Parrying in Foil Fencing

Video Transcript

I want to share with you the secrets of a great parry in foil fencing. It's actually pretty simple. If you want to make sure that you maintain good point control, so remember, forefinger and thumb are controlling your point at all times, fingers wrapped around on the French grip. And, from an en garde, your parries are small. You want to control them with the point, with the tips of your fingers, so that you're moving the foil just enough to get your opponent's blade off target area. That means that my parry four is never going to be over here, it's just a quick easy movement. And as much as I can, I want to keep my wrist in-line here, because a broken wrist is not a strong wrist. So you want to, well, a broken wrist is never a strong wrist, but even a bent wrist is not a strong wrist, we call it broken when the line is broken. You want to keep your arm, your wrist, straight here because that's strong. And sometime your attacks are going to be coming with a little bit of force, so you need to have a strong enough parry, so that you have the strength to parry properly. So for all four basic parries, there are a couple of extra's, but we're going to talk about four, six, seven, and eight, you want to keep your movements very small, inside the body, maintain proper point control, and keep your wrist strong at all times. So let's demonstrate the parries. 'K you're going to demonstrate the foil parries in action. as she thrusts to my four, I will parry four. Parry six. Parry four. Parry six. This is the parry seven. It?s on my low line, this way my point stays as close to being in-line at all times. This is parry eight. Parry seven. Parry eight. So the important part is that you keep your economy of motion, and you keep you point, as much as possible, pointing in. You notice my parries didn't come out to the side like this. My point is always, even though my arm is bent, and it's ok to have a bent arm for foil parries, the tip of my blade is always close to target area. And the reason is, of course, because as soon as I parry, I want to be in-line to make a riposte. To make a solid attack, and score a touch. Which is really what it's all about.

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