Pro Tips for Passing the USFCA Prevot Exam in Sabre (Guest Post by David Sierra)

Note: David Sierra is a Maître d’Armes who specializes in sabre, but with extensive experience in the other weapons as well. He is an NCAA Division 1 Head Coach at Wagner College and serves as the Education Manager for the USFCA. David was a Sabre Coach Developer at the recent Coaches’ Academy and wrote this piece as a companion to

As one of the Coach Developers at USFCA Coaches’ Academy in Sabre I appreciate Damien’s efforts to help prep the candidates who were taking their exams. Damien wrote an excellent blog post recently about the USFCA Prevot exam, with some excellent thoughts on the overall process, and perspectives on taking it in epee. I’m doing a guest post here to discuss my thoughts on the process and looking at it from a sabre perspective. Damien is correct, these exams are challenging, especially for coaches who are newer to the profession. Like Damien, I am committed to empowering coaches in training with the tools and capacity to be successful. 

The candidates that I’ve seen who struggle with the Prevot exam tend to come in two varieties: former strong athletes who are struggling with the “athlete-to-coach transition” and those that are lacking in  technical preparation in one or more key areas. The USFCA has good resources that can help you with both. We have a network of strong mentors and coach developers throughout the country who can help with both of these components. And if you don’t pass an exam on the first try – it’s not the end of the world. You can go back and try again. That can be a humbling and embarrassing situation. Trust me, I speak from personal experience in that regard. But I also believe it made me a better coach in the end.

What follows here are my personal thoughts on the exam, and should not be construed to be “official USFCA guidance.” Nonetheless, as a former Chair of the Certification and Accreditation Board and the Education Manager for the USFCA, I can provide some insight on the process and how the exam is supposed to work. In the interest of clarity, I’ll be repeating some of Damien’s words, because they’re good and highly relevant, while adding some thoughts of my own.

The exam is presented in three main components – two looking at developing the capacity for the kinds of actions fencers will encounter in competitive bouts and a third where the coach is exploring tactical permutations with the fencers. Important to note: it’s recognized that the form of the lesson may be different than how the candidate gives a lesson in the club and that’s ok. The examiners are not (and should not!) be looking for perfection that adheres to a predetermined ideal. They want to see internal consistency, realistic fencing actions, and most of all, good communication and professional level capacity on the part of the coach.

Components:

1. Warmup – Coach leads the student through a basic warmup with the arm, tip, and legs to get them tuned in for the lesson. In sabre especially, it’s important that this component be well structured, and move the student through a progressive set of distances. Footwork is key. Let me say that again. Footwork is key. No really, if you’re taking the exam in sabre, FOOTWORK IS KEY.
2. Part I and Part II – Teaching Lesson: The Teaching Lesson is basically a technically oriented portion of the lesson where you are showing the student “how to do a thing.”
   • Offensive Action
   • Defensive or Counteroffensive Action
3. Part IIIA and IIIB – Tactical Expansion: The tactical expansion portion of the exam is about having the student make a preparation, and then the coach reacts with a series of responses dependent on the distance, timing, line, etc. You end this section with a cooldown.
   • Differing distance
   • Option 1
   • Option 2
4. Oral Exam: Questions are asked on weapon knowledge, tactics, technique, and conditioning. 

Themes (as of 9/18/2025).

The coach picks one of these for the offensive action, one for the defensive/counteroffensive action, and then one for the tactical expansion. Themes used in Parts I and II can’t be re-used in Parts IIIA and IIIAB. Please reference the Prevot scoresheet on the USFCA document library as these are constantly changing: 

1. Actions on the blade (to advanced, middle, and deep target in épée; to advanced and deep in sabre; to body in foil)
2. Compound attacks made with two tempos by disengage or coupe
3. Defensive preparation: Invitation, false attack or counter-attack, or false blade take followed by parry-riposte or defense with distance
4. Counter-offense as remise or with opposition or evasion (foil and épée)
5. Simple counter-offense to advanced target or counter-offense to deep target with closeout (sabre)
6. Basic transports (6-7,6-8, 4-2, 4-8, 6-1) (épée and foil)
7. Point in line (foil and sabre)

General Tips

Keep it Simple. No, Seriously, Keep it Simple. This is the most important thing in all of Damien’s post and I’m repeating it here for emphasis. Most of the times I’ve seen a student be unsuccessful in the Prevot exam are when they got too complicated.  Create the distance, and then let the actions happen naturally. I give some thoughts on components that would be good places to start from.

Communicate well with your student and the examination board. Yes, this does start with a good understanding of the basic terminology. Not as a gatekeeping process but in order to make sure misunderstandings don’t happen. The second biggest issue I’ve seen in Prevot (and Maitre exams) is when there is a fundamental disconnect between the candidate and the examiners due to the examiners not being able to follow what they candidate is doing. Don’t be afraid to take a moment and clearly explain “I’m now going to be working the student on X, which is defined as Y, and note that I’m going to be creating the opportunity for her to do that by movement Z.”

