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by: David Littell

Here are some additional ideas about body mechanics. If you haven’t read Fencing with Ease, I would suggest that you read that first.

No Not the Front Toes

Think for a moment about the relationship between the movement of walking and the movement of fencing. When you take a step the first thing you do is gently support your weight on one foot and release the other hip, knee, and ankle. What I mean by that is your knee bends forward easily, your heel comes up a bit and your hip joint releases as your knee bends forward. This releasing of the joints allows your foot to swing forward freely without having to disrupt your pelvis–meaning your pelvis does not have to rise up and your head can stay level and your walking remains smooth.

As applied to fencing, this means that when moving the front foot on the advance, the first thing that happens is the front heel comes off the ground slightly as the hip releases and front knee bends (going forward–not up). From here the front foot can swing forward just as with walking without disrupting the pelvis. Moving the back leg seems to be more difficult for fencers because of the direction of the knee. Here, the beginning of the movement is the same as the front foot, release the hip knee and ankle (the knee goes out to the side). Only then can the back foot can come up without lifting the back hip (a common problem).

When you see a fencer who does not release the front leg and swing it freely forward, you see their weight go too far forward, and their foot generally moves forward fairly flat. At this point many instructors will make the correction, lift your front toe forward first. The intention is correct–on a good advance the foot does swing forward from the knee and the front toe swings forward and up. However, the correction can have the opposite effect of what is really intended. If you literally lift the front toe without releasing the joints (and lifting the heel) first, you literally have to lift the entire leg at once–a much more strenuous and awkward movement. Try walking by lifting your toes and see how hard and awkward this is.

Exercise: Try to get the connection between walking and fencing with the following sequence. First stand in a mirror with your feet shoulder width apart ready to walk. Walk a few steps and see what you notice. Now looking in the mirror isolate the beginning of the step which means release the hips, knees and ankles then swing the leg forward. Take some slow steps working with the release at the beginning of the step. Now before you begin to walk bend your knees about as much as you would if you were to get on guard. At first you might lose the smooth easy swinging of your legs, especially if you tightened your hips as you bent your legs. Hopefully after a little practice you should be able to get the same ease that you do when you walk. Now try the following exercise. Walk a few steps then walk a few steps in a low bent knee position, and the just turn and advance without thinking about it. Hopefully, you will feel more ease and freedom in your movement after trying this a few times. If you find the exercise useful, try it as a warm up each time you go to do footwork.

Aim Your Torso

In fencing, we tend to focus very carefully on the direction of the feet. Every fencer learns that the heels should line up, the toes should be at a 90 degree angle, and the stance should be about shoulder width apart. And every fencer intends to keep their feet pointed correctly as they move. Unfortunately most of us have trouble keeping the right position after a few steps.

Instead of fixing your feet, here’s a different idea. Looking in a mirror, start off putting your feet in the right position (with your knees still straight) and pretend that you don’t know anything about fencing. Now look in the mirror. If you haven’t twisted your torso (if you have go back to neutral position) where is your belly button aiming? It will be aiming directly in between your feet. You could also describe it as aiming toward the corner or at a 45 degree angle from the direction of your front foot. Now how do you see the opponent? You turn your head. If you keep this direction of your torso you shouldn’t have much trouble keeping your feet pointed in the right direction.

If you find that you twist your torso so that your belly button is facing your opponent (the most common mistake) you will have a hard time keeping your back foot at 90 degrees. If you’re like most, you’ll turn your back foot forward to compensate. Quite a few good fencers actually fence this way. It works ok, but you really aren’t able to keep your weight on the back leg like you can when your foot is at 90 degrees. You will have trouble changing directions when you are going forward, have less power on a lunge, have difficulty making lunges that last for a long time and will have more trouble recovering from the lunge.

If you are a real masochist, you may twist forward and keep your foot at 90 degrees (because you always do what you are told). Doing this twists your back knee into a very awkward position and over time this will take it’s toll on your knee (I can attest to this). The third correction that students make if they are twisted forward is to bring the back foot out (so that the heels don’t line up). This usually results in the fencer advancing and retreating in odd semicircles.

Some fencers will twist the opposite direction. They will turn sideways (aiming toward the side wall) apparently trying to hide their target by making themselves narrower. When you turn sideways you are in big trouble. First it becomes very difficult to protect your back from getting hit (which becomes a huge problem when you start fencing “B rated” fencers who know how to hit the back). Second, you’ll naturally change your feet to protect your knees. The sideways fencer will usually aim their back toe back (120 degrees or so from the front foot) and or aim their front toe toward the corner. As an alternative, they will change the alignment of their feet, moving the back foot back behind the front (so that the feet don’t line up the other way). The other option is to keep the feet lined up and now twist the front knee to accommodate the torso position. Now the other knee hurts.

So this makes sense to you but you’ve been doing it different way for years and you’re not sure if you can or want to change. I suggest that you try it the new way then compare it to the old way really paying attention to the feedback that your body is giving you (not your brain!). If your paying attention, you’ll realize that it strains your body less and is more natural. If you can get past your old ideas you’ll fence better and longer with your torso (and feet) aimed correctly.

