Tips on Stage Fighting Footwork

Video Transcript

"Most important to any kind of fencing or choreograph fighting is going to be your on guard. So standard fencing on guard, your feet are about shoulder length apart - right foot pointed forward, left foot perpendicular. Your knees are bent so that you always stay close to the ground. My sword arm is half extended. My chest is either facing to the side, to minimize target area, or to the front. My arm can either be behind me, as it is in classic fencing - to keep it out of the way extensively from any sort of attacks - or back on my hip or on my back. Ken is going to demonstrate perfect on guard. As you can see, his knees are bent so that he's got great balance. If I were to push on him it would be really hard to get Ken off balance, because his center of gravity is really low. His hand is up at a classic style of fencing. His feet are perpendicular to one another. They're shoulder width apart. His sword arm is out and bent. If he were to straighten his sword arm in fencing, he'd signal his intent to attack - which is important when it comes to scoring. If Ken wanted to take an advance or retreat right now, he's positioned equally to move backwards or forwards. Because your so low, your center of gravity is low, I could take a step forward or take a step backward just as easily without being cut off of balance. So you can take as many steps in either direction. Where as if Ken were to try to more clumsily stand upright, not have his knees bent, and take steps forwards and backwards - I could see where he's going. I he's can see that he's coming up and forward and up and backwards. If you're fencing, you don't want anyone to know what you're going to do next, because it's all about strategy. If you were fighting a choreographed fight, you're doing a piece for TV or film, you want to look cool. You want to look smooth and balanced. You also want to always be smooth on your feet, able to move as quickly and as strong with as much strength as possible. That's the basic on guard. Forward and retreat, or advance and retreat just like how it sounds. Taking a step forward is an advance. Ken can take a large step forward. He can take two steps quickly in succession, or he can take a step backwards which is his retreat. In fencing, you're fencing on a line, so you're doing a lot of that. You're advancing and retreating to keep up with your opponent. I'm going to talk to you about a couple other types of footwork we haven't talked about yet. We talked about the advance and the retreat. There's another way to move forward and backwards. That's called a cross or a pass. Which is just walking forward or backwards. You might do that if you want to cover more ground quickly, if you're rushing an opponent. Or you might be doing a type of play that isn't quite as formal. It might just look better on camera. Some people call the cross forward or cross backwards. Some people simply call it a pass, but it's just walking. Keep in mind, you're always staying low to the ground. Whenever you're fencing, your eyes are at the same level. No matter where I'm moving, I'm never coming up and back down. Just as in an advance and a retreat. I'm staying low. Next, is a ballestra, which is like a little jump. I'm going to cover ground in a ballestra, by lifting both of my feet off the ground and usually ending in a lunge. But just a ballestra is a quick jump. Followed in a lunge, a ballestra looks like this. Lets talk about the lunge next. A lunge is your attack that will give you the most ground. Your lung begins low. Your front foot leaves the ground first. Your arm extends just before you move forward and you end in a lunge. As you make an attack, you always want to make sure that your left arm goes back. In competitive fencing, that is signaling to the judges that you have made an attack. It also looks a lot better. Your lunge, it will give you more ground - the lower you can get to the ground. It's also very stable form. If you're low to the ground. Once you've built the muscles so that the lunge feels natural is a very strong position to be in. From a lunge, I can recover backwards, or I can do what is called a forward recover. Maybe I missed my opponent. I forward recover and lunge again."