Pretend Attacks in Foil Fencing

Video Transcript

"It's hard to talk about foil without talking about the feint, and the feint of course, is just an attack you don't intend to follow through with. It's a pretend attack that you use to get your opponent to react in some way. And in order to qualify as a feint it has to avoid contact completely, otherwise it will count as a parried attack. So the very, the simplest feint would be let's say a thrust to four, which my opponent attempts to parry. I disengage, and thrust at six instead. So once again, a feint. I come in, but before she has a chance to parry I would quickly disengage under her blade, and thrust to six. Of course it gets a lot more complicated than that. Because you add feints upon feints, and parries, and all kinds of attacks that are designed to deceive and out maneuver your opponent. So if my opponent had learned that that was my favorite move, my simple feint to four, disengage, thrust to six, she might be onto me. She might be ready with something like a parry to my feint that is really a feinted parry. As I disengage, come around to six, she knows exactly where I'm going and comes back to get me again. Now if she were able to catch my blade, she'd parry. If I were on to her I could continue. I could disengage again. We could have quick exchange where it's feint, attempted parry, attempted parry, a series of disengages until I land a hit. Now the moment she makes contact with my blade, of course, she's parried and I have to reestablish right-of-way. Let's take a look at that against an opponent. Okay, let's look at a sequence with a couple different moves in it. Let's say Siri has just lunged, and then my attack, get in good distance, in this case would be Balestra lunge with a beat, feint, disengage, and thrust. So that would look something like this. In which case I would Balestra lunge hoping that my opponent would parry that attack. As she began the parry, I disengage under her blade and attack in the opposite line. So one more time; we'll do this one a little bit more slowly. So my opponent has just lunged. Get in distance again. I have parried, I will now Balestra, feint, lunge, disengage and attack on the opposite line. Let's try it one more time. You will probably need to retreat. Did you retreat, did you attempt to parry? Okay. No, you're good. Sorry. So again, it's just one combination among millions if you were going to plan an attack, in a fence that leads in with a beat, a feint, disengage to another line, and thrust. And there's no ends, end to have many feints add, and how complicated or rich you could make your play. But you do want to mix it up. That's probably the best, the best advice you can get is to constantly mix up your game, because as you are watching your opponents they are watching you, and you never want to become predictable. If you end up with a back pocket favorite move, it may work on opponents you've never fenced before. But you never know who's been watching you, and after a while, if your opponents are good, they will catch on to even your best tricks. So once you learn to think on the strip mix up your strategy while you're in game. You will truly have mastered the art of Foil Fencing."