Introduction: The Wrong Messenger with the Right Message
When I look on my bookshelf at the extensive library of fencing books I possess, authors include the likes of:
- Zbigniew Czajkowski- Founder of the Polish school, coach of multiple Olympic medalists and world champions (across all three weapons)
- Aldo Nadi– Olympic champion in all three weapons and one of the all-time great fencers
- Johan Harmenberg– Olympic Champion, World Champion, and author of Epee 2.0, the most influential fencing book of the 21th century
- Emik Kaidanov- The late, great Penn State coach who won an absurd 12 NCAA titles, produced multiple Olympians, and hundreds of All-Americans
These are all innovative Fencing masters with storied results, incredible minds, and people whose influence helped change global Fencing as we know it.
And then…there’s me. As a competitor, I was a bottom dwelling schlub who would be lucky to sniff a points round (in Juniors) on a good day. I tore my Achilles at 27, never recovered, and so my already bad results took a nose-dive.
I chose to avoid the tantalizing path of being a Fencing Coach and instead chose to sell out and work in the Financial Services world mostly because I’m a coward who chose monotony over the excitement of coaching.
There is a certain hubris to me submitting work like this when I lack the results, pedigree, and credibility as some of the individuals I listed above.
But what I’ve always lacked in output, I’ve made up for in my love of fencing,especially epee fencing. That love, put simply is what drove me to begin this research project that began outside of a jampacked sausage house in Columbus, Ohio, and ultimately became an official position with the national team in Men’s Epee.
Rewind back to a national tournament in Columbus, Ohio circa 2019. I’m sitting outside Schmiddt’s Sausage House with my longtime coach and friend Mario Jelev. I’m joining him as he rips a cigarette. Though Bulgarian, Mario speaks with a high pitched distinctly unique vocal cadence that reminds me more of a mafia boss than someone of southeast European descent. We’re talking about American Epee and our seemingly never-ending drought of results at the international level.
“The big problem is, bubba,” he says as he took another drag of the cigarette and gathered his thoughts “is that we play this stupid multi-tempo game when all they do is hit in one tempo. It’s ****ing bull*** watching this **** we play” he said in his always colorful language.
I went back to my hotel room that night, pulled up some recent tape of Americans fencing abroad, and from that, I had a limited qualitative confirmation that we were playing a completely different game.
Not so long after that tournament, this little catastrophe called the Covid 19 pandemic came around, pulled the social rug out from all of us, and put Fencing as we know it on an indefinite hiatus. Clubs were required to cease operations, tournaments were put on hold, and most of us were forced to isolate.
For me, this was like cutting off a meth addict from his supply cold turkey, and I found myself desperately craving fencing once again. With my club at the time (Richmond Fencing Club) shut down, I decided to take up a new arbitrary Fencing ambition and strove to become a Fencing Maestro. I joined the United States Fencing Coaches Association (USFCA) and got to work on going through the steps of Moniteur and Prevot, the two prerequisite levels needed to become a Maestro.
As the pandemic neared its end, I attended a clinic, tested for Moniteur, and went for Prevot one week later and passed, and it was time to write my thesis, a requirement to sit for the Maestro practical. I was mentally drained absorbing all I’d learned in two clinics. “Take a few weeks off before you write your thesis,” my wife said. “You need a break.”
I agreed, but reneged on that agreement about 12 hours later, because as many of you know, I have absolutely no chill when I get hyper-focused on something. My original hypothesis that I sought to prove was that the game had transitioned to single tempo. My goal was to watch 500 touches in men’s, 500 touches in women’s, and touch by touch, document if their closing actions were done in a single tempo, multiple tempos, or with a remise.
As I began watching bouts, rewatching bouts, and investing the time to explore this idea, I thought to myself: “Well, I’m watching the tape already. What other variables in a bout should I be looking at since I’m already here?” From there, I built out an entire analytics model.
Bout by bout and line by line, I began manually documenting every touch from the top ranked fencers in men’s and women’s in Excel (which included 18 fields per touch), dumping the data into a master file, and painstakingly recording in detail the fencer’s preparations, tendencies, and behaviors.
