Fencing Tips ： Fencing Techniques

My name is Stuart Phillip Kaufman. I'm the fencing master and founder of the Marin Fencing Academy in San Rafael, Marin County, California. I'm going to talk to you about fencing technique. You're going to need a mask, a glove, a foil, and a jacket. Now the technique that I teach is called the modern school of Italian sword. The premise of the modern school of Italian sword is economy of movement and point in line. What they mean by point in line isn't that your arm is extended and the point's out. It means that every time you make a blocking motion, your point is also in line to make an offensive action against your opponent. So your on guard position would find your arm out, blocking the outside line, but your point facing inwards. Again, your body's divided in quadrants, so you have high and low, inside and out. So when you move from the high outside to the high inside, the point remains in the center or point in line. When you drop to go to low inside, you just drop the point, arm remains out. So any sword coming in this line is going to go past you and your point's going to be in line to score. When you go to a low outside, same thing. Point's in line, blade's blocking, so any sword coming in that line will go past you. This also deals with economy in motion, economy in movement, where you're moving as much as possible to do more than one action combined in one. So that you're literally economizing your movements. So you're making moves as fast as possible and putting as many together at one time. Just again, the object is to make it as fast as possible with as few moves as you can. It's a winning technique.