Fencing is Choices and Consequences

 Greetings,

The title of this article makes it look like it's about social choices we make in our fencing career. I have spoken about this long and in-depth previously; this time it isn't. Those choices will determine the length and depth of your fencing career, often will result in what sort of people you will associate with, and your overall worldview of fencing. For this article I am wanting to look more at the fencing itself, though it is likely the discussion will venture into some those areas again as they are all related. 

When we fence there is a set of choices to be made. These result in consequences in our fencing, and sometimes, even broader than that. For the purposes of this article, I want to focus on the choices and consequences that are made in regard to the act of fencing, and some of the physical details attached to it. There are some simple things that we do not take into consideration which will affect our fencing, choices which we make, either consciously or subconsciously which will affect the result of the bout/s that we have.

The interplay of choices and consequences in the act of fencing one of the reasons I really enjoy fencing (there are others). A fencer makes a choice in the actions that they take; then they must face the consequences of those actions. Sometimes the consequences of those actions are immediate, sometimes they take a little longer to take effect, but they always have an effect. There is no avoiding this situation. There is always some effect.

If an opponent makes an attack, there is a choice to make in the response. Even the timing of this response is a choice. If the fencer making this choice gets the choice right, they don't get hit; if they make an incorrect choice, it is likely that they will be hit, unless they have redundancy built into their choice, and the redundancy is a choice too. This is the immediate result, the immediate consequence.

Even where there is a redundancy built into the response, there will still be a consequence for the primary response failing. This may cost the fencer Time, Distance, or both. Both of these are essential to fencing, and any action that loses the fencer either one of these will affect the actions that follow.

Each time a fencer makes a choice, there are consequences. Those consequences are not necessarily immediate, such as being struck, but they will have an effect on the encounter. Each action affects the position of the fencers in time and space, an action which takes the fencer out of the correct time or space is going to affect where they should be for the following actions. This is especially important for compound actions. The effect of half a foot-length (even less) over two actions can be amazing, as will be the effect of an action which is even slightly out of tempo.

Fencing with an opponent is a series of choices and consequences made. Successful fencing is simply making the right choices, for your fencing at the right time. Of course, this is made easier by training and practising so you have more options available and so more correct choices to make. 

Cheers,

Henry.

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