- “Selection of the decisive point to be attacked (this depends on the enemy’s vulnerable points)
- Selection of the preparatory maneuver, which will enable this decisive point to be reached. Victory will go to the side that which succeeds in blocking his enemy’s maneuver and carrying his own to its objective.[1]”
Beaufre, drawing inspiration from fencing tactics, employed terms like “feint,” “deceive,” “thrust,” and “disengage” to describe offensive and defensive strategies. He emphasized the importance of “indirect pressure” through political, diplomatic, and economic means to complement direct military action and achieve total victory. This comprehensive approach was used by the French in World War II and the Algerian War, planting the seeds for its enduring relevance.
In combat, in strategy-driven sports (especially combat sports/martial arts), and even eSports, all share the common denominator of using preparation to create an opening on the opponent and to strike decisively when the opportunity presents itself.
In the strategic world of épée fencing, attacking and defending are equally risky propositions. The 40-millisecond lockout time coupled with elite athlete reaction times, creates an incredibly small window for a fencer to strike effectively. With a significant percentage of touches resulting in doubles (18.6% of touches in Men’s and 22.2% in Women’s), scoring a single light requires skillful deception and precise timing.
Therefore, preparation becomes paramount. It’s not just a factor in épée, it is the game itself. As Clément Schrepfer, author of How to Fence Epee: the Fantastic Four Method, eloquently states, “We cannot build an entire game based on physical or technical superiority.[2]” Instead, tactical superiority, achieved through effective preparation is the key to success.
In Make the Cut: Sabre Fencing for Adults, John Bradstock Chow wrote that the purpose of preparation is to “confound your opponent so they can’t figure out what you’re doing, while you figure out what they’re doing…as you face better opponents…you can’t just hide your own intentions and react to theirs. You need to add tricks to your preparation to make them make a bad decision, at a time and place and nature of your choosing. [3]”
Beyond hiding your intentions from your opponent, preparation, wrote Maitre Frederic Fenoul, is about limiting “the number of possible reactions from your opponent” to “reduce uncertainty and use solutions that have already been programmed.”[4]
Of course, preparation is a two-way street. As a Fencer attempts to befuddle their adversary into a bad decision, the opponent has the exact same goal and is looking for vulnerabilities in your own preparation to capitalize on the chinks in your preparatory armor. This notion is echoed in Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do, when Lee stated that we can attack on our own time and will, or upon the opponent’s movement or failure of his action[5].
“Good” preparation is all relative, but there are general principles a fencer must incorporate into their game to make them effective.
Elements of Good Preparation:
- They Must be (Un)Believable: Any preparation presented to the opponent must have solid technical foundation behind them. If a fencer beats in the forte with quickness and power, it’s a real threat. But if the fencer noodles the opponent’s blade in the foible, then it can be dismissed, and might give the Fencer the opportunity to attack in prep. The footwork behind preparation must be controlled, calculated, and fluid too
- They Must not be Repetitive: In Laszlo Szabo’s Fencing and the Master, Szabo wrote that preparatory movements “must be extremely varied and as conflicting as possible.[6]” Varying the preparation creates confusion and chaos for the opponent while reducing the risk of being attacked in one’s own preparation. Having a diverse preparatory repertoire is critical in orchestrating a comeback when down, changing tactics when “Plan A” begins to fail, and leaving the opponent to guess as you create unpredictability.
- They are used to Limit the Opponent’s Strengths: Every strength an opponent brings to a bout can be managed, limited, and even neutralized with effective preparation. The tall opponent with the explosive fleche can be provoked and “absorbed.” The fencer with the stalwart defense can be circumvented by a well set-up instinctual folly. And the lanky counterattacker can be defeated by selling a countertime action. Preparation should steer the opponent’s strengths into your own area of excellence (AoE) as Harmenberg would say.