Don’t Stop Now

We can learn some other things from walking too. When you walk notice that your legs stay in constant movement and you keep readjusting your hips knees and ankles as you move forward. Unfortunately this constant readjustment typically does not happen with fencers. Most fencers advance and stop the movement in their joints, then advance and stop over and over again as they advance down the strip. Face it. It really looks stupid when you move this way. How does that one fencer at the club look so smooth? They simply keep the joints in movement, constantly readjusting their weight and keeping the legs in constant motion.

To practice try taking a wider than normal stance and simply transfer your weight forward and back without stopping and keeping your torso upright. Now take this feeling into a series of advances and retreats and see if you can keep the same flow. Also try the walking exercise in no not the toe.

If I Could Only Get Rid of this Shoulder Tension

Shoulder tension is typically the fencer’s biggest technical problem. It gets in the way of a good thrust, parry, flick or lunge. Unfortunately it’s fairly complicated to work with too. But the essence is that to fence you need to be able to lift your arm into the guard position with out adding any tension in your shoulder. If you start with your arm relaxed and at your side begin to lift your fingers first bending the elbow and then reaching forward a bit. At each point see if you’re adding any tension. Lots of people start tightening when they begin to bend the elbow. It’s as if they are lifting a 20 lb weight, not a 1/2 lb foil. Others will tighten when they bring their hand forward and their elbow goes forward. This movement requires freedom in the shoulder joint and requires that the scapula (in your back) rotates. If you let (does not require muscular effort) the scapula move the shoulder doesn’t have to tighten. If you don’t you the shoulder must tighten to move your arm.

Most people can teach themselves this movement simply by trying it with the non-fencing arm (which doesn’t have any habit) and noticing how easy it is.

One final point, when you get to the guard position don’t lock your arm. Many people think of it as a position and stop all movement when they get to the right “place”. Stay open and able to move. I test this occasionally by lowering the foil (to check the elbow) and moving my elbow forward and back (to test the shoulder).

Now there’s my wrist

Tightening the wrist is an almost universal problem. I think that in many cases it’s done to have a sense of where the wrist is. When you keep the wrist open and easy, it may feel like your wrist has disappeared, which can be disconcerting. What you gain, however, is a better sense of where the foil is. Also, when your more open, your ideas can travel from your brain to your point and your point control may get much better.

Wrist tension can also be the result of gripping the weapon too hard. When you wrap your fingers around the grip look to see if you’ve shortened and tightened your wrist. If so, try again paying attention to this issue.

Where’s my back foot?

In any physical activity it’s easy to be entirely focused on the parts of the body near the action. In fencing we can lean forward and tighten to “get into it”. We lose attention to the back arm and back foot. Your back foot is really important–when you stay on it you can change directions faster, lunge better and recover better. I now concentrate a lot on staying aware of my back foot and my back. It helps me to stay balanced and ready to react. It also helps to keep me from impaling myself as I go forward.

Inside outside

If you start to pay attention to what’s going on in your body the question becomes will this hurt your fencing. The answer is definitely yes if you also don’t pay attention to your opponent. The answer is definitely no if you can think about being in your body, and your opponent, and the distance and your strategy. Can you do it? Absolutely with practice. In Alexander Technique there is a name for this skill, “concentric circles of concentration”.

Big as a house

This is a very simple but extremely important idea. Keep your full size. You will see a lot of fencers pull into themselves and get smaller and tighter when they get on guard. If you simply keep your full size, movement will be easier quicker and smaller. I think to myself sometimes, I’ll be as big as I can be–almost feeling like I’m filling up like a balloon.

The key is the knee

Begin to advance. As the weight transfers to the front leg most fencers stiffen the front leg and knee. This sends the weight over your front leg and when you finish the advance you won’t have any weight on your back leg. If instead you continue moving your knee forward as your weight is shifting on to the front leg, when you bring the back leg up you will sort of fall into the back leg and be back (for a moment) into a 50/50 (weight distribution) position. Similarly when retreating it is just as important to let the knee continue to bend out, so the weight falls into the front leg when you bring it back. Continuing movement in the knee also affects acceleration as discussed below.

Accelerating on the advance

In traditional teaching of the advance, the student is encouraged to move the front heel forward (one) and then bring the back foot up as you put the toes down (two). This methodology does encourage the student to bring the back foot up at the correct time. But it has a very negative effect as well. When the student concentrates on bringing the back foot up and putting the toes down the weight typically does not go fully onto the front foot. This results in an advance that is slowing down as it finishes—a very bad result for the fencer. An advance should accelerate through the motion. To do this all you have to do is step fully onto the front foot with the knee going forward smoothly through the finish of the advance.

Exercise: Here’s a simple exercise that I do all the time. Stand with your feet at shoulder’s width apart. Stand on one foot and step on to the other foot. Do this in any direction, simply go from foot to foot, back and forth to get the right feeling. Now try this from an on guard position. If you can’t balance comfortably on either foot, with your weight balanced between your legs something is wrong—there are a number of possibilities (knees stop moving, hips push forward or back). Keep working until you can step forward or back from on guard and balance on the other foot—without leaning over and without pulling the other hip with you (in other words to the observer you still look like you are standing on both feet with the proper on guard width). When you just step onto a foot, you don’t have to force the other foot to move, it simply comes with you.

Source: http://web.me.com/david_littell/Learning_to_Fence/Tips.html