When I got to around 1,500 touches, I got a late-night text from my lifelong friend Dwight Smith (who would become assistant Men’s Epee Coach). Yeisser Ramirez had made day two of the Berne World Cup and texted me to ask what my data said on Igor Reizlin, who at the time was ranked #1 in the world.
Reizlin was one of the last remaining pure on-blade defensive fencers whose hand still operated with lightning speed as his feet began to slow down in his late 30’s.
In that moment, I was petrified. Here was an untested and unproven model, but Dwight had the faith to take my advice, put his own coaching lens on it, and relay it to Yeisser.
I noticed from Reizlin’s tape/data that at the start of a bout, he generally wanted to push, attack, take initiative and score on the first touch, but he often subjected himself to an attack in prep when searching for the blade. I also noticed that pushing him, attempting to get past his iron defense when he was on the pull was often a losing proposition. I looked at my data set and texted Dwight the following:
“Yeisser’s best bet is to pull Reizlin and play a counter-offensive/defensive game. Pull towards 2M zone, choose on the moment on Reizlin’s full advance and work attack in prep, ready for remise. This is how Reizlin gets hit the most.”
When I woke up the next morning, I had the following text from Dwight: “Bro he beat his ass!”
I started to believe that maybe I was onto something here, and that maybe this could go somewhere beyond my USFCA thesis. Franco Cerutti, an old clubmate of mine from our days in Florida and former Swiss National Coach and I reconnected, and I made the offer to take the model and start using it with the team. He took a look at my spreadsheet in detail, agreed with the approach, and hired me on to assist with Data and Strategy. I will forever be grateful to both Dwight and Franco for having the faith in me to do that. These are two of the most genuine, forward-thinking, empathetic coaches in the sport of Fencing and I’m lucky to have worked with them.
In the subsequent three years leading up to the Paris Olympics, I was able to take a lot of these ideas in analytics, apply them to the field, and use them to assist in the strategy process in individual and team events. While we fell short of our goal to qualify, I am grateful to have worked with and learned from our elite athletes and coaches. Despite not qualifying, I remain steadfast in my belief that these athletes will enter the LA2028 Olympics as a true team and shock the world. I don’t think that, I know it. I wish them all the best of luck and will forever be in their corner.
In these three years, I learned more about Fencing than I had in my previous 30 years in the sport. I had amazing conversations with elite coaches, athletes, and referees around the world who were extremely generous with their time, knowledge, and ideas. I watched thousands of hours of tape, documented everything, and began to rethink many of my own ideas as a coach.
I pulled the plug on this project in mid-2024 to sell-out and become the Chair/President of USA Fencing and devote my time and energy there. And now, for the first time, I share with you literally everything I’ve learned, with the hopes that an aspiring fencer might pick this up, learn some new ideas, and perhaps become “The Chosen One” (or Chosen Ones) that elevate American Epee to the level it deserves.
Method
DOWNLOAD THE EXCEL TEMPLATE HERE!
Not for Commercial Reuse. Express permission must be given by the author in order to use this in any commercial capacity.
In the context of an Epee bout, there are a million different variables leading to a Fencer’s success (or failure). When doing film analysis, a Fencer can look at the tape in front of them to draw his/her own conclusions based on distance, timing, preparations, and footwork. While a qualitative analysis produces a descriptive assessment of a bout, this approach is best suited for studying a bout independently of others, and becomes unwieldy when attempting to capture a Fencer’s preferences and tendencies over time.
Who a Fencer is, their approach to bouts, and their tendencies on the strip when leading (or behind) can be informed best by capturing descriptive analytics, which Gartner defines as “…the examination of data or content, usually manually performed, to answer the question “What happened?” (or What is happening?).”[1]
In order to capture a bout’s dynamics, 38 data fields were captured for each touch for a total of 6,944 touches in Men’s and Women’s Epee at the top 64 and above level in World Cup, Zonal, World Championship, Grand Prix, and Olympic level from 2019-2024, and using these to build cumulative profiles with each Fencer assessed. These data fields help to identify the Fencer’s preparatory tendencies, the number of strokes/tempos per action, and what the Fencer prefers to do with his/her closing actions.
