This is Fencing! E-Book

Ziemowit Wojciechowski

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

'This is fencing!' is a rally call heard in training centres around the country. Coined by experienced GB fencing coach, Ziemowit Wojciechowski, it embodies the passion, skill and dedication needed to excel at an international level. As one of the world's most renowned foil coaches, achieving Olympic podium success and top world rankings for his fencers, Ziemowit has sustained a long and successful career, which he now unpacks in this comprehensive guide. Using real life examples and case studies, This is Fencing! offers detailed approaches to training, tactics and exercises in the foil, providing key insights into how to create both individual and club training sessions. Key topics include: the core principles of coaching, training and performance; aspects of an individual lesson; detailed examples of footwork exercises; physical and psychological preparation and practical tactical advice during competitions. It captures the true spirit of fencing and will be of great interest to all fencing coaches, whether advanced or beginner. It is superbly illustrated with 87 colour, 35 black & white photographs and 17 line artworks.

Leseprobe

THIS IS

FENCING!

ADVANCED TRAINING AND PERFORMANCE PRINCIPLES FOR FOIL

THIS IS

FENCING!

ADVANCED TRAINING AND PERFORMANCE PRINCIPLES FOR FOIL

Ziemowit Wojciechowski

First published in 2019 by The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

This e-book first published in 2019

www.crowood.com

© Ziemowit Wojciechowski 2019

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 596 1

Dedication

To my father who introduced me to this beautiful sport.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all my fencers for giving me such good feedback and all the coaches from whom I have had the pleasure of taking lessons and discussing aspects of coaching. In particular, I would like to mention Stanislaw Krucinski, Andrzej Przezdziecki, Zbigniew Czajkowski, Zbigniew Skrudlik, Wladyslaw Kurpiewski, Stanislaw Szymanski, Longin Szmidt, Alex Zuyev, Alexander Press, Livio Di Rosa, Alexander Pierekalski and Oleg Matseychuk.

Without the help and support of many, many individuals this book would not have been possible. I would like to thank all those who have contributed their time and effort. Thanks to Jamie Kenbar for his considerable contribution to performance analysis; to the photographic contributors – Augusto Bizzi, Jornnawat (P’Mod) Limprasert, Karen Saunders, and especially Niki Bruckner, Kevin Nixon, Chris Turner, Dawn Uhalley – and to those who have consented to have their images used and indeed to Richard Kruse and James Davis for demonstrating numerous fencing positions; to Malcolm Fare for help with content and English; and to Paula Huckle for her incredible help with all things editorial – it’s been a long road! I would also like to express my deep gratitude to Australian international fencer and expert linguist Christopher Flood Nagle for the massive task of proof reading – his input has been invaluable.

Frontispiece: Ziemowit Wojciechowski. (Photo: Chris Turner)

CONTENTS

Preface

About the Author

Foreword

1

PRINCIPLES OF COACHING

2

PRINCIPLES OF TRAINING

3

PRINCIPLES OF PERFORMANCE

4

SETTING GOALS

5

PHYSICAL PREPARATION

6

TRAINING METHODS AND EXERCISES

7

FOOTWORK TRAINING

8

ASPECTS OF AN INDIVIDUAL LESSON

9

PSYCHOLOGICAL PREPARATION

10

PREPARING FOR BEST PERFORMANCE

11

TACTICS

12

COACHING DURING COMPETITION

13

THIS IS TEAM FENCING!

14

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

15

CONCLUSION

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

PREFACE

There is nothing so practical as a good theory.

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947)

As we all love foil so much, the purpose of this book is to add some theory to the practical aspects of coaching. Over twenty years have passed since I wrote my first book – Theory, Methods and Exercises in Fencing – and the experiences and knowledge I have gathered since then are reflected in this new book.

The incredible results achieved by some of my many talented fencers are proof positive of the benefits of my coaching philosophy. The list is far from exhaustive, with many of my other fencers receiving medals at European, World Cup and Grand Prix events.

Although the book is primarily targeted at coaches, I hope everyone who likes fencing will find something useful in it. Certain things are repeated in various chapters, in part as a result of overlapping theory and to enhance the usage and practicality of this book. In addition, it is good practice to read the same thing again, as repetition is one of the basic methods of learning.