- It’s All About Distance: 49% of “Oh $%#@ Moments” come on distance traps. Effective preparation requires safe entry into distance (or deceiving the opponent into entering distance) which according to Bruce Lee begins with aiming “at the distance the opponent will be when he realizes he is being attacked and not at the distance prior to the attack. The slightest error can render the attack harmless.[7]”
- They Must Have a Purpose: The ultimate purpose of preparation is to create an Oh $%&# moment, but to generate such an opening requires the use of thoughtful and intentional preparations to close the distance and/or provoke the opponent into something they don’t want to do. “In fencing,” wrote Anonymous Eurasian in Guide to Olympic Epee Fencing, every move effects your capacity to perform every other move…all offensive, counter-offensive, and defensive moves facilitate each other. The success of every action is built on the potential of other actions.[8]”
The 6 C’s of Preparation
The reasoning behind preparation boils down to six ideas, and these ideas aren’t mutually exclusive and must be combined to set up effective touches. Because I come from the corporate world, where we love acronyms aligned to the same letter, we’ll call this: “The 6 C’s of Preparation.”
- To Cater: Feed information and read your opponent’s response
- To Confuse: Give false information and hide true intentions; to manipulate distance
- To Counter-Prep: Preparing on the opponent’s prep (Prep on the Prep)
- To Cheat: To open opportunities to enter your opponent’s distance or pull them into your own distance
- To Call: To provoke the opponent to attack
And the 6th C: These ideas of preparation are ultimately designed to create and open the window for an Oh $&#@ Moment.
To Cater
Catering is the act of giving information to see how the opponent reacts. Catering preps ought to be lower risk and used to elicit reactions from the opponent. In Dr. Aladar Kogler’s One Touch at a Time, he notes that catering is for reconnaissance, and used to reveal the opponent’s “preferred actions, his strengths, and weaknesses…for developing our future tactics and choosing our own actions.[9]”
Jon Normile (he himself a Kogler disciple) once explained to me that his general tactical approach to a bout involved putting out recon preps in the 1st period to read the opponent, to begin dismantling them in the 2nd, and make them chase him in the 3rd. But all of this began with how he catered information to the opponent.
Examples:
- Fencer feints to the high line and the fencer reacts in a six > This might open a touch on feint to draw the parry and then disengaging with lunge or fleche
- Fencer flicks and each time the opponent pulls the arm back > This might create an opening to the advanced targets when the opponent pulls the arm
- Fencer makes a half advance into opponent’s distance, and each time the opponent reacts by stepping in > This might create an opening to attack on temps perdu as the opponent is deceived by the manipulation of distance
To Confuse
Curtis McDowald told me that Epee is “all second intention.” Indeed, there is an art to bringing chaos to your prep and serve the opponent with false information to hide your true intent. Allen Evans wrote that “there is an entire class of actions in ‘second intention’ – in which the initial action is designed to be misleading, and produce a reaction from the opponent. These are done in both attack and defense.[10]”
Whereas catering is done with the purpose of revealing the opponent’s tendencies, reactions, and even actions, we confuse to give deliberately false information to then lure the opponent into a different finish. Confusion also reduces the risk of the opponent’s prediction, which Ziemot defines as when “a fencer calculates an opponent’s future actions from their previous ones.[11]”
Examples:
- Fencer binds in four with the intention of the opponent disengaging so the Fencer may close the line in 6
- Fencer harmonizes to the opponent’s tempo and movement, then comes to a sudden stop, hypnotizing the opponent into following suit
- Fencer feigns a counterattack or feint, and then pulls the arm back on the opponent’s search
To Counter-Prep
Counter-prepping is the art of disrupting and destroying the opponent’s prep to create chaos, lower the opponent’s comfort in the preparation, and deter them from a well-executed closing action. Counter-prepping is especially important in the counter-offensive game and being able to successfully pull the opponent, disrupt their march, and make them uncomfortable as they attempt to set up their closing action. In Michel Sicard’s “Model for Epee Combat,” he refers to this as counter-communication, or “permanently countering the opponent in his game in order to drive him to ask himself questions, thus bringing him out of the state of concentration.”[12]
Examples:
- Opponent feints, and Fencer reacts with a beat to displace the opponent’s tip/blade
- Opponent pushes, and Fencer makes a sudden half advance into distance to stutter their rhythm and confuse the distance
- Opponent feints, and Fencer responds with a feint of their own
To Cheat
In the article on distance, I discussed two “danger” zones that exist: Krieg (when a Fencer makes an advance into distance), and the distance given (when the opponent is given the space to enter a Fencer’s distance). In “Small vs. Tall” bouts, the shorter fencer has an even tinier distance window with which they may prep (Zufechten) and enter compared to the taller adversary.
