apple and/or the Bolivian Navy

[anotheranon]

Normally V. sets the agenda for lessons, but this week he was taking requests. I asked to work on my feints, as I can't do a convincing one to save my life.

This really hit home for me looking at the video Badger took at the NAC - I start lots of poking and posturing WAY too far out for it to be a threat to any opponent who's paying attention. I'm getting better about getting within a believable range, but when I'm there, it's hard not to keep going.

Even if I was able to hit every time, it's still good to know how to feint convincingly. It's useful for gathering information about how an opponent will react, and for deceiving them - attack one line, disengage to another when they go to parry. It also saves energy - pulling up short is less wearing than a full-out lunge.

Part of the problem is habit, but a lot of it is psychology. V. exhorts that in order for a feint to be believable, I have to believe it as well, yet still pull up short. Though intellectually, I understand this, viscerally I don't - if my lizard brain thinks all systems are go, it is downright unnatural to NOT GO ALREADY!

I'm reminded of this Red Dwarf bit where Lister is teaching Kryten how to lie - sometimes it is essential to conceal your intentions from others, yet poor Krytie has a very hard time breaking programming:

V. did show me one thing that might help hammer it in - feint attack/parry and then retreat a step. If I couple the attack/retreat in my mind before I do it, I might be able to create enough of a difference between real and feint in my mind that I can successfully feint, yet still fake out my opponent.

I need to keep working on this until I can convince opponents that an orange really IS a red and white striped beach umbrella, and vice versa...

Comments

[fencerchica.livejournal.com]

Boy, I really feel ya!!! I'm presently struggling to learn how to use shallow feint actions in epee to set up an opportunity to draw out my opponent's blade and launch a deep action in safety. But yes, the shallow action has to carry a real, meaningful threat -- if it doesn't, not only will my opponent ignore it as a threat, it'll also serve them as an engraved invitation to take MY blade and come in on it! As happened to me at Sectionals, oy... Some of the things that seem to be working for me include alternating between doing the feint action as a first-intention action and TRYING to actually hit with it, and then doing the feint action as a feint. Back and forth, back and forth. In epee, developing the ability to land lighter with the front foot, such that it's easier to arrest my forward progress at any instant I desire (theoretically, ha) seems really helpful towards being able to switch a first-intention action to a feint, because then you have the ability to stop short with sufficient time and distance to make the disengage, should it seem desirable. I don't know if something similar would apply in foil.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Glad you replied - I wondered if any of the above made sense! Clearly it did :)

You are right about "fake feints" giving your opponent the opportunity to make the real thing, or parry riposte, in foil - this is especially true if they are faster and can cover the rest of the distance before I can retreat!

...doing the feint action as a first-intention action and TRYING to actually hit with it, and then doing the feint action as a feint.

Can you clarify? I read the above as real attack followed by feint. I've been trying the reverse - feint to see what they'll do, and basing my next action on their response (if they go for the parry, I disengage, if they do nothing, I try a straight attack).

Re: landing lightly on the front foot - I think this might work, at least in terms of not overcommitting to forward motion so you can retreat quickly. I know I lean, so I'm trying to remember to lunge from the back so that my front foot is free to "bounce" off of if I need to retreat quickly (clear as mud?)

[fencerchica.livejournal.com]

It made perfect sense!! Especially since the issue has been filling my thoughts a lot lately too.

[i]Can you clarify? I read the above as real attack followed by feint. I've been trying the reverse - feint to see what they'll do, and basing my next action on their response (if they go for the parry, I disengage, if they do nothing, I try a straight attack).[/i]

Sorry, it is hard to describe this stuff sometimes, isn't it! What I was picturing was doing the same physical action with two different tactical thoughts.

Say, a lunge in your opponent's 4 line: using it first as a first-intention action, a real attack, to see what happens and to encourage them to view it as a genuine threat and respond accordingly.

Let's say they decide to parry counter-6. Then a little later, you could try the direct lunge in the 4 line again, this time tactically as a feint action, ready to double around the counter-6 parry, should it come. Hopefully now you have the feel of how to make them feel scared, and they've also had the benefit of seeing a serious attack coming shortly before in the same line, so hopefully they'll react they way you want them to. If all goes well, then what's happened is that you've successfully set them up to react to the feint in a desirable fashion when it's offered.

I think epee has been helping me develop more of a feel for the tactics of the game, since my coach has been trying to teach me to use much of the opening of the bout for shallow first-intention actions, where I genuinely want to hit but am also minimizing my risk as much as I can, in order both to gather intel and to make my opponent believe in my attacks as legitimate threats. I'm not sure, though, how to translate the shallow epee action into a similar low-risk first-intention foil attack. :-/