The ready position in fencing is the “en garde” position.  We have been focusing on:

• your leading foot is the same as your weapon arm, pointed towards opponent
• your feet are shoulder width apart
• your knees are flexed,
• and your weapon arm is bent at the elbow, and your weapon pointed towards your opponent

We advance to close distance on our opponent to score a hit, or retreat to defend against an attack.  We have been concentrating on:

• moving our front foot first to advance and our rear foot first to retreat
• keeping our knees flexed when moving so we don’t bounce up and down
• and moving both feet the same distance to stay balanced

To close distance quickly on our opponents when they are more than a step away from us we learned how to lunge.  When doing a proper lunge we remember to:

• extend our weapon arm forward first
• our leading leg kicks quickly forward and our knee finishes above our ankle
• our rear foot remains on the and the rear leg extends fully
• keep our body upright
• extend our read arm backwards

and to recover back en garde our:

• lead foot pushes backwards
• and our rear leg and arm bends to pull us back

The parry is used to deflect the attacker’s blade from the defender’s target and take “right of way” to score a hit.  The offensive action that follows a successful parry is called a “riposte“.

In week 3, we practiced 2 lateral (side to side) parries.  The parry quarte protects against attacks to the high outside line, and the parry sixte defends against attacks to the high inside line.

As your attacker’s point passes your guard, make brief contact with the attacker’s foible with the forte of your blade, moving your arm and blade at the same time.  It is important to keep the point of your weapon pointed at your opponent during your parry, so that your riposte can follow immediately.

When visualizing a parry, we thought about a car windshield wiper moving from side to side.  We practiced clapping our hands in front of our bodies, but only moving our weapon hand.  This action is very similar to the parry quarte.