Introduction

The new épée student begins their instruction by using the weapon to make basic blade actions, coupled with simple footwork. These actions are often taught in isolation, but it is useful if you—as the coach—place these actions in the context of their relationships with each other. These relationships make up a framework of actions for the student, with the goal of scoring against the opponent.

The difficulty in building this framework is that fencing has an enormous number of possible combinations of simple actions of foot work and blade work. As a coach, it is difficult to know which actions should be emphasized over others (if, in fact, any should be), which combinations have utility, and which do not. Many coaches simply abandon the idea of teaching a framework and teach technical actions in isolation, trusting that the student will build relationships between these actions on their own, once they start fencing competitively.

There is one existing tactical framework many coaches use by default: the tactical wheel. Unfortunately, the tactical wheel has several faults. The tactical wheel lacks any context of the use of distance in any of the actions. A novice fencer might assume that all of the actions are done at the same distance, or that distance is not important in the use of tactics. In addition, the tactical wheel is based on a hierarchy of priority, which is not a consideration in épée. The wheel does not accurately simulate the choices available to the fencer in a real bout situation.

A framework for the beginning to intermediate fencer in épée should reflect the real values of modern fencing, especially the role that distance plays in tactics. The framework should provide the student a flexibility of actions with in the context of distance: for any given distance, there are always multiple solutions to enable the student to score. A good framework should also link "like" fencing concepts together, or at least show their relationships so that the student begins from the beginning to understand how épée "works".

Many years ago, Coach Gary Copeland outlined a system that I feel fulfills these requirements. This document outlines his framework, and gives some examples of how it can be used in lesson.

First, I will touch on some of the elements of scoring in épée. There are three elements in making a successful action inépée that results in a touch on the opponent:

1. The choice of distance.
2. The choice of time, or moment to act.
3. The choice of action.

Every scoring situation sees these three elements come together to support a hit against the opponent. Each of these three elements is—to a greater or lessor extent—inter-dependant on the other. Another analogy of the relationship between these three elements is to think of distance, timing and choice of actions as tumblers in a lock. The three elements must be aligned in order to open the lock (score a hit). If any one of the three elements is not working in harmony with the other two elements, it is unlikely a hit will be scored.

Showing the relationships between these elements will help the student conceptualize the environment they fence in. Good concepts will allow a student with few technical skills to have early success in bouting. A grasp of the competitive environment early in their career will also allow the student to extract more information from their bouts and practices. Actions they hit with (and are hit by) can be placed into a context that can be understood, rather than being isolated fencing "things" that seem to come from no where, or happen by accident.

Gary Copeland understood that an épée bout is primarily distance driven, coupled with some simple, core blade actions. He understood that if the student knows the distance context, and understood what action was appropriate for the distance, the "tripod" of scoring requirements would assemble itself. By classifying the épée distance into four common situations, Copeland gives the student a series of "templates" of various distances to build effective scoring strategies.

Copeland outlined these four situations in a handout given to me in the early 1990's. I have expanded and illustrated his situations in this document according to my own understanding of them. Any errors in interpretation of Gary Copeland's work are entirely my own.

Épée Distance

I begin by defining "épée distance" . In these four situations, there are only two distances: the "near" distance to the opponent's hand and forearm, and the "far" distance to the opponent's torso, thigh, flank and foot ¹.

On a more practical level, distance in fencing is similar to the simple word problems we solved in grade school. The student's point is "here". The opponent's target is "there" (so many inches or feet away from the student's point). The student's point can cover the distance to the near or far target in a certain amount of time. If that time is less than the opponent's reaction time (about 1/5 of a second) the opponent is unlikely to be able to interfere with the student hitting the target. If the distance is much further, the target can be defended (or moved) and the student will have to make additional actions to score. The choice of actions the student makes and the student's technique will (to a lessor extent) impact the time to the target. The student's skills and innate speed impact how far the student's attack can travel in a single motion.

The opponent's near target of the hand and forearm is often within the range of simple footwork, such as an advance or short lunge ². However, the hand is highly maneuverable, partially protected by the bell of the opponent's weapon, and so attacks to the hand fail more often than not. The far targets of the torso, thigh, and flank are easier to hit, but requires that the attack either be launched after achieving a close distance to the opponent or that the longer distance to the torso be taken in a series of "steps". Both of these strategies expose the student to defensive or counter-offensive actions by the opponent while he or she is closing the distance to the deeper target. While defensive and counter-offensive actions by the opponent can be anticipated, and even provoked as part of a strategy, attacking the far target involves more risk than attacking the opponent's near target.

At the start of a phrase, both the student and the opponent (or coach—in the case of a lesson) are just outside of the distance to the near target. A scoring situation will not occur until the distance between the student's point and the opponent's target closes. Distance can either be closed deliberately, or inadvertently as the fencers maneuver with footwork. The fencer that causes the distance to close (or recognizes that it has inadvertently closed before the other fencer) will be more likely to make the correct choice in the moment to go, and score a hit. To make matters slightly more complicated, the distance can be closed by the student moving forward more than the opponent retreats, or retreating less than the opponent moves forward.

