducted in the manner of the system being studied, and with a view to allowing students to practice what they have learned, many obstacles to improvement will be removed. At the same time, students must not reward those who fence badly by allowing their expedients to get them points. It may be very apparent to you that your opponent is repeatedly committing suicide, but they may be of the opinion they are beating you. I have seen this sort of self-delusion first-hand, and it never leads to becoming a good fencer or martial artist.
We can do nothing about that – if someone has been shown how to succeed and chooses not to, that is their problem. However, if they are stopping others from progressing they need to be corrected or they will drag the whole class down with them.