To enter, a fencer must convince the opponent that they have the right to. A sudden full advance into the Krieg might leave the fencer subject to attack in prep, but if they half step, bring the back leg forward and subtly creep into the Krieg, they may finish with a single tempo before the opponent has the reflex to react.
Cheating distance is so much of preparation, and cheating effectively starts with a believable half advance and half retreat.
To Call
“Calling” is the art of making invitations or provocations on the opponent with the specific purpose of drawing them out into an attack of regret. It is in my opinion, the most difficult form of preparation to achieve because of the blurred line between an invitation that results in getting pulverized in attack in prep and successfully luring the opponent into your attended action.
Examples:
- Fencer makes a wide invitation in 6 with a half step, opening the body. Opponent takes the bait, and Fencer counterattacks to the inside of the hand as opponent’s extension comes out.
- Fencer flicks to the hand, drawing the attack from the opponent, and succeeds in a second intention parry riposte
- Fencer makes a sudden entry into distance to provoke an attack in prep, and immediately uses the Z-Axis to squat and get below the opponent’s tip to counter.
Common Types of Preparation in the Modern Epee Game
Perpetual Movement/Bouncing: With few exceptions, Harmenberg’s legacy of bouncing-style footwork remains prominent at the international level. Rarely do the feet stop over the course of the preparation, as the sense of timing is so keen on fencers at this level that stagnant feet leave fencers far more open to punishment. The steps made on the bounce are calculated, controlled, and seldom extraneous, and the movement on the balls of the feet allows for immediate explosivity when the moment comes to attack.
Half Advances/Half Retreats: Put simply, there isn’t a more important preparation with the feet than the half advance and half retreat. The half advance serves two purposes—to provoke the opponent into an attack or to disrupt their preparation by entering distance with just enough of a threat to illicit discomfort and disturb their rhythm and tempo. The half retreat is an effective means of breaking the tempo, pulling the opponent into distance and deceiving the position of the torso, and then attacking on step forward (See chapter on distance for more detail).
Half Lunges (Both Forward and Back): When the half advance and/or half retreat doesn’t elicit the desired response in preparation from the opponent, Fencers utilize a half lunge to get deeper in preparation, create distance traps or to create a second intention opportunity. Fencers are often attacking to the foot with half lunge to then recover forward into the opponent’s distance and score. In the spirit of Valentina Vezzali, fencers will also lunge backwards and squat into the back leg with freakish acrobatics to conceal target and pull the opponent even closer into distance.
Acceleration/Deceleration: One of my favorite bouts of the 2021-2022 season was Valerio Cuomo’s out of nowhere Sochi World Cup win. Cuomo’s decisive 15-9 win in the gold medal bout over Cannone was a masterclass in the ability to deceive the opponent in preparation by starting fast and finishing slow, or starting slow and finishing fast, and varying the tempo in preparation to leave the opponent guessing on the close. The variations in the velocity of the preparation and the close are prominent in the modern epee meta
Disruptive Beats: A disruptive beat game remains a strong aspect of the current meta, particularly in eight, two, and four. The beat rarely leads to a compound attack and is used more as a disruption or to force the opponent into a different line (in the spirit of Johan Harmenberg). Outside of the Hungarian school, we’re seeing a transition away from preparatory binds and engagements and more of a movement towards fast, low-risk beats.
Feints: With actions in Epee Fencing finishing predominately to the torso, the feint provides an effective means to gauge distance on the opponent, feel how the opponent reacts when threatened, and create openings in proper distance. They provide a solid option for counter-prep too when an opponent is pressuring to create discomfort.
Low/High Game: Constant transitioning of the tip in both the low and high lines is critical. The exaggeration of the low/high invitations varies between subtlety (the French) and drastic (the Koreans). This style of preparation is highly favored by Fencers who use second intention as a tactic in order to elicit the desired reaction from the opponent.
Flicks: While a flick accounts for 5% of all touches, the flick to the advanced target is a commonly used tactic to collapse the distance with an advance, to gauge opponent reaction, or to threaten the opponent/disrupt the opponent’s preparation. The flick is also a key preparation used to set up counter-time response, as fencers are making an intentional short action with flick to draw the counterattack and then close. For the fencers who favor second intention tactics, setting up a flick to draw the opponent’s attack and respond with a counterattack is happening with a strong degree of frequency, particularly with eastern European countries. Despite a lower number of flicks in the closing action for Women’s Epee, it’s being used more and more by the Italian women to great effect.
