I like Pokemon. A lot. And I know you do too, because you’re a fencer.
For every type of Pokémon, each has a weakness. For example, fighting types are weak to psychic. Normal and dark types are weak to fighting. Dragon types are weak to dragon, fairy, and ice types.
At the end of the day, Coaches are glorified Pokémon trainers and Fencers are just like Pokémon.
Welcome to my TedXTalk.
Today, we’re going to talk about the four types of fencers (Counter-Offensive, Offensive, Defensive, and Swarming), and discuss their strengths, their weaknesses, and how they fit into the current meta. To become a successful fencer, you don’t need to catch ‘em all, but you certainly need at least two to be the very best like no one ever was.
Nothing I’m About to Share With you is Original, Because all Combat-Style Sports are the Same
I’d love to think that what I’m about to share with you is groundbreaking. But it’s not. It’s derivative, it’s stating the obvious, and every schmuck like me has some kind of novel way of communicating the act of striking in combat sports. These are ideas that are thousands of years old, re-stated and reframed by hundreds of authors all stating the same thing in different ways.
In any sport like Fencing, Boxing, MMA, Karate, Wrestling, HEMA, etc., there are essentially four ways to strike an opponent:
- You exert pressure (Push) on them and attack (Offense)
- They exert pressure on you (Pull) and you attack (Counter-Offense)
- You exert pressure on them (Push) and defend (Swarming)
- They exert pressure on you (Pull) and you defend (Defense)
These ideas have been framed in different contexts with the following terminology and nomenclature:
| Author/Work | Year Written | Sport | Push + Attack | Pull + Attack | Push + Defend | Pull + Defend |
| Miyamoto Musashi – The Book of Five Rings[1] | 1643 | Killing people with a Samurai Sword | The First – Ken No Sen | The Third – Tai Tai No Sen | To Hold Down a Pillow | The Second – Tai No Sen |
| Numerous articles on Fighting Game Archetypes | N/A | eSports (Nerds) | Rushdown | Zoners | Pressure | Turtle |
| Joachim Meyer – Four Types of Fencers (as written by Adam Ritz)[2] | 1570 | Killing people with longswords | The Bull (The Prey) | The Predator (Opportunist) | Gaia (The Storm) | The Hunter (Deviser) |
| Ian Shutts – Boxing Styles: a Definitive List[3] | 2024 | Boxing | Power Puncher (Slugger) | Counter-Puncher | Pressure Fighter | Philly Shell |
| Remy Delhomme – L’Esprit de L’Epee | 2016 | Fencing | Conqueror | Counterer | Presser | Tank |
| Military Strategy (Numerous Sources) | N/A | Warfare | Attack | Counterattack | Offensive-Defensive | Remaining on the Defense |
So, enjoy as I once again re-state the obvious in my own novel and unique way.
The Four Archetypes of Fencing: Offensive, Counter-Offensive, Swarming, and Defensive
The sport with the most overlap between Epee Fencing is Boxing. While luckily in fencing, the bout doesn’t end when the Fencer is knocked unconscious, it’s somewhat appropriate the medical term for the body’s positioning after being concussed is known as “The Fencing Response.”
Boxing’s similarities to Fencing are numerous:
- Boxing requires a combination of proactive strategic thinking followed by in-the-moment instinctive responses when a small window is created to attack
- Distance management is a critical part of the game and using subtle movements in the hand and feet to collapse the space between fighters. Attacking from too far away results in exposure to counter-punches and responsive actions, and getting too close can result in devastating body shots in the clinch
- Boxing behooves both fighters to create subtle strategic shifts in the context of the bout, depending if a fighter is leading or trailing, or if the opponent is showing preparatory tells/tendencies that merit punishment
- Footwork is everything, and even the Sergey Bida-sized heavyweights must be fleet of foot, able to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” as Muhammed Ali said
- Unless you’re Mike Tyson (or Yannick Borel in Fencing), you don’t come out of the corner immediately swinging for powerful knockout punches, as doing so quickly depletes stamina and a smart fighter will be able to capitalize on the wider openings. Instead, perhaps you begin with your jab, using it to gauge opponent’s distance and set up combinations. Perhaps, against a fighter who protects the head well, you work your body shots and blows to the solar plexus to get the fighter to drop their hands, wind them, and then deliver a brutal headshot or ten
Much like boxing, the current Epee fencing meta favors fencers who initiate and create over those who approach passively and respond to the opponents’ initiative.
