I participated in my first ever team tournament yesterday, so I would like to explain a little about how the team format is different from individual. As well as some of my experience as a first time competitor.
As the name suggests team fencing is where two teams of four are pitted against one another, you fence to a total score of 45, whichever team reaches this score first wins. You however do not just fence to 45, it is fenced in 5 touch increments, so the first bout of the match is to 5, the bout after that is to 10 and so on. Before the match starts you assign your fencers to slots (more on this later) this basically ensures that all 3 fencers on each team get to fence everyone (the fourth fencer on each team is a substitute, should someone be injured, or fence very poorly they can be subbed in). After this the fencers are called “en garde” and the bouts proceed as normal.
Slots:
(This chart is from Fencing.net all credit goes to them for the creation of this)
| Fencer # (1-2-3-A) | Bout # | Fencer # (4-5-6-A) |
| 3 | 1 (To 5) | 6 |
| 1 | 2 (To 10) | 5 |
| 2 | 3 (To 15) | 4 |
| 1 | 4 (To 20) | 6 |
| 3 | 5 (To 25) | 4 |
| 2 | 6 (To 30) | 5 |
| 1 | 7 (To 35) | 4 |
| 2 | 8 (To 40) | 6 |
| 3 | 9 (To 45) | 5 |
As you can see, all fencers get to fence everyone, and the order of slots can be a big factor in whether you win or lose (this was definitely a factor for my team).
My experience:
I had a great deal of fun at the tournament, this is only my third tournament so my experience level is not that high. I fenced a total of five times throughout the competition, I won one bout, and lost the other four, but I learned a lot and greatly enjoy the team format, having people to cheer with and talk tactics with is great fun.
Several things related to preparation, or things I in hindsight would have done differently: 1.) bring lots of fluid (I brought 3 water bottles and still almost ran out) team matches for us took somewhere between 30 minutes to 45 minutes, and we fenced several different teams, so lots of water was a must 2.) if we went longer a extra t-shirt would of been nice 3.) food, whether it be energy bars, or your favorite snack I definitely recommend food (find out first if the venue allows it though), also know beforehand whether your stomach can handle food or not. 4.) if your compete for the first time in a team match, read up on how they work, it was a huge help to know what your getting into.
Tactics:
In our tournament the skill levels ranged so much (from people who had been fencing for weeks, and tournament veterans), all teams were quite balanced skill wise, but this made tactics quite difficult, one could face a five year old and win, and the next bout face a veteran and lose miserably. Going into the tournament we did not know many of the fencers styles, so we had a lot of “Guinea pig” bouts where we intensely observed what the opponent did in preparation for the next person to fence them. A good series of general questions I got from Coach Litteon Riggins.
- “What were the last 5 actions?”
- “What action was behind each of my points?”
- “what action did they use for each point?”
- “In both cases does one action occur more than others?”
- “what actions have I not tried?”
- “physically where on the strip has each touch occurred? My side, their side, in the box?” -Coach Litteon Riggins
In the end I can boil down what I learned to the following:
1.) Have a better defensive plan besides a take over
2.) Many fast line changes or low line marches were very hard for me to deal with, so having a plan/counter to them would of been helpful
3.) a simple parry 4 riposte was 80-90% of my touches, sometimes simple is best.
I genuinely hope you learned something, and until next time.
-Fuzzy
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