The Fleche in Foil Fencing

Video Transcript

"The fleche is an exciting, explosive attack that covers a lot of distance, and it's really sort of exciting to watch and perform. When executed properly it can be really effective. However, a fleche is one of those attacks you want, it's a one shot attack. You want to make sure that that hit lands. It's executed, usually, from a lunge. So if I'm engaged in a bout, and I've lunged, not landed my hit, I can now push off my front foot, rather lean forward on my front leg, and push off my back foot so that this leg crosses forward as I lurch at my opponent, scoring a hit on my way past. You want to make sure you score that hit for a number of reasons. If you don't your partner regains, or your opponent regains right-of-way, and you're a very easy target. You're also running off of the end of the strip, or the side of the strip, which is not any good. So you actually have a decent amount of time, from the time that you're arm extends, to when that foot hits the ground, when the right-of-way is yours. So you want, which is why the fleche is, is so effective when you want to cover a lot of, of distance, and make that attack. So let's try that again a little bit faster. Again, from a lunge I'm going to lean forward on my front foot, push off my back foot, and maintain, keep this back arm back the entire time, scoring a touch as I fly by my opponent like a shooting arrow."