Successful Fencing requires mastery of at least two archetypes and must be fluid depending on the context of the bout. A one trick pony will find themselves helpless as a score widens in the opponent’s favor.
Archetype 1: Counteroffensive Fencer – 48.3% Success Rate
In the current Epee meta, counter-offense is the single most successful archetype. Counter-offensive fencers approach the bout with the intent of pulling the opponent and placing the onus on them to exert pressure, and then finding an opening on the opponent’s step forward/change of direction to attack in preparation. This fencer has an excellent sense of timing, landing their attack before the opposing fencer’s front foot is placed on the ground while changing directions.
The counteroffensive archetype is so successful, because the attacking fencer has both the strength of their own attack and the forward motion of attacking combined with the speed of the opponent’s step moving forward.
Let us look at the scouting profile of Kazuyasu Minobe and the traits that make him counter-offensive. First, under his strip traits, you will see he pulls 70% of the time. He scores 41% of his touches by pulling and attacking (with a 1.72 success ratio). But Minobe excels in ¾ profiles: when he’s forced outside of his counteroffensive AoE, he can also switch to offense (or defense) with ease.
Fencers who Embody the Counteroffensive Archetype: Kazuyasu Minobe (ME – JPN), Bas Verwijlen (ME – NED), Yannick Borel (ME – FRA), Sera Song (WE – KOR), Anna Kun (WE – HUN), Yiwen Sun (WE – CHI)
Archetype 2: The Offensive Fencer (Push/Attack) – 44.1% Success Rate
The offensive fencer approaches the bout with the intent to push their opponent, exert pressure, create an opening and initiate the attack. The offensive archetype embraces the Virgilian mindset of “Audentis Fortuna iuvat” (fortune favors the bold), hellbent on coming off the en garde line, invading the opponent’s space, and using smart and calculated preparations to open up their opponent for an attack.
A good example of a comically offensive fencer is Yuvall Freilich.
You’ll see from Freilich’s stats, he pushes his opponents an absurd 87% of the time. The man rarely retreats and doesn’t release the pressure valve. He scores 65% of his touches by pushing and attacking. Pulling isn’t really a thing for him, and in fact, from the 109 touches I analyzed, I only recorded him score 2% of his touches on the pull.
Fencers who Embody the Offensive Archetype: Yannick Borel (ME – FRA), Sangyoung Park (ME – KOR) Mara Navarria (WE – ITA), Kelley Hurley (WE – USA)
Archetype 3: The Defensive Fencer (Pull/Defend) – 36.8% Success Rate
The defensive fencer is typically a two-tempo blade heavy fencer who thrives by pulling their opponent in the direction of his 2-meter zone, drawing the attack, and destroying her opponent with parry-ripostes or counters (often in 2nd intention) and responsive actions. The defensive fencer rarely leans on passive defense, instead disrupting the opponent’s prep, provoking, and inviting the opponent to attack on their own terms.
Though the meta favors initiation of the attack (either offensively or counter-offensively), the Defensive fencer thrives with meta-defying tactics of either forcing the opponent’s attack and/or using the Johan Harmenburg school of disruptive preparatory beats to rattle her opponent into attacking.
