Pary in Fencing

Video Transcript

"Before we move into attacks, I want to talk about the major parries. We label our parries with numbers, so my parry number one is off to my left side. My palm down, I'm protecting this area of my body. You can see that I'm in front to the side of my body, so no matter how--if someone's coming in and forgets to stop, I'm still protecting my left hip with my number one parry. My number two parry moves over and protects the right side. Same thing, outside of my target area, so that anyone coming in from any side I'm able to protect myself with this really strong ford of my blade. Number three flips up. I'm now protecting the outside of my bicep with the ford of this blade, and remember your thumb is always pointing away from your parry, always facing your parry, always facing your attack. Number three parry is here. Number four moves across my body, so I protect this side. Anyone aiming for this side of my body is aiming for my shoulder, for my bicep, and I'm able to protect with this parry. And number five parry. Really important--protecting my head. I'm above my head and in front of my head. If I come down too low, I have an obvious problem. A sword coming overhead from someone who forgets to stop is going to split me in the middle, and if my sword is too far up a sword is going to be able to reach under. So, my best defensive posture is to have it just a little bit in front of and just a little over my head. A nine parry comes up like this. It's the five parry, and really the only difference is depending on the move that came before, sometimes it's easier to get to a nine parry than a five parry. Your seven parry is just like your one parry, only your palm is supinated so it's in reverse. And same thing, coming from here sometimes it's easier to flip into a number seven parry than to come down and flip into number one. And my eight parry just protects the other side. Same thing, my palm up. Ken is going to demonstrate the parries, and I'll come in and attack so you can see how he stops each parry as it comes in. And Ken's going to help me demonstrate parries by coming in on some attacks. So as I defend my one, as you can see, my two, my body's protected, my three, and my four, five, nine, seven, eight. So that the parry stopped just outside the body, again keeping this really important at least three inch radius, protecting myself from all of his attacks. So, it should even--but, of course, even if forget to parry and Ken comes in on attack, his goal is to stop outside my target area. This is an extra safety though, so that we're both helping to keep me safe. Next we're going to move into talking about attacks."