A Plea: Do Not Use my Methodology in Anything but the Junior/Senior Level
I imagine that once I open up here and begin to share my methodology and data capture approach that a number of people will start using it. I can’t stop you from that, and I’m putting this out there because I want us to start thinking about Epee fencing differently in the United States.
But I have one simple plea, and I hope you’ll hear me out: Don’t use this in youth fencing. Don’t even use this in Cadets. One of the trends in American Fencing I absolutely despise is the proselytization of youth sports and the inordinate amount of pressure I see coaches and parents put on young fencers to perform for the extrinsic goal of getting into college rather than the intrinsic goal to enjoy Fencing for the sake of Fencing.
In many ways, analytics suck the fun out of sport. They look at every movement and action with an almost hyper-critical lens, observing and scrutinizing every movement of the foot, hand, and even flinch of the body to tell a story of the fencers on the piste. They’re really meant for the highest levels of Fencing—and only that.
When you start capturing data profiles on children, doing so might have the opposite of the intended effect and could cause the young fencer to become overly self-critical to the point they perhaps begin to second guess themselves instead of just going out there and Fencing!
These analytics were used at the Senior international level and used to create scouting profiles on some very high-level opponents, but they shouldn’t be used for children. I’m begging you—please keep them out of youth sports or long after I’m gone, I’ll appear from my grave as a ghostly apparition, haunt you, and stop your children from getting into Harvard.
Surface Level Analytics
Surface level analytics are the objective metrics observable and capturable by the human eye.
Period: The period in which the touch was scored. This field helps us understand if a Fencer prefers to execute from the onset, or if s/he is using the early periods to assess/be patient up the bout’s denouement.
Point For: The Fencer who scored the point (mark “double” for double touch)
Point Against: The Fencer against whom the touch was scored
Lead: The leading fencer at the time of the hit. This field helps to identify behavioral changes in a Fencer when leading. For instance, an offensive-minded fencer might begin demonstrating favorability of a defensive game when s/he has accrued a lead in a bout.
Deficit: The fencer who is down at the time of the hit. This will also help identify Fencer behaviors when in a hole.
Time Between Touches: The cumulative time between each touch. Time between touches is an important field, that when averaged out can identify the aggressive or passive tendencies of a fencer. A touch will, on average, take 17 seconds to prepare for and score. But a fencer like Yannick Borel takes 12.47 seconds on average, indicating more aggressive offensive tendencies, whereas Masaru Yamada takes 21.24 seconds, indicating a more calculated and cautious approach to his bouts.
Point Scored At: The time left on the clock in each period when the Fencer scores.
Grip: Pistol or French. Within individual scouting profiles, it was noted if the fencer was a choker (e.g. John Edison Rodriguez) or pommeler.
Handedness: If the fencer is right-handed or left-handed
Gender: The gender identity of the individuals in the bout
Nationality: The fencer’s country of origin
Advanced Analytics
The advanced analytics require a subjective assessment, often requiring multiple views of a touch (sometimes slowed down substantially) to understand intent,
Pushing Fencer: The Fencer exerting the pressure on their opponent
Pulling Fencer: The Fencer drawing the opponent in
Figure 1: Pressure – Push & Pull
Attack Initiated By: The Fencer responsible for taking the initiative on the attack
Attack Received By: The Fencer receiving and/or defending the attack
Preparation/Hit: A more subjective and qualitative field that documents the foot and hand movements leading up from the time the referee calls “Fence!” to the closing final action. The description in the “Preparation/Hit” field should include a summation of the Fencer who is pushing/pulling (or initiating), the methods they use to collapse distance leading to the final action (where applicable), and how s/he uses his/her feet to prepare for the action. (example: Borel takes lead for the first time in the bout. Pushes Park with small, fast tempo half advance/advance steps with acceleration into Park’s distance, and as Park tries a high low prep, Borel disengages to low line, searching for blade, misses, but hits remise).
Strip Positioning: The area of the piste in which the fencer is scoring the touch. Touches were documented based on where the attack started, and recorded with the following language:
Tempos: A field that captures the number of combined hand/foot movements in the closing action.