Year

Fencer/Team

Event/Position

1981

Linda Mcmahon (née Martin)

World Championships – top 8

1992

Fiona Mcintosh

Olympic Games – top 8

1997

Ben Montague

Cadet World Championships – Bronze

2001

Lawrence Halstead

Junior European Champion

2002

Richard Kruse

Junior European Champion

2003

Richard Kruse

Senior World Championships – top 8

2004

Richard Kruse

Olympic Games – top 8

2006

Richard Kruse

Senior European Championships – Silver

2008

Lawrence Halstead

Senior European Championships – Silver

2009

Richard Kruse

Copenhagen World Cup Champion

2009

Richard Kruse

Venice Grand Prix Champion

2009

Edward Jefferies

Junior European Champion – Silver

2010

Richard Kruse

Copenhagen World Cup Double Champion

2010

GB Team (Kruse, Halstead, Jefferies, Mepstead)

Senior European Championships – Bronze

2013

James Davis

St Petersburg Grand Prix Champion

2014

James Davis

Senior European Champion

2014

James Davis

Senior World Championships top 8

2015

Alex Lloyd

Commonwealth Junior Champion

2015

Alexander Tofalides & Richard Kruse

European Games Team Champions

2016

Alex Lloyd

World U20 Team Championships – Bronze

2016

Richard Kruse

Olympic Games – 4th

2017

Alexander Choupenitch

European U–23 Champion

2017

Richard Kruse

Cairo World Cup – Champion

2017

Richard Kruse

Shanghai Grand Prix – Champion

2017

Richard Kruse

Senior World Championships – top 8

2018

Richard Kruse

Shanghai Grand Prix – Double Champion

2018

Richard Kruse

World Championships – Silver

2018

Alexander Choupenitch

Senior European Championships – Bronze

2018

Richard Kruse

Lion of Bonn – Gold

2019

Richard Kruse

Tokyo World Cup Champion

Achievements table.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ziemowit (known as Ziemek) Wojciechowski, born in Gdansk, Poland in 1948, is both a fencer and a coach. Encouraged by his father and inspired by the sword fighting in a TV series about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Ziemek took up fencing when he was twelve years old. He went on to study in Warsaw where he was preparing to follow a career in plant biology. It was in Warsaw that Ziemek met the greatest influence on his fencing career: Zbigniew Skrudlik, Poland’s national fencing coach, a truly dedicated man with a genuine interest in his fencers.

By his early twenties Ziemek had to make a decision: to follow a career in research or dedicate himself to his passion – fencing. There was no choice! By the age of thirty, Ziemek had been the Polish Foil Champion eleven times, had won numerous tournaments and had competed in the individual and team foil events at the 1976 Summer Olympics.

In 1978 Ziemek was smuggled out of Poland and came to Britain, where his coaching career began. Just like Zbigniew, Ziemek’s quiet dedication to his sport and interest in his fencers saw him become the national coach for GB men’s and ladies’ foil squad for 1979–93 and 2006–13. He has also coached the GB team in most junior and senior World Championships since 1979. However, his career highlight, without doubt, was being chosen to coach the GB Olympic team (Kruse, Davis, Halstead and Mepstead) for the 2012 games. In fact, Ziemek has individually coached members of the GB Olympic team for the 2012/2016 games for a cumulative seventy years! Testament to Ziemek’s coaching skill and style, these long and successful relationships deliver results – Kruse taking fourth place in the 2016 Olympics and most recently taking gold at the 2019 Tokyo World Cup, achieving World No. 1 status – a first for a UK fencer.

Today, Ziemek is one of the world’s most renowned and sought-after foil coaches with a long and illustrious record of success, currently and perhaps most notably as coach to some of the world’s top fencers – Richard Kruse (world number 2), James Davis and Alexander Choupenitch. Ziemek continues to develop up-and-coming talent with his club, ZFW Fencing Club, and regularly travels the world giving coaching masterclasses.

FOREWORD

I hope to die on the piste!

Ziemek Wojciechowski

Ziemek Wojciechowski’s life has always been driven by his passion for fencing. Those who have witnessed him on the domestic or international circuits will all attest to his vociferous enthusiasm for the sport. It could be Richard Kruse in the final of the Shanghai Grand Prix, or Dominic ‘Dragon’ De Almeida in the final of the Czech Republic’s U20 circuit tournament; Ziemek’s animated cries of ‘This is fencing!’ resound through the hall. Such a man could only spend his hours away from fencing writing about it. The result is in your hands: an exhaustive encyclopedia of a lifetime’s wisdom.

Ziemek delights in sharing his insights with not just his students, but also the wider fencing community. Counter-intuitively, he is often seen exchanging ideas with his rivals, whom he considers friends. Here, the reader will find countless insights: why should we line up our whole body with our opponent and not just our point? Why should you count the number of off-target lights you score? These insights are shared in the generous spirit of wanting to contribute to the wider progress of our sport.