To close the distance the student has a choice of moving forward, backward, or not moving at all. An opponent can respond to a piece of footwork from the student in three ways:

1. The opponent may move forward.
2. The the opponent may move backward.
3. The opponent may ignore movement from the student and stand still.

Any of these choices will result in a net distance gain or loss, depending on the direction of the opponent's movement and the student's response. If we simply list the possible footwork combinations on the part of the student and the opponent, we have nine possible permutations of the distance opening or closing. We can ignore those situations in which the distance opens (the student steps backward, and in response, the opponent also steps backward, for instance) and throw out the one combination in which the student is standing still; we do not want our students passively allowing the opponent to close the space. This leaves four possible distance situations left in the matrix.

1. The student moves forward, and the opponent stands still.
2. The student moves forward and the opponent moves backward
3. The student moves forward and the opponent also moves forward
4. The student moves backward and the opponent moves forward.

Defining the moment to go in the context of these situations is slightly more difficult. The idea of the moment to make an attack sums up many conditions in addition to distance. Zbigniew Czajkowski, in his work Understanding Fencing: the Unity of Theory and Practice distils much of the idea of the moment to go in the concept of surprise: the student performs an action for which the opponent is unprepared. Of course, surprise is useless if the student is too far away from the opponent to take advantage of any of the effects of surprise. The moment of the collapse of distance between two fencers often corresponds with the proper moment to go. In fact, often the collapse of the space by one fencer is the surprise.

The choice of action may be either foot or blade action. In the case of a foot action, the preferences of the student and the distance to be covered (in one motion, in multiple motions, etc) decides what foot action will be done to score. In many cases, the foot action will be immaterial: a short fleche, lunge, or long quick advance may all serve the same purpose. I will address this later when I discuss the specifics of giving a lesson using these concepts.

Blade Actions

The blade action the student will use to score is strongly related to the choice of target, and the distance to that target. While there are many attacking blade actions possible in épée, the distance the action is done over separates them into two distinct groups For the near target the opponent's hand and forearm of the actions of:

1. Simple direct attack
2. Simple indirect attack
3. Flick
4. Beat attack (both simple and indirect)
5. Press attack (both simple and indirect)
6. Invitation ³

...are the most logical choices. These blade actions can be made in a number of lines, depending on the relationship of the two blades (the student's and the opponent's) and the relevant tactical movement of the weapons, which I will illustrate later.

To the deeper target of the opponent's body, the attacking fencer can use the above actions. In addition, the student may also use:

1. Parry (either a beat parry or blocking parry) with its associated riposte.
2. Simple opposition attacks.
3. Blade transports ending simple opposition (bind, croisó, etc.)

Again, these actions can be done in any of the four lines.

The "compound attack" has not be explicitly mentioned this list, though one would expect it to be used in attacking the deeper target of the body. For simplification, consider the compound attack as two simple attacks joined with a disengage: the student attacks the near target, the opponent parries, and the student continues the attack to a deeper target. There may or may not be blade contact during the parry. I will discuss the compound attack in more detail below.

Distance Templates

What Gary Copeland recognized was épée fencers tend to make three fundamental mistakes which were outside of errors in technique. These errors are:

1. Beginning and intermediate épée fencers often attack targets that are too far away (the student cannot reach the target before the opponent can react).
2. The students could not anticipate the possible distance changes that their opponent might produce in a given situation, and thus were always "behind" in the distance.
3. Students often did not make the appropriate blade action to the appropriate target. This is directly related to the previous error.

Coach Copeland recognized that by using four distance "templates" a variety of lessons could be given that integrated all three requirements necessary to score a point. By focusing on four common distance situations, the student could start to see how distance in épée "worked". When distance did not "work" for them, there would also be a basis of comparison for the student. Did the opponent go back when the student expected the opponent to stay still? Where there clues to that behavior that the student can look for next time? More importantly for both you and the student, the lesson can focus not just on recognizing these situations, but in creating them in a bout.

Each distance situation has a unique "moment to go" that the student learns, and can start ton anticipate. Advanced fencers are often more physically trained and have efficient neuro-muscular pathways that make their fencing seem very fast, but more importantly, advanced fencers are better an anticipating the situations and the distance that their opponent's will present, allowing them to be ahead in the "decision loop" compared to their opponent.

Finally, when the lessons are given correctly, there can be several right blade and foot techniques for any given situation, but also several wrong blade and foot actions. The student is free to find their own answers to the question of blade and foot technique, while learning at the same time what answers are incorrect for a given situation.

With all of this background, here are the four situations. When these were originally presented to me, they were not numbered by Coach Copeland, but I have taken the liberty to do so in the interest of being able to reference them in the text.

Situation One: The student closes the distance to the coach's near target, the coach does not change the distance, and the student closes the distance again to the coach's deeper target.