Body Invitation: Opening the line to the body with an invitation to attack (especially with half advance) is a commonly used/trending tactic to draw the opponent’s attack to respond with a counterattack or parry-riposte. The body invitation is especially prevalent with French grip fencers, who use this tactic to sucker opponents into what I call “instant regret attacks.” You know, the kind of attacks that as soon as you initiate, a voice inside your head screams: “I should not have done that.”
Making Use of the Z-Axis: The Z-Axis is a knee murderer, but in preparation (and the close), it’s becoming more commonplace with the athletically gifted fencers to drop below the opponent’s tip to displace their own target, threaten below the guard, and quickly get out to not leave oneself subjected to a punishment touch/attack in preparation.
Attacking in the Preparation
With every preparation a Fencer makes to open an Oh $%&# Moment on the opponent, those movements come with risks of their own and can create windows for the opponent to attack. This is where attacking in the preparation comes into play.
Attack in preparation occurs when a fencer initiates an attack while their opponent is in the preparatory phase of their own attack. This preparatory phase can involve footwork provocations, blade invitations, or body feints. The key to successful AIP is launching the attack before the opponent has successfully set up their action, catching them with their pants down.
44% of Epee touches are scored via attack in prep. They’re more likely to occur from the pulling fencer, with nearly 45% of those touches being scored by the fencer with the lead (with credit to Nick Johnson for the data visualization):
Consider why this might be: when a fencer has the lead, the opponent at a deficit is forced to push, driven by the urgency of P-Cards. A pulling fencer has more leeway into the “distance you give,” and so in theory the losing opponent has to pressure. This creates more opportunity to attack in prep for the leading, pulling fencer.
Scenarios to Attack in Prep:
- The opponent steps forward with a huge search on the blade and the fencer disengages and goes.
- The opponent creates a lot of moments of temps perdu when they retreat and then change direction to advance
- The opponent opens the line with the intent to bait, the fencer takes the bait and manages to hit before the opponent can counter
- The opponent overcommits on the front leg on a half-step when they make a preparatory movement (e.g. flick, short lunge)
- The opponent recovers from a lunge off balance or with their hand exposed
- The opponent establishes repetitive, predictable patterns in their footwork
- The opponent makes a feint, giving a Fencer their blade, and the Fencer takes the blade like an early Christmas present
- The opponent searches for your blade and the fencer responds with a flick on the search
Takeaways:
Epee fencing requires strategy and deception. Preparation is key to creating Oh $&%# moments and capitalizing on opponent mistakes. Effective preparation involves tactics like the six 6 C’s of catering, confusing, counter-prepping, cheating, calling, and leading creation. Modern epee fencers must make use of a diverse tactical repertoire to make unpredictable touches. Put simply, if you don’t have good prep, you suck.
[1] https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/18197836.pdf
[2] Schrepfer, Clément. How to Fence Epee -the Fantastic 4 Method. BoD – Books on Demand, 30 Nov. 2015, p. 103.
[3] Chow, J. (n.d.). Make the Cut: Sabre Fencing for Adults
[4] https://view.genially.com/60c0d58be4bb6e0d5692d1d6/learning-experience-didactic-unit-eng-webinar-tactics-in-epee
[5] Lee, Bruce. Tao of Jeet Kune Do. S.L., Cedar Knolls Wehman, 1975, p. 161.
[6] László Szabó. Fencing and the Master. Staten Island, N.Y., Ska Swordplay Books, 1997, p. 262.
[7] Lee, Bruce. Tao of Jeet Kune Do. S.L., Cedar Knolls Wehman, 1975, p. 156.
[8] Eurasian, Anonymous. Guide to Olympic Epee Fencing. p. 97.
[9] Kogler, Aladar. One Touch at a Time. Swordplay Books, 2004, p. 270.
[10] https://www.coachescompendium.org/PREPARATION.HTML#:~:text=Preparation%20is%20not%20only%20a,and%20score%20with%20a%20riposte.
[11] Wojciechowski, Ziemowit. This Is Fencing! The Crowood Press, 1 Aug. 2019, p. 77.
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