Like many Fencing definitions, the concept of a fencing tempo varies by who you ask to define it. Maestro Zbiegnew Cjazkowski called out the vagueness of the definition of tempo in Understanding Fencing, noting that: “…most fencing textbooks, while stressing the element of “choice of time” delicately side-step the difficult problem of defining, describing, and discussing it.[1]“
For the sake of this data collection exercise, a Fencing tempo is defined through the lens of: what is the fewest number of movements in the hand and the feet required to score on the target?
In Allen Evans’ Coaches Compendium, Evans describes the relationship between single and multi-tempo as follows: “An action in a single tempo scores against the opponent with one motion, one tempo. Attacks may be multi-action, or “compound” in their execution, but all actions preceding the final, scoring action are preparations. These actions may facilitate scoring, but do not score themselves. Further, an action may be one movement, but not be able to score in one tempo, such as a very long lunge.[2]”
In Evans’ example, a beat, for instance, cannot score in and of itself, nor can the act of a parry. Such actions require a secondary movement of the hand and/or feet in order to score.
For the research in this thesis, Fencing tempos have been recorded as “1,” “2,” or “3” with the following definitions:
- 1 (Simple)- An attack with a single movement finish in the hand or feet would be classified as “1” for one tempo, or an action that is able to score independent of a secondary movement. A half advance/retreat to a closing action would be considered a single tempo.
- 2 (Multi-Tempo/Intentional)- A compound action with more than one movement in the hand and/or feet would be classified as a “2” for multi-tempo. For example, an advance lunge would be 2 tempos, one for the advance, one for the lunge. If a feint comes synchronized with the advance, followed by the lunge, this would still be classified as multi-tempo, since the hand movement is synchronized with the feet.
- 3 (Remise/Unintentional)- Unplanned, unintentional actions when the phrase d’armes breaks down
It is appropriate, given the variance of definitions in the coaching community to explicitly call out what a tempo is not to provide clarity in further sections. These definitions of Fencing tempo are not incorrect, but merely different from the applicability of this research.
- For this research, a fencing tempo is not a measurement of “the time it takes to complete a single fencing action[3]” as defined by Maître Walter Green. It is a measurement of the movements required to complete a fencing action.
- An indirect attack with a singular motion of the hand synchronized with the lunge (e.g. a simple disengage lunge) would be considered a single tempo action, whereas under the definitions of tempo as presented by Maître Czajkowski, he implies that the act of disengagement makes an attack multi-tempo.
- It is not the number of actions with the hand before the front foot hits the ground.
Attack in Preparation (AIP): Recorded as a binary “Yes” or “No” field. 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.
The Oh $#@& Moment: Defines the small window to score a touch that is opened from preparation. Oh $@&# Moments were recorded as follows:
- Collapse of Distance- When a fencer enters to closer distance (typically <2 meters) and strikes
- Instinctual Folly- When a fencer twitchily responds to a preparation, drawing the desired reaction (e.g. parry on a feint)
- Punishment- Overcommitting in preparation (often off balance) or sloppily recovering from attack, or capitalizing on rhythmic preparation resulting in vulnerability (French)
- Temps Perdu- “Momentary pause in fencing action or movement” (Pezza – 2019) often on a change of direction
- Technical Folly- Poor technique or extraneous movement (e.g. wide parry, large flick, leading with body) resulting in opponent spearing themselves
- Angle/Strip Positioning- Opponent enters feeble lateral strip positioning, resulting in better angle/leverage on the attack (e.g. Fencing lefty in the middle of the piste) (Schrepfer – 2015)
Type of Action: The closing action used by the Fencer on a hit. This, combined with the time between touches field can signal if a Fencer prefers an offensive style, a counter-offensive style, or a defensive style.
- Lunge: An attack to the opponent initiated by pushing off the rear leg.
- Fleche: A running attack on the opponent in which the rear leg crosses over on the attack.
- Parry-Riposte: A deflection of the blade followed by a thrust.
- Counterattack: A responsive thrust to an opponent’s attack, often taken with opposition to close the opponent’s line.
- Remise: An unintentional continuation of the attack should the Fencer miss his/her intended action.
