Engarde in Epee Fencing

Video Transcript

"Next, we'll talk about the epee on guard. In most ways it's very similar to the foil on guard. You will have your feet shoulder-width apart; they are perpendicular to one another. Line up your heels. Your knees are bent so that you're low, so that you establish that low center of gravity and you have a lot of balance and the ability to move forward and backwards. You want the pointy end facing the opponent, and at first your wrist is slightly bent, and you still have this rudder--your back arm acts as a rudder that both stays out of the way of another weapon and as you lunge, it can help create balance, extend reach, by extending behind you, signaling your lunge. Some of the differences have to do with the way you this bell guard, and how you can make that strategically to your advantage. You can see it's actually pretty deep. I can fit most of my hand inside the bell guard. I'm going to hold my epee in the same way, cradle it here between my thumb and my forefinger, but I can hide my hand inside the bell guard, and also try to use the bell guard to hide a lot of my forearm, and even my elbow at times. So that can create a straighter on guard. A lot of times you'll see epees fighting like this, or even extending there arms a bit more as they bought, to try to minimize that target area. So the on guard becomes a little bit different because of the way you use it defensively. So epeeists will not bend their legs quite as much as foilists. They're willing to give up that sort of stability and ease of motion in order to pull back this target area, which, of course, my leg is now a target area as well because in epee the full body is all a target area for attack. So if I pull this back, my knee is a little bit more out of range, even though it's really important to always, no matter how your legs are positions, to keep your center of gravity in your low--or your center of gravity and your balance, balanced between that front and that back leg. You never want to establish an on guard that's far back like this, or too far forward like this, which is off balance and also bad for your knees. So, again, on guard, shoulder-width apart, arm extended, left arm is preferred up, and if you'd like, you can straighten your arm a little bit more than you do in a foil on guard in order to achieve the best protection. And that's your on guard."