It’s about the candidate, not the student. But the choice of student is critical as is your ability to connect with them. Anyone who knows my coaching philosophy or has attended one of my clinics is going to immediately note the cognitive dissonance in those statements! I consistently and repeated hammer the principle that coaches MUST meet their student where they are and take note of what they bring to the table. Put your student at ease by making them understand that you’re being graded, not them.  Do your best to pick a student that is capable of movement, can execute the basic blade actions well, and has at least some experience fencing at the competitive level. But if the student isn’t having any problems, then you’re going to have problems with the exam. 

The exam asks you to make quick, technical corrections of both major and minor problems on the part of the student. But don’t overuse your voice – you have two other tools at your disposal: your feet and your weapon. Use them. I will also riff on Damien’s discussion of potential problems in a lesson and how to communicate a solutions, but I’ll be doing in context of the components.

Slow down. Seriously. One of the reasons the exam form asks you to list out the themes, actions and expansions ahead of time is so that YOU have a clear idea of what you’re presenting. You can write it out on an index card and keep it in your pocket to refer to. 

Understand the themes and actions you’re presenting. Note that in the list of actions above, the majority are two tempo actions. Why? Because we assume that you learned how to do one tempo stuff as a Moniteur. Two tempo actions require a greater capacity and creativity on the part of the coach, which will allow you demonstrate your skills in a simple and clear way. Yes, one tempo is king! But two tempo stuff still happens, and it’s vitally important that you as the coach know when and how two tempo actions happen. 

Be Strategic About Where You Take the Exam. Damien covered this idea pretty well, so I’m not going to say much more about it other than to note, you don’t HAVE to take the exam at a clinic. You can always contact the chair of the CAB to get help in setting up a time for taking the exam in a different context. 

Don’t Fence Your Student – Coaching footwork. Damien calls this the coach walk and is spot on about why it’s important. I’m also going to add in the following two things to think about. One, its a lot easier to make a deliberate mistake in distance, timing, etc, that your student should be able to capitalize on. Your cues are clearer and more precise. Second, if you are “fencing” with your student, then you’re going to be making mistakes that you’re not intending to (even if you yourself are still competing at a fairly high level) and your student is going to be responding to those other than what you’re intending. 

Ask a high level fencing athlete who has successfully made the transition to coaching, and most of them are going to concur that coaching footwork was the single hardest thing to get down consistently and well. It’s an important part of the “athlete-coach transition.”

A Potential Sabre Lesson You Could Replicate

As mentioned, simplicity is key, and just because a lesson is simple doesn’t mean it won’t give the coach and student an opportunity to work together well (Damien calls this “cooking” – I call it good connection between coach and student). What follows is a very simple lesson based upon the themes. 

Start with your warm up. Progress the student though simple, one tempo cuts in close distance. Add in first your movement, then their movement, and then coordinated movement. Then expand the distance a bit, and do a little bit more movement. Once all that is done, you’ve actually done a great job of setting up the tactical context for a more complicated offensive action. 

Part I – Offensive – Theme: Compound attacks in two tempos – beat attacks.

I like this theme in this spot because it’s a natural flow from one tempo actions in close distance and progresses smoothly from the warmup. I like to do this from a distance defense on the part of the student, which gives the coach the opportunity to present different distances and attempts to take the blade in different lines. Introduce student-initiated actions as soon as possible by making the student find the right distance for a compound attack. For extra bonus points, pull out to guard line distance and have the student look at making the decision on when to make the compound attack by seeing when the coach is making a preparation with the intent to parry. Every time you’re setting up a slightly different set of circumstances, explain that to the board. 

Note, its a teaching lesson which mean’s you’re focusing on clear execution of the action in the right time from the right distance. But that doesn’t mean it should be blind repetition of the same thing over and over again. The exam rubric notes that simple options can be presented to enhance the teaching of the action. DO THIS! Give the option to make the initial feint in a different line, or finish with disengage vs coupe. Present opportunities for the student to finish single tempo instead of two tempo. All of these things help the learning process. 

If your student is struggling with capacity here, spend some time working with them on the footwork needed to make a good preparation. Small footwork, with a change of speed is key. Help them adjust the angle of the blade for the feint. Work on the recognition of distance. And have them slow down – don’t we always say this to our students?

Part II – Defensive – Theme: Defensive preparation: False counter-attack followed by distance defense.

Again this is a nice natural flow. We just did a nice offensive progression ending up in a compound action, now we’re going back to a more simple defensive action and build from there. Move back into close distance, and have the student work on taking distance against your simple, one tempo attack (done with coaching footwork – yes you can cross your feet!). Then open up the distance and have them initiate the action with a false counter attack. I like to have this done with a full step forward, others want it with a half step – both are good (and lead you in to different tactical expansions, but that’s a different discussion for a different time). Progress this to mobile defense where the student has to start close, open up, and then create the moment by making the false counter attack.

