Get Back to Fencing Basics with This Level 2 Option Drill

As in-person fencing practices start to ramp up again, I wanted to go through some of the drills I use in my rapier classes and private sessions. 

In this video, we go over a super basic, two-choice Option Drill — aka Choice Drill or Decision Tree Drill. It’s one of the simplest of Option Drills you can do, but it still forces the student to make quick tactical decisions.

So it’s great for everyone, from the new fencer looking to learn how and when to use certain techniques to experienced fencers looking to work the rust off.

Rapier Solo Drill: Fencing Pendulum Voids

One of the more fun aspects of rapier fencing (to me) are the use of voids. There is something really graceful and magical about lurring your opponent to attack where you are only to be somewhere else completely as the blow should land.

Parry-ripostes are bread & butter; body voids are divine.

In this blog post & video, we look at a fun way that we can work on our girattas or body-voids as well as our low-line voids — all without a partner. 

One way we can do that is simply filming ourselves performing voids and then analyzing it to find spots where we can improve on our mechanics, similar to the feint drill in my last video. And that’s a great way for getting external feedback and refining our mechanics — such as making sure we’re moving in good order, etc. But it lacks the dynamic nature of performing a void and a key feature of voids — avoiding around an attack. 

So we’re going to focus on more active voiding drills we can do solo at home. And you don’t even need a sword for the first two drills either. 

All we need is a little space and a fencing pendulum.

How to Improve Your Rapier Feints Without a Partner

Mastering the feint is challenging aspect of rapier fencing in the best of times because the overall success of a feint relies on one fencer’s ability to sell the feint as a real attack and the other fencer’s ability to read it as real or not.

In short: it’s Deception vs. Insight.

And with COVID-19 severely limiting in-person practices, improving your feints and deceptive game is extra challenging. What we can do, however, is focus on the mechanics of our feints. The closer our feints look to our real attacks, the higher chance those feints have to succeeding.

Here are some tips for analyzing and improving your feints without a partner.

And to be honest, video analysis work like this is a great tool for improving your rapier-game even when in-person fencing practices are doable.

Simple Rapier Drill to Do with Minimal Space & No Sword

Looking to improve your rapier game but don’t have a sword or live in a tiny city apartment without any room? Have no fear. You can work on your forms, attack and sequences with this simple drill.

All you need to do is bounce a tennis ball in front of you and then catch it in the air while using various attacks and footwork. This can be done easily at the gym or in a small space in an apartment.

Making Rapier Drills Better, Episode 1: The Wall Stabbing Drill

A popular fencing drill among the rapier community, especially in SCA Rapier circles, is the Wall Stabbing Drill. This is where a fencing student spends several minutes extending their arm and thrusting at a target against a wall — typically relatively mindlessly and without useful instruction.

Sadly, they’re not learning anything incredibly useful.

However, we can transform this exercise into a drill that helps us and our rapier students learn an important aspect of Italian rapier — measure. By adding measure (see: distance) into this drill, we learn to use the right attack for the right measure as well as how to attack in good sequence.