This is Fencing! takes the form of a manual. You can use it to look up specific information, exercises, or ideas without having to read all of them. This isn’t an accident: it is how Ziemek arranges all these ideas for himself. Ziemek’s original intuitions have been distilled by decades of experience, and organised by an instinctive drive to categorize everything. The consequence is a meticulously curated mental catalogue of principles. Ziemek solves problems by combing this catalogue of principles and finding the best one to apply. This approach is distinct from a purely creative ad hoc system, where a new solution is invented for every new problem. Ziemek’s creativity is focused on framing new problems as archetypes so that he can solve them with his tried-and-tested principles. Such a system is more easily shared with others, and importantly, it naturally suits this book/manual format. It has given us a remarkably faithful representation of his thinking in structure as well as content.

Ziemek’s passion for taxonomy has also produced a rich lexicon of fencing terms and epithets. Everyone who has been involved with him remembers his humorous but earnest names for different moves and tactics. Some favourites include Romanian, Two Waves, Spike of the Cactus, and Spaghetti Arm. While all this might seem innocent and comical, it is in fact based on the powerful idea that a common vocabulary creates a common identity.

All the amusing and idiosyncratic terms used throughout This is Fencing! are explained in the Glossary. You should enjoy them and know they come from a living, very popular, and now rather mature fencing language spoken in North London.

The author’s long record of success at the top gives him and his book a justified confidence in their ideas. And it is this confidence that allows him to stake out clear and bold positions for those ideas. The concrete nature of the views in this book serves not only to facilitate understanding, but also to further debate. Even if you disagree that fencers can be divided into technicians and fighters, the natural question of ‘why not?’, will challenge and develop your opinions in a constructive way.

This is Fencing! is the fruit of a life-long empirical study. Ziemek’s approach has been honest, conscientious, and rigorously inquisitive. The results are plain to see, and here to read!

Christopher Flood Nagle,Australian International Fencer

1

PRINCIPLES OF COACHING

Throughout my career, I have found it helpful to support my coaching with certain core principles. This chapter details these principles, which I use as a starting point when developing my students’ fundamental fencing skills.

Photo by Niki Bruckner.

FEELING AND CONTROLLING DISTANCE

Footwork controls everything: distance, timing and scoring. There can never be enough footwork. When I came to Britain to coach in 1978 my first major focus was to improve footwork; when that happened, results improved significantly. The good thing about working on footwork is the fencer can do it by themselves and, as legs respond to training, the fencer is rewarded by seeing and feeling the results. Improving footwork includes the ability to move at various speeds while maintaining the correct position, so the fencer is ready to attack at any moment with a strong lunge or flèche, can change direction with minimum loss of time or keep a particular distance (see Chapter 7).

In fencing, distance is the most fundamental factor affecting winning hits. In training (especially in lessons) and competitions, coaches should help fencers develop a feeling for distance.

Perfecting a feeling for distance is a continuous process and requires superb footwork and eye–leg coordination supported by accurate anticipation. The timing of actions is inseparable from feeling and judging the correct distance.

Responsive legs are crucial in controlling the distance, reacting in time, and moving at various speeds – whether or not the fencer is consciously aware of this. If a fencer delays responding to the beginning of an opponent’s attack, the opponent’s chances of scoring will increase. Equally, when a fencer starts an answering attack too late, their chances of reaching the target diminishes. On the other hand, if the answering attack starts too fast, there is more chance of the counter-attack succeeding. Therefore, the first step forward of the fencer who starts an answering attack cannot be faster or longer than the first step back of their adversary. It is important to control the distance from the fencer whose attack finishes short – if it is too close, the original attacker has a good chance of succeeding with a counter-attack against an answering attack.

Having responsive legs is critical as they help improve control over the timing of actions, thus decreasing the number of out-of-time responses.

The importance of distance is huge and sometimes allows fencers to score hits just with good footwork. Using distance against an opponent’s offensive action can be called defence with distance or shah-put. It is particularly apparent in sabre and is increasingly used in foil.

In a fight, the distance changes constantly. Fencers are advised to fight for ‘their’ distance which varies according to their own physique. The task of a tall fencer is to keep the distance long, while a shorter fencer will try to close the distance.

There are five types of distance: close-quarters, riposting, lunging, step-lunging, and long. The ‘distance’ in fencing can refer to the distance between targets and also from the point of the weapon to the target. Tochka is a Russian term referring to the change of distance that happens when, or just before, a fencer tries to hit. The opponent will often change this distance very late, therefore the fencer must be ready to cope with this change and adjust their hitting action.

When a fencer is about to hit, their opponent can stand still, move back or move forward. In these cases, the fencer can hit by medium tochka (lunge), long tochka (step-lunge), or short tochka (hitting with just the arm). The specific hitting action is particular to each fencer; tochka refers specifically to the challenge of anticipating and adjusting to late changes in distance just before hitting the opponent.