Again introduce some simple variations into the system by pressing the attack hard when they try to open up (a parry-riposte should result). For additional super extra bonus points, have them try a preparation off the line with false counter attack. But that’s getting into some serious complexities – so only do this if you’re super confident in both your and student’s ability to control distance and tempo and recognize the moment to perform the action.

Part IIIA and B – Tactical Expansion – Theme: Actions on the blade

Ok why?? Because this theme is EASY to introduce variations on in a tactical expansion. Our special guest at Coaches’ Academy, Sara Vicinzin led us through an awesome set of situations with this that covered ALL of the bases for this expansion.

Tactical Context of Base Action: The main use of a beat attack in sabre is against a counter attack that has the capacity to get one light on the box. But feeling the difference in blade action for a beat vs a parry is important. One is a defensive action (the parry) and one is an offensive one (the beat). As such, there should be a slight difference in how the student makes contact with the blade. So, let’s start from engagement, and then when the student feels the insistence on the part of the coach, they perform a beat attack in close distance. The engagement should be cued by the coach stepping back with presentation of line, then the student stepping forward with engagement. When there is good communication here it’s a beautiful moment. Again, use some subtle variations to emphasize the action by having the initial engagement be in a different line. Make sure that the respective tempo’s are respected and the student is not rushing either the engagement or the beat attack. For some extra bonus points another variation can be for the coach to disengage after the student has the blade and the student performs the beat in a different line.

First tactical variation – change of distance. The coach starts out further away in initial distance, and steps IN with line to cue the engagement. After the student steps forward with engagement, then coach retreats and the student maintains engagement. When the coach gives the insistence, instead of stopping like before, they are still retreating. The student will need to execute the beat attack with an advance lunge. Change of distance done. Again, vary the lines for bonus points. 

Second tactical variation – change of blade action. So, now we lean in to the whole beat vs parry thing. Start like above in the first variation, but then make the student go backwards while maintaining engagement. The coach can accelerate and attack (a different line). The student makes a parry riposte. Again, vary the initial engagement lines. And also have the student vary between the first and second tactical variations. 

Third tactical variation – change the tactical context. This is where we’re going to add some student initiated actions into this. Start from open distance with the coach’s retreating line. Let the student find the distance to make the beat attack. For bonus points, let the chose between an engagement and a direct beat. Or allow them to make a false beat from slightly out distance to draw the disengage, and beat the blade in the new line.

Then again, as Damien suggests, string the three options together with different starting distances. Toss in a few moments for the student to make a simple attack for surprise action. 

Important Note: Simple cool down. I finish every single lesson with three to five lunges made from point-in-line. Correct simple errors of balance and relaxation. 

The table that Damien listed in his Problems and Potential corrections is just as valid for Sabre. 

Part 4: Oral Exam

I’m going to reiterate what Damien said about the oral exam: it is worth 20% of the test, and can sometimes push you over the top if your scores in parts 1-3 are borderline. 

Here’s some of my favorite questions that I like to pose during the exam. But I’m a bit tougher than Damien, so I’ll let you find your own answers to these:

General Knowledge: Training Conditioning, Periodization

• What does the weekly training plan look like for the month before an important season capstone competition (like Summer Nationals)?
• What does the weekly training plan look like the week before a mid-season, non-peak, local tournament?
• You have an athlete that is consistently “running out of gas” in the later stages of a tournament and losing DE bouts due to lack of energy. What are the steps to take to address this problem.

A Brief Explanation of Preparation

• Just go with what Damien said in his and you’ll be fine. 

Knowledge of the Rules for the Weapon Being Tested

• Describe a penalty situation that could result in two touches being scored against a fencer in one action.
• What are the items subject to inspection control at a North American Cup tournament?
• What is the penalty for a missing inspection mark at the beginning of the bout?
• What is the penalty for making contact with the opponent’s mask with your bell guard?

Knowledge of the Tactics for the Weapon Being Tested

Note: These are generally subjective. I just want to know that you understand tactics generally and that your advice makes sense. 

• Describe a tactical progression of actions for the first few touches of a bout?
• Your opponent is consistently getting the call of attack vs counterattack against you. What are some adjustments you can make that don’t involve trying to go faster and harder?
• How do you deal with an opponent who has a strong mobile defense?

Knowledge of Basic Weapon Technique

• What is the difference between a beat and a parry?
• What adjustments can you make to a fencer who consistently gripping his weapon too tightly?

• • What adjustments can you make to a fencer who is stepping in off “Ready, Fence” with the intention of making premeditated distance defense, but is getting hit every time by the opponent’s attack before they can get away?