Fencing Footwork & Balance in Fencing

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Tim Weske on behalf of expertvillage.com. This clip is going to be about footwork and balance on guard stance. You could see more of this if you would like to look at swordplayla.com. The first thing you want to do is make your body into what is called on guard or ready position. The way to do that is by putting your heels together with your lead foot, I'm right handed so my lead foot is my right foot, at a right angle and then what I do is step out so that my heels are shoulder width apart. At that point I bend my knees down over my toes, this is called pleate, keeping the left side of my body, my hips opened to my opponent. It is very important that the knees are pushed out over the toes. Most people will want to do this, it is not a neat thing because it takes the pressure off of the thighs and it doesn't hurt as bad. So then, once your knees are over your toes, take your rare end and you stick it down into the back of your thighs almost like if you are sitting directly down, going to try to sit back to the floor and it's going to feel really bizarre at first but this your correct posture. The left arm, in my case left arm, my back arm goes up so that it is almost like it is holding a latern or something. I'm going to fence with somebody, now the way I'm making sure my left side of my hip and chest are open to my opponent. My front arm goes off my side, one hand length away from my side. So my elbow is one hand length away from my side, my weapon is in my right hand. The three basic steps, the basic most important steps of fencing are advance, then retreat and then lunge. To make an advanced step think of having three steps to the step. I start here, I step out a very small little choppy step with the heel of my front foot. My back foot follows in the ball of the foot and sits down, then my front toe comes down. Always keeping the distance and staying in pleate. I step back by making a retreat step by going with the back foot to the ball of the foot to the heel trailing with the front foot. Always again keeping the feet shoulder width apart. I'll show you now an advance step and followed by a retreat step. Ready and forward and back and yes it is just that small. A lunge is an attack mode basically where you are throwing or pushing your weapon into the body. It is not pushed with the weapon, the arms push with the legs, so I put my arm out with my foil or my weapon in it and then I lunge out. When completing a lunge your back foot should be straight, back knee should be locked, front foot should be on the ground and the best thing to remember about is that the biggest thing is that your lunge comes out on the front heels, so everything falls into place. That's the basic footwork."