Koki Kano is a great example of a well-rounded fencer, but his game thrives primarily around provocative defense. For example, with a large % of his single light actions occurring in flicks and toe touches, he’s establishing these as viable threats which he uses in preparation to make the opponent’s life (tinker)hell, entering and exiting distance with high velocity, threatening, provoking the attack, and finding parry-riposte. Kano can do it all, but his defensive game is top notch.
Fencers who Embody the Defensive Archetype: Igor Reizlin (ME – UKR), Ruben Limardo-Gascon (ME – VEN), Courtney Hurley (WE – USA), Leonara MacKinnon (WE – CAN)
Archetype 4: The Swarmer (Push/Defend) – 34.3% Success Rate
By far, the Swarmer is an extremely difficult archetype to pull off, requiring the fencer to have a near perfect sense of distance and timing, swarming their opponent like a killer bee with the tip, backing them into a corner, and then forcing them to attack. To be successful, the Swarmer must embody the principles of Musashi’s concept of “holding down the pillow,” or “not allowing the enemy’s head to rise…the important thing in strategy is to suppress the enemy’s useful actions but allow his useless actions. However, doing this alone is defensive…foiling his plans and thence command him directly.[4]”
Swarming is so difficult, because often times when a lead is accrued, the leading Fencer shifts into the counteroffensive archetype and forces the behind fencer to push and defend.
The Swarmer is proactive in their preparation and reactive in the closing action, but they often blur the line with the Offensive archetype, able to instinctively switch to attack initiation if and when they see the opening from their preparation.
A good example of a swarmer is Germany’s Marco Brinkmann. He’s tall, high energy, imposing, and applies stifling pressure in his fencing. Especially when in the box, he owns the territory and it’s unwise to even try to attack him there when he’s on the push.
From his data, you see he’s a swarmer because he pushes the opponent 69% of the time and receives the attack 65% of the time.
Fencers who Embody the Swarmer Archetype: Romain Cannone (ME – FRA), Tristan Tulen (ME – NED), Katrina Lehis (WE – EST), Ana-Maria Popescu (WE – ROM)
Embodying Multiple Archetypes: a Requirement for Success
While a fencer will try to begin the bout luring her opponent into her preferred archetype, as leads change in a bout, unsurprisingly, so too do the bout’s dynamics. Perhaps this is an explanation as to why the 1st touch of a bout is nearly double that of the typical average in both men’s and women’s, as securing the lead early allows the leading fencer to pull her opponent into her preferred archetype.
| First Touch Time Per Second Average (Women’s) | All Other Points (Women’s) |
| 50.44 seconds/touch | 20 seconds/touch |
| First Touch Time Per Second Average (Men’s) | All Other Points (Men’s) |
| 43.15 seconds/touch | 17 seconds/touch |
Unsurprisingly, the data collected shows a slight negative correlation between push % and winning (versus a slight positive correlation between pull % and winning), as the onus then falls on the trailing fencer to take the initiative and attack—especially with the new “unwillingness to fight” p-card rules in place.
It’s also worth noting that the fencer with a lead is pulling 71% of the time, which makes establishing a lead even more important for the fencers who prefer a pulling based archetype. To state the obvious, fencers with a lead are more likely to Pull + Attack or Pull + Defend and are significantly less likely to go on the push:
So what happens for instance, when a counter-offensive fencer falls behind a few touches against a fellow counter-offensive archetype, and the opponent no longer has the impetus to push? In this moment, they must be able to shift tactics into a push-style archetype to adjust to the bout’s dynamic—and they better be able to do it well!
Let us use Ana Maria Popescu as an example:
Popescu fell into the Swarmer archetype, playing her short targets amazingly and creating pressure in and around her opponent’s guard to draw them into attacking at which point she had a litany of responsive actions at her disposal to take them out. She pushed 55% of the time, but was nearly split down the middle in initiating versus receiving the attack.
