Fencing Masterclass 4- Stop Drawing Blanks - Three Ways to Manipulate your Opponent

Another thing, who at times has ever felt mentally stuck at tournaments, like, okay, I'm drawing a blank or I'm not feel like I can do what my coach has been drawing me for years, right, or months on end. Very simple thing just to remember. This happens. I've been in that situation before as well. We draw those mental blanks. Let's say for argument's sake, we're fencing. Ted hasn't competed in two or three years. He knows he's a good fencer, but I do simple attacks and he tends to miss these top hits. I make that hit, right? All of a sudden his strongest asset is going down the tube. So if you're a pistol gripper with an awesome pair of riposte, your problem could be you're getting the parry, but you keep missing the riposte, right? What to do? That tends to really shut us down then because, oh my God, I'm more concerned about my biggest problem, my biggest success than anything else there. Three ways to manipulate opponent. Just remember them. If you're drawing blanks, just always go back to that. One way, you can manipulate your opponent with the tip. So Ted literally either trying to make a hit on hand or anywhere else. He can feint to the hand, right? Oh shoot, I'm getting excited. So if you feint towards me, I'll disengage, continue pressuring me, continue pressuring me, right? So anything like that, that's manipulating with the tip. So you're literally giving some threat to your opponent. Let's say that's not your day. Another way is using the blade, right? So Ted can take my blade. He can make a beat to my blade. He can invite me for that pair of riposte, right? So that's one way. Another way to manipulate your opponent. So when you just break them down, you're going to start getting some thoughts. What can I do with the blade? The third thing is giving a target. That's the one that I see the least in competitions. When people get very nervous, we only start thinking about what to, you know, how to press the button. Don't be shy to give a target to your opponent, right? So if I'm moving and Ted gives me a target of some sort, I might be just willing enough to go down before the head. Now, do any of those three things work on its own? No, but there's a concept called tactical wheel, right? Where we use everything in moderation. There is no exact concept. Like some of us maybe heard this as kids, you know, you make two feints, you attack on the third. It's a very good concept for a little kid. It's a basic tactical wheel. For us, there is no particular number, but just have a general feel, right? No, making sure you have enough salt, enough pepper, enough sugar kind of deal. Not too much of everything, so there is a mystery over what's going to happen. Okay, so if you don't remember, if you draw blanks, always remember, I can manipulate with the tip, with the blade, or with the target. Let's get a little bit into positioning on the strip. Okay, so Ted was kind of giving a little bit of a lecture on that subject yesterday. I want to touch on it more. Let's say Ted is down in the score. He wants to make a comeback. Here's what was happening basically in every bout yesterday and the first day we were doing competitions. Ted is down. He starts to pressure me. Right around here, I start creating resistance. Ted potentially sees an opening and goes for it, and we make a nice double. And that's it. Usually that leads to a loss because now what was 13-12 became 14-13. Now the whole psychology is different. Here's the anatomy of approaching important touches. Okay, so on guard. Ted will carefully, with very small steps, see he's already too close. I can already parry without any commitment and inflict something on him. He's going to carefully work me down. Right around here, this is where most people begin to do some sort of resistive actions. From here to here, there becomes some resistance. We need to start understanding this is not the time to attack. Again, another sucker move. A little bit of resistance, a little bit of challenges, and you sell out. I call this selling out because you haven't put in any work. You're just trying to take a gamble. See if you can jump from one edge of the cliff to the other without falling down. What Ted is going to get here is he's going to start working. So whatever the amount of time it took you to get your opponent to here, this is only when you start fencing. So now Ted is purely working to make sure that if I do a stupid reach under, he can get a stop hit. If I decide to crack, he can get a stop hit. If I decide to surge of some sort, he can get a stop hit. So he's still being very defensive. If all this happens and he eventually gets me driven all the way to here with at least one foot off, this is when you can begin potentially to think to execute an attack. So right away back on two meter line. Here people can't see. We'll just let's say, we'll imagine this is the end of the strip so everybody can see me there. So if I'm already over the line, one suggestion. Do it again at your own discretion. Do not go for the toe hit. If you're the attacker or if you're the one being placed on a two meter line here, do not go for this toe hit. Just way too risky. I keep using this term again but it's again another one of those sucker bets. It's kind of like you get it all or you look like a complete idiot if it doesn't work. It's just a pure gamble. If you have potential other options, keep fighting. If you get to a point where your weapon is now falling out of your hands because you're so tired, I don't know. Godspeed. Do what you can. So that's kind of how you look to pressure the opponent down. Don't look to sell out too soon. Most of you yesterday I watched sold out right around this area. That's where it happens. So take a look today. When you're down and let's say it was unsuccessful, you got another point against you, just pause and take a look where you're located on the strip. If that happened somewhere over here, that means it's way too soon. If anybody attacks you while pressuring, this is the area where you got to get your hit because you're funneling them towards your strongest hit essentially, right?