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| Fencer Profile |
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Name: |
Andi Liu |
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| Preferred Weapon: |
foil |
| Region: |
North |
| Club |
Auckland University Fencing |
| Comments: |
What's this field for, inspirational quotations? Okay, how about a mix of classics and originals. -- "Ferrum ferro acuitur et homo exacuit faciem amici sui". -- "Why pay $1 for a 50 cent icecream". -- "If you guard everywhere equally, you'll be weak everywhere equally". -- "Sleep is important". "If it weren't for your gumboots where would you be" (and where would you be without mobility). -- Right of way doesn't matter if there's only one light. That's not a bug, that's a feature. People who claim that counterattacks are categorically terrible, and that attacks should always be done with a full extension, aren't giving you the full truth, and they have their reasons for doing that - they think it's the best way to teach beginners, because that's what they were taught. The credible threat of one light - through body displacement, blade displacement/opposition, and hitting with a straight arm into the forward preparation of someone with a bent arm then followed by a lockout - is the fundamental basis of all feints both in attack and defence, and the feints are the fundamental basis of all fencing, I think. The key to feints though, I think, is that you are near the border of full commitment to a certain action, but retain enough distance and bentness to make a quick change of position or momentum, within the reaction time of the opponent. -- I think coaching should be more of a two-way dialogue, rather than one-way assembly line instruction, an exploration of questions and answers. Rules of thumb and pithy maxims can be taught, but are they really understood without testing them - theory is one thing, and testing the scope of their application in practice is another. -- I'm sure the stable position of the elbow and upper arm, and mobility of the forearm, deserves more emphasis - they're the more fundamental focus of how someone controls a blade, rather than "just" the "fingers". Excessive fixation on the fingers results in people who don't coordinate their whole arm and whose elbows drift out, I think. I would teach it instead as "lead with the point (in any direction), while keeping elbow stable". -- There are usually seven directions you can move your body at any one time - forwards, backwards, sideways, up, down, and nowhere. Those depend on your legs. Your elbow can move forwards and backwards but usually has no reason to drift outwards or inwards.The rest of the arm to the point of the blade, does most of the bladework, leading with the point, but as a coordinated unit, not "just" the "fingers". |
Mens Foil : - : Results for the Last 12 Months
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