(HOW TO...)
Hi, I'm Erwann Le Péchoux, I'm a fencer,
Olympic silver medallist at Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
I'm going to show you the displacements in fencing.
They are the basics of our sport
in order to attack or defend oneself.
They are absolutely fundamental and essential
and that's why they are called fundamentals.
(BASICS)
So we'll start with the movements and displacements
to the front, so offensive movements.
The simplest is the march.
For the march you will lead with your front foot
and take your back foot to the front.
The point being
to remain as little as possible in the air.
A good march should be little and fast. Why?
Because if my march is slow and the opponent attacks,
I can't react.
So the point is to really do small and fast movements.
Another offensive movement is the forward jump.
It's a simple little jump to the front
in order to gain some distance and go faster towards.
The last movement is an essential one - the lunge.
That's how you're going to touch your opponent.
The lunge is stretching out your arm,
then throwing your leg to the front
and pushing on your back leg.
And at this point I should have touched my opponent.
And then back en garde.
The point here is to associate these three movements,
to go towards your opponent and touch him.
So, for example, I can do a sequence of march and lunge,
a jump and a lunge.
As for the movements to the front,
the ones towards the back.
The retreat is to go backwards.
I throw my back foot to the back,
I push on my front leg.
Here in real speed.
You're supposed to move back when your opponent attacks.
Do not hesitate to go way back with the leg
and push hard on your front leg to gain distance.
Here in real speed.
Another movement backwards
to defend yourself if you're being attacked -
the backward jump.
It consists of pushing on your front leg
and going as far as possible to dodge the opponent's attack.
Same here, we can think of associating both.
For example, a retreat and a backward jump
to really widen the distance and defend yourself.
Again, retreat and backward jump.
(RHYTHM)
The most important thing in fencing
is not necessarily speed but changing rhythm.
So the goal is to start slowly, to finish quickly, to speed up.
I'll show you a little example
of an exercise we do daily at the highest levels
which is essential in touching the opponent.
It's all about changing rhythm.
Start slowly and speed up to surprise your opponent.
That's it for the movements,
it's an essential element of fencing.
So don't forget, do them as much as possible,
train and have fun!
(HOW TO...)