Fencing, a mind-boggling sport: Part 1
Fencing has always been appealing for those who watch and play the sport. It is not just restricted to the method of physical stamina, but also mental planning, according to which a fencer can outplay his opponent during a combat.
Swordfight is intended to beat down the opponent, such that he never rises back for a counter-attack, whereas fencing is just played for winning points over the pre-defined target areas of the three weapon disciplines namely epee, foil and sabre.
The epee fencing is the only discipline to have the whole body as the target area for scoring a point, whereas sabre is limited to the top body until the waist of the opponent, excluding the hands. In the foil discipline, the target area is very limited, including just the torso part of the body, excluding the head, arms and hand.
The international body of this sport is named as Federation Internationale D’Escrime (FIE), which organises all the events concerning fencing all around the globe.
Recently, the trend of offering the sport among very young children, below 10 years of age, had raised safety concerns from parents that whether it will be fine allowing children to be exposed to the fencing equipment. However, this concern has been cleared up by offering children with additional arm-guards and gloves and toy-like swords with friendly material that may not harm children even if mischievously played.
It is very exciting to see teenagers displaying their expertise brilliantly at an international fencing platform, like the World Cups and Championships, while representing their country and heading back home with medals and souvenirs.
Multiple efforts have been found from not just FIE, but affiliated Confederations and Federations to play their part in launching more of such platforms for talents to skim out, making it easy for them to reach the national-level team of the country for participating in the internationally held competitions.
Fencing is one of the four sports that have always been a part of the modern Olympic Games.
Comparing with the distinctive target areas of the three disciplines, the weapons designed for the three styles are also different.
The method of learning this sport starts with the footwork, which is forward and backward after learning the standing posture called En Garde, meaning on guard.
In this, the fencer makes a 90 degree angle by joining both the heels of his feet, with both legs opened wide and a bit knee bent forward.
It usually depends if the fencer wants to be right handed or left handed and according to that their front foot will be of the side in which he/she holds the sword.
After footwork, next will be learning how to hold the sword. The sword needs to be gripped such that both the thumb and the first finger share the weight of the sword whereas the rest of the fingers just give support to the grip for a better control and direction during the play. The fencer is taught the basic eight positions of the sword named as prime, seconde, tierce, quarte, quinte, sixte, septime and octave. These positions move along in a clockwise rotation that helps the player to learn how to traverse and defend from being hit by the opponent.
The next learning lessons are concerning the lunge position and so on that will be discussed in the next part.
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