- Flick: A preparatory attack or a responsive action to the opponent’s hand or arm with a graze of the tip.
- Toe Touch: An attack to the foot.
- P-Red: A fencer is awarded a touch as a result of a P-Red.
- Red: A fencer is awarded a touch as a result of a red card.
Technology Used
I began by manually documenting each touch in Excel (the first 2,000 or so touches) before I gained access to Dartfish, an advanced video analytics software. This created many efficiencies in bout processing, and also allowed the benefit of uploading analytics and opponent playlists to the cloud for access by the athletes.
Data and Analytics: How They Support the End-To-End Tournament Cycle
Scouting Reports – Lehfeldt Evaluation Framework (LEF):
Scouting reports were the most used tools by the athletes and coaches. These were a summation of the data (scoring archetypes, strip traits, and closing actions), with qualitative observations around solutions to beat a given opponent (more on this in the opponent evaluation section). Example below, with some apologies for the naughty language:
Certain personal coaches would also want to see the data to hone in on things to focus on with their students. For example, one athlete had a particularly keen counter-offensive game, but struggled in additional areas. Based on his data, his coach began to revise the focus in lessons to emphasize this athlete’s push game more and improve some of his defensive maneuvers.
Batting Averages:
Scouting reports could be time consuming and were usually generated based on the teams we were scheduled to face in a given World Cup. So for everyone who there wasn’t a complete scouting profile on, coaches could turn to the “Batting Averages” sheet, which was a summation of all the data. Coaches could take a glance at the batting averages sheet and get a general sense of what the opponent was going to throw at the fencer. Batting averages example of the French team below:
After Action Reports:
Following each team event, we’d do a little summation of how the Fencers did, one part looking at the data, another looking at key themes and observations:
After action reports can also be helpful in painting the full picture of a bout when the score might not always be indicative of performance. For example, following one event, Franco told me: “Well, he lost 15-12. It was close.” Was it though? I noted that of the 12 touches scored, 7 of them were doubles when our guy was at a deficit, 4 of them were unintentional actions, and one touch and only one touch was a first intention single light.
Mechanics Analysis
One other area I supported was in assessing athlete mechanics and creating video analysis in Dartfish to help identify opportunities. Two examples:
- One particular athlete had a tendency to break distance, pendulum the front leg back, and swing it forward when they changed direction and re-entered distance. This fencer was a brick wall, but their opponents were often pummeling them on this mega temps perdu. A video was created to demonstrate this mechanic. They adjusted the pendulum and replaced it with a pronounced half step which resulted in far less free touches for the opponent.
- Another fencer would squat down prior to a fleche, load weight on the front leg, drop their hand, and get attacked in prep before their fleche could come out. On numerous occasions, this vulnerability resulted in blown leads and was exploited. A video was created to demonstrate mechanical recommendations on the drop of the hand and the extra tempo created in the squat. This athlete never changed their game, but the video was nice.
Applying This:
Remember my demand: you will not use any of this on anything but Junior level fencers and above. Some considerations on how to apply this:
- Take Video Wherever you Go: Whether you choose to go with a qualitative or quantitative approach to evaluation, video should be a part of everything you do. Always position your camera in the middle of the strip so it’s easy to see distance, footwork, and handwork from both the fencer and their opponent. Use the tape to go over it with your coach.
- Acquire a Dartfish License: No, it’s not cheap, but for larger clubs with the margins to burn, it’s a good place to store tagged videos and start collecting data on opponents. If you do not have the means to invest in Dartfish, there is always manual tracking via spreadsheet.
- No Dartfish? No Problem: Use the linked spreadsheet, download it, and begin documenting bouts that way. It’s a little more time consuming, but it will help paint a picture of yourself and your opponents over time!
Use this framework to begin learning more about yourself and your opponents. I hope you enjoy this process as much as I did.
[1] https://www.coachescompendium.org/CUES_IN_TEMPO.HTML
[2] https://www.coachescompendium.org/CUES_IN_TEMPO.HTML
[3] https://www.sallegreen.com/180204-tempo-what-it-is-and-isnt/
You must be logged in to post a comment.