Vertical Parry in Foil Fencing

Video Transcript

"Vertical parries are much like lateral parries except from moving the blade from side to side you are moving in a vertical line so it looks something like this where again you want to try to keep your fort to your partner's foible but from a high line I am taking my opponent's blade down to a low line. Once again she is here on point and I am going to take her blade down to a low line and also out of the way from any type of high line attack that I am probably prepared to make next. On the other side it looks the same from a high line here threatening, I can take a vertical parry and push her down so that I have that high line open for a Riposte. Vertical tarries technically can work form a low line to a high line but they are not terribly effective because you don't have gravity on your side. If you were trying to push an opponent's blade out of the way up to make a quick Riposte low especially in foil where your target area ends at the hip it does not have a lot of practical applications so we're going to stick to vertical parries from high lines to low lines. Let's show that in action. Okay so in action we're going to show vertical parries from four to seven and also from six to eight. So she thrusts to four, vertical parry down to get her out of the way and as you can see this target area is now open. One more time if she thrusts to four, my vertical parry takes her out of line. On the other side if she thrusts to six my vertical parry would take her out of line down to an eight and again if she thrusts my vertical parry takes her from my fort to her foible down to eight. Naturally in games or a bout you are going to have some foot work in that and you are going to move a little more quickly. We will actually have a little bit of force behind that vertical parry to make it work so if she were to lunge at me I would retreat while making that vertical parry leaving her line open for attack. Once again if she thrusts and lunges I can retreat and make the vertical parry come at her again. If we change from the high line to low line on the other side it works the same way again we thrust, I can parry down, and I can either disengage and attempt to come over here I can come in for some sort of circular attack but either way I have gotten her point off line by pushing it down and out of target area. So those are your vertical parries."