With Popescu, behaviors in the bout would change drastically depending on if she was leading or behind. When leading, she play a more aggressive pressure game, pushing, leaning on responsive actions, but mixing in more “YOLO” actions including her fleche. But when (rarely) trailing, Popescu could shift to a lower risk short target game, picking off opponents with a lethal flick than kept her out of harm’s way. She scored single lights on a staggering 53% of her attacks, making her a powerhouse whenever she took initiative. As one high-level fencer described her to me: “Popescu is f***ing terrifying.”
Do Fencers Change Their Primary and Secondary Archetypes Over Time?
For a number of reasons, they have to. In a sport that is known to many as “Physical Chess,” when a fencer begins to show repetitive tendencies, planning and strategizing for them becomes easier and easier over time when they have certain tells or actions they fall into on the strip. Tactics may change bout to bout, but it’s very rare for a fencer with longevity to hold onto the same primary and/or secondary archetypes.
Perhaps the best example of this is Ruben Limardo-Gascon. Leading up to his 2012 London Olympic Gold, Limardo built his brand as an offensive juggernaut with the cleanest fleche in the history of Fencing that came out with such speed, he could regularly fleche one tempo from outside of typical fencing distance and cover enough ground to hit.
Limardo won his Olympic Gold at the age of 26. In the years since, he has suffered from a torn ACL and an ongoing shoulder injury that has made his Offensive archetype game diminish. Realizing a need to reinvent himself to remain competitive, Limardo has since switched to a Defensive/Counter-Offensive archetype, finding success in playing a blade-heavy defensive game while also finding an explosive fleche in the preparation on the opponent’s temps perdu. He remains relevant and dominant, even after a drastic archetypal switch.
Another Archetypal Shift: Yannick Borel
Leading up to the Tokyo Olympics, Yannick Borel was Epee’s equivalent of Mike Tyson—a guy who could pressure right out the gate, impose, and hit with minimal effort. In Tokyo, a then 18 year-old Mohammed Elsayed shocked the world when he upset Borel in the 32. Elsayed successfully used Borel’s speed and power against him, drawing him out like a matador and nailing him on responsive actions. In that bout, Borel pushed 90% of the time, and Elsayed only attacked twice. The final score, 15-11.
But then, the next season, Borel made a massive tactical shift. Where I first noticed it was in the finals of the 2022 Doha Grand Prix when he fenced fellow countryman Aymerick Gally. What was unique about this bout, is that not once did Borel cross to Gally’s side of the piste. There was no pushing at all, and all of a sudden, this was a guy who seemed to want to start attacking on his opponent’s initiative rather than his own. And holy Moses, did it work.
His pull percentage climbed 18% in the post Tokyo year as well.
| Push/Pull% | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
| Borel Push % | 45% | 62% | 93% | 41% |
| Borel Pull % | 55% | 38% | 7% | 59% |
The shift was massively successful. The season after Tokyo he had two Grand Prix wins, a Zonal Championship win, and a hugely successful quad that resulted in a silver medal in Paris (which included a revenge victory over Elsayed in the semi-final).
Takeaways From This:
The Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh said “When you want to be active, do not be afraid to do some things wrong, do not be afraid to make some mistakes.[5]” For the sake of imagination, let’s suppose Van Gogh was trying to presciently tell the Fencing community that the Epee meta favors boldness and initiation—even if it results in error (do not take this as an invitation to cut off your ear).
What Van Gogh didn’t say was: “Kill the clock, wait for your opponent to attack, draw some P-Cards, and take the bout to priority.” While there are some fencers who play the responsive game incredibly well as their primary archetypes(e.g. Lehis, Reizlin), these are few and far between.
The current meta is dominated by counter-offensive and offensive archetypes. Those who adjust to these are likely to see the most success…until the meta changes once again.
[1] https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/A-book-of-five-rings.pdf
[2] https://okanagancombatguild.com/understanding-joachim-meyers-four-types-of-combatants/
[3] https://www.boxingdaily.com/editorials/boxing-styles/
You must be logged in to post a comment.