Practical Advice For Learning Rapier Fighting

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Practical advice for learning fencing.
Assuming you have made it past the basics of fencing, you have many choices regarding how you will go about increasing your fencing knowledge and skill. You have a local practice, books, internet resources, and various teachers. Additionally you have whole fighting systems and philosophies based on period masters. But a lot of the time you will just have to be fighting and “figure it out”. Here are some practical things you can do to help you along with whatever route you chose to go, most of these apply to practice or pickup fighting.

Practice doing 2 things at once.
I’m not talking about just throwing “in opposition”, but it’s the same principle. For instance, if you need to adjust your position, practice doing it at the same time as a parry or while you are throwing a shot. Identify things that you do frequently and practice doing them while also parrying or throwing. This will slow down the fighting for you and help you see more opportunities, it will also help you be more precise in your timing. Don’t worry if you can’t make it work all the time, but always be looking to combine things.

Find that thing that scares you or makes you hesitate, walk right in to it.
We all have that thing that our opponent does that makes us flinch or hesitate. Usually you know what to do to about it but it’s a question of if you can be precise enough or fast enough to do it. You can have the greatest technique in the world but if you flinch or hesitate before you can execute it then you are just as dead as a newbie. So find someone who does that thing and walk right in to it, repeatedly. Don’t worry about winning every time, worry about not being scared of it. Before you can perfect your counter, you must have the nerve to stand in harms way. For me it was tall people with long lunges, most of my game works from B range, if I hesitated, flinched or let myself get backed up…I would die. I walked right in to lunges repeatedly until I trusted my reflexes enough to not freak out.

Practice parrying with as little effort and movement as possible. This one is sometimes best done when fighting a newbie or someone who is just below your level. We all know the basic parries, but we sometimes lose sight of how easy it is to move a blade off line. Stand right in range and practice using as little hand movement as possible when you parry.Remember, if you hit the opposing sword in the right spot you can move their sword with ease. Look for these spots, think about guiding the sword tip away from you as opposed to blocking a shot.

Do the things you normally do “in stance”, while walking.
There are many many many resources to help you perfect your stance. But the fact is that when you get “in stance” you are supposed to be stationary. Which is fine if you start the fight right where you want to be, but usually that’s not how it works. You have to walk to the spot where you can employ your stance. And sometimes you have to chase someone down just to get to your starting spot. Other times you might get pressed and not have time to drop in to stance.The goal is for your footwork to end up being fluid enough that you can do anything that you would like to do from your stance, while you are moving. If it makes it easier, you can start by practicing dropping in and out of stance very quickly, then practice parrying, thrusting, and lunging while moving but not in stance. From there you will see more opportunities open up as you rely less and less on needing time to get in to your stance. And remember, every principle that makes your stance awesome, can be employed while you are moving around.

Get that really defensive fighter to attack you.
We all know that one fighter who is so passive and has his defense so locked down that it’s frustrating to fight him because he’s so patient. Fighting him is a great training opportunity if you focus on getting him to attack you. Here’s a secret: every fighter is MOST vulnerable when he is attacking you. So when you have a super defensive fighter at your practice, take the time to fight him, learn patience, watch very closely for the openings that appear when you finally get him to attack. Those same openings will be much bigger when you fight aggressive fighters.

Find a Nemesis.
This works best if it’s someone who is a good friend. And I don’t mean find someone to make your enemy. Find someone who is better than you or does something in particular that makes it hard for you to beat them, or find someone who is learning at the same rate as you. When you find them, throw all your effort in to beating them. In addition to all the benefits that consistent competition brings, you will have a good measuring stick for your progress. Avoid picking someone who can shut down anything you want to do, you want them to be comfortable fighting their best against you. Also, if you progress to the point where you dominate your nemesis then it is time to find a new one. Don’t be a dick.

I have done all of these exstensively so if you want to ask questions or want more details, just ask.