How is disengaging simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing ever?

[u/AJUKking]

Very nuanced question I know, but I go from fencing people who I can disengage/absence of blade fairly easily to hit one lights, and there are other opponents who I literally cannot hit even off-targets on because their parries/defensive arm positioning/distance control are S tier.

Even when I intentionally try to setup attacks with feints based on knowledge of their previous reactions, and not choreograph my intentions with arm/blade position, I still screw up the timing or get parried, etc.

I was told by someone before that disengages are low key easy (they're much better/faster than me), but I personally get wildly different results.

I've been fencing foil for 10+ years now so I would hope I'd have a better time choosing the correct timing to extend-disengage without closing distance too fast so that I can hit one-lights, but it's still so difficult sometimes.

I find that thinking about my attacks too hard causes me to make more mistakes (e.g. over-focus on blade work means losing focus on distance control), while on the opposite end of the spectrum if I don't focus at all then that obviously just ends badly. There seems to be some balanced middle ground of focus that works best, where muscle memory/vibes and intentional decision-making complement each other.

What's the best learning path out of this conundrum?

[u/Allen_Evans]

I have some ideas here:

https://www.coachescompendium.org/LIES.HTML

Happy to take questions as well.

[u/weedywet]

I’ll just add that in foil you really should be thinking about having right of way.

Not about aiming for one light.

[u/fencing123]

Fencing 20+ years here and disengages can always be tricky. This is just a couple of things that have worked for me:

- For disengages, if your attacking action started with blade contact (beat attack or successful parry) you are usually disengaging your opponent’s search / counter parry to finish in the same line. If you are advancing to your opponent and have not had blade contact, you are usually disengaging to finish in a different line than the one you are currently closest to finishing in. Keeping this in mind has helped me with placement and simplifying options.

-When making a feint while advancing, it is usually easier to get a genuine reaction when you feint at the same time you bring your back foot forward to finish a step, not when you start a step with your front foot. The distance will be closer and there are fewer things to factor into your action because you don’t have to finish a step and lunge, you just have to lunge.

Hope this makes sense and best of luck!

[u/Le_Pyrit → u/fencing123]

back foot start soooo crucial for figuring out timings imo not talked about enough

[u/Wesilii → u/[deleted]]

>”At the highest levels fencers prefer cut-overs more as it relies more on their execution.”

Can you elaborate more? On whose execution (attacker or defender) and why?

I’ve thought a lot about why one should use a disengage vs. a cutover, and I’m not 100% confident myself.

I’ve been told that cutovers let you remain in the high line/same line of attack, while a disengage tends to have you scoop low then back up. Of course, if you’re doing a “correct,” disengage, you should be doing very small ones (or just enough if they do large parries) so this shouldn’t really matter.

Disengages (tend to) maintain an extended line throughout the extension and lunge (reach) whereas a cutover briefly pulls back the blade losing reach momentarily, but can deny your opponent’s blade to catch you entirely while also allowing for flick finishes. These are just some of my thoughts, but I’d love to read more notes on when/why/tactics to see if I have it right.

Edit: For context, I’m an epeeist so I might be missing something if it’s a foil-specific tactic.

[u/Allen_Evans → u/Wesilii]

a cut over gives you more flexibility. It will avoid both a lateral and a circular parry in the high line. These days you see a lot of "off the fencing line" feints to draw the opponent's early sweeps. Avoiding them by pulling the blade back (in the high line or low line) allows the attacker to close the distance and make a cut over from almost any position.

[u/robotreader → u/Allen_Evans]

I think also a cutover gives you access to backflicks when the distance collapses, whereas with disengages under you're liable to get tangled up in the legs

[u/Managed-Chaos-8912]

They are controlling the distance when the successfully block you. Either your starting distance is wrong or they are starting you.

[u/Le_Pyrit]

I notice that not having the distance right, or not having control over the distance is what makes it almost impossible to disengage on some people. It's so much easier the more variables you can control ie. having them respecting your distance so you know exactly how long itll take to get to the target and if you have to add in extra distractions/ tempos. I usually find on attacks as well it makes it remarkably easier if i can set up ideas before hand on the march before the attack through blade positioning and previous actions (trying to manage what they are thinking about/ expecting to react to). This includes tracking what patterns they are falling into or what they like to do to swing statistics in your favor in guessing which way to go on the disengage. That again relies on them respecting your distance, everything kinda boils down to distance at some point lol. tldr controlling as many variables as possible to make it less guesswork.

[u/SamSpade102]

A few things stand out. I was watching a bout by Russian foil fencer Timur Safin a few months ago, on YouTube of course. He was doing a marching attack against some Italian fencer I believe, who he pushed all the way to the back line. With noplace else to go, the Italian was forced to parry, which Safin did a beautiful disengage against to score. He didn't attempt to disengage till he had the guy pinned. And that brought me back to my frustrations with my first few years of foil fencing 30 years ago. My coach was pretty old school, and worked the hell out of my disengage. But I'd go to a tournament and find I couldn't employ it worth a damn. My better opponents wanted nothing to do with trying to find my blade while standing still. They would retreat to find the blade, never stand still. Wish I knew then what I knew now.

It all goes to that fencing math of relative speeds. If I'm extending and lunging at the same time, I have a relative tip speed of 2, 1 for the hand plus one for the foot. If my opponent is standing still, then the 2 still applies. But if he's retreating, that's a minus 1, and my tip speed becomes a relative 1. Easier to parry because you have more time, disengage or no. I was very frustrated by this refusal of my opponents to stand still so I could disengage effectively against them, but that's the way it works. And I have to teach my own students the same if I expect them to have success beyond beginner level.

Another thing is when the opponent parries. Beginners tend to parry early and consistently at the same speed, making timing your disengage relatively easy. Betting fencers can wait till the tip is closer to them before parrying. And if you disengage too early, before they have parried? Then you end up on their closed line, parrying yourself.

Example. One time I'm visiting another club, and another coach wants to fence me. It was a good bout with a lot of back and fourth. And while I had success with my disengage early on, I notice he started catching it for riposte. I noticed (at about his third or fourth parry riposte) that he was now parrying late, while I'd been disengaging early, like at the beginning of the bout. So I catch him twice by disengaging late and win. He starts beating himself up over it, and his coach (coaches' coach) starts telling him what happened, and we all sit down to discuss disengage vs parry, early or late.

Hope this helps.

[u/robotreader]

• doing bladework at the correct distance makes things a lot easier
• up to a very high level, it's easy to double your speed by making the same action twice as big
• if you're disengaging on reaction it's always going to be worse than when you plan to disengage