A New Tactical Mindset

In an effort to get it up to a B1, I was greatly urged to fence in our salle's open epee event. My initial refusals were on the basis of not being technically/tactically prepared for the event, even though I knew that I "should" fence with a NAC only a few weeks away. After some coaxing, however, I was convinced on the basis of, "Would you do it if it were just sparring?"

My answer was of course yes. I hadn't wanted to fence because I didn't feel ready to compete- but that didn't mean that I would turn down an opportunity to fence. About half of the event was made up of fencers from a visiting club, most of whom I had never fenced before. There was no reason for me to turn down the opportunity to fence with someone new.

It was not the first time that I had gone into an event just not caring. But this was different. When I say that I don't care, I often end up fencing stupid. In this event, I treated it as sparring- not for the point, but for the fencing. Though I believe that this is how all bouts should be fenced, the concept of competition often makes that difficult.

I didn't realize how effective this idea of treating the bout as fencing and not bouting is until my second bout, against a tall guy that I had no idea how to deal with without getting hit. No one had scored yet, so I thought, what would you do if this were just for fun? My answer was, of course, fleche! So I did. And I got the touch; and was able to continue with that mindset throughout the bout to win 5-1.

In a later bout against a fencer (who is probably better than me but I can beat about half the time)who was leading 3-1, I wasn't getting anything to work, so I went back to that idea of sparring. When I'm sparring, I attempt new things to try and get the touch. I'll play with more unusual parries or compound attacks; I do things I'm unfamiliar with. Though it is usually(*) not a good idea, I tried something that I had never had success with; pushing to defend. It worked! I got two touches to end up losing 5-3.

I'm not yet sure how to apply this to events that I feel really matter, but it was an interesting experience. The concept is one that seems obvious (don't fence for the point, fence because it's fun) but is often lost in the hustle and bustle of a USFA tournament.

Happy fencing!