The blade action to the near target is one of the actions from the list above. At the end of this first attack, you have not moved and the student makes the second distance to your deep target. The blade action to the deep target is dependant on the your response to the student's attack to your near target. Some possibilities:

1. You parry the students attack to the near target. The student should deceive the parry or "roll off"of it, and the student closes the distance to the deep target.
2. The student makes an action to your near target and your response is to extend to the student. Simple opposition thrusts, a transport followed by an opposition thrust or an attack on your blade, followed by a direct or indirect thrust can all be done for the second half of the attack. Your blade must be controlled "on the way" to the deep target by the student.
3. You react to the attack to the near target by pulling your hand back. The student is free to continue to the deep target with a simple attack. You can make this lesson more difficult by presenting the student with an absence of blade, the student may often make an initial attack to where the near target should be if you were carrying a normal on guard. This first action is done to draw a reaction ( or lack of reaction) – and then the student proceeds to your deeper target, after taking into account any response you give to the first attack (feint).

The student may also make a strong preparation as an invitation in the distance to the near target to draw a counter-attack/attack in preparation from you. The student then takes your blade for an attack to your deep target.

Often beginning fencers will make the initial action to your near target and miss. Having missed the hand, they then attempt to re-acquire the hand with a remise, attempting to make an additional thrusts with strong angulation to your near target. This strategy ignores the reality that your hand is often now "out of play" after the first attack because the student is too close. In fact, it's common to see the student withdraw their arm to continue to attack your near target. This leaves the student at a very dangerous distance. A simple extension by you will result in a touch to the student's deep target while the student is still trying ti "re-acquire" your near target

The student should also be taught that the upper torso is not the only possible target. The thigh and flank are also valid, and you should demand that the student hit them, either with actions on the blade, or in response to avoiding your parry. For the left handed student, actions to your flank can be valuable. Many traditional épée coaches may ignore this target, but at the intermediate level, many touches are scored there.

Situation One is the common first lesson for many épée fencers: hit the hand, and lunge to the body. The lesson becomes more challenging if you demand that the student initiate the first attack with footwork to the near target and observe your reaction, changing their second action depending on your response.

Situation Two: The student closes the distance to attack the coach's near target, the coach retreats (opens distance), and the fencer attacks the coach's near target again.

The key difference in teaching Situation Two and the previous Situation One is when you begin to move in response to the student's first attack. In Situation Two, you must begin your retreat early, often even before the first attack to your near target has landed. The student must see that you are leaving and an attack to your deep target will be dangerous. The student will be "behind" your retreat and your deep target has now become very far indeed.

If you make a mistake in retreating and retreat very late – significantly after the student has finished their first piece of footwork to the your near target – the student is still in Situation One, and should attack your deep target. This is your error, and the student should capitalize on it.

An exception might be if – in retreating in time from the first attack – you simulate significant loss of balance or control (perhaps by leaning backwards and moving the point of your weapon away from the student). In this case, the student may take the risk of attacking over a long distance before you can muster a defense or counter-offense. In all likelihood, however, the loss of balance by an opponent would be coupled with a late or short retreat, as well, and put the student safely in Situation One.

You should test the student in Situating Two by making a defensive blade action (a parry) while stepping back in time to create the extra distance. An inattentive student will deceive the parry and attempt to lunge to your deep target, allowing you to either counter-attack or make an additional parry and riposte. A similar test can be done by stepping back and extending, to see if the student attempts to "find" the blade and again finish to your deep target. By concentrating only on your blade action, they will make a serious error in the distance, and should be scored against.

Situation Three: As the coach attempts to close distance, the student attacks the coach's near target. After the initial attack to the near target, the student initiates opening of the distance. The coach closes the distance again, and the student attacks the near target again.

This is the classic counter-attack, remise action that épée fencers do often. It is important to understand the sequence of events in this situation. The student must initiate the opening of the space after their first hit, drawing the you after them. If the student attacks the near target and waits for you to close space, the loss of initiative will result in the student being too close to re-engage the near target. In military parlance, the student is using the counter-attack as a "stand off" weapon against you. If you are allowed to close the space, this "stand-off" weapon will be less effective for the student.

Students are often taught to "keep the distance" with an opponent. Situation Three is a good example of where this axiom gets a student into trouble. If the student insists of waiting for you to initiate the closing of the distance, you should forcefully close and attempt to score against the student's near target. They will likely miss their own attempt to hit your near target. Opening the distance early keeps the student's point between them and you, forcing you to pass by the student's point again, or attempt to deal with the student's counter-attack. This is critical for Situation Three to be successful.

As in Situation One, a variety of blade actions can be used for both attacks. The first action might be a beat attack to the hand, the retreat, and then a remise as the opponent attempts to close. Or the student may make a simple counter-attack and derobe an attempt by the opponent to "pick up" the student's blade and make a remise in another line.

Situation Four: The student closes the distance to the coach's near target and the coach closes the distance to their own deep target.

What does this situation look like in a bout? An example is one in which the student makes a strong pick to the opponent's hand, who responds with a counter-attack to the students deep target with a fleche. The student parries the fleche, and ripostes to the opponent's torso.

In Situation Four, the student may initiate the first action, but you must act early against the student to close the distance just as the attack ends. The student cannot be allowed to attack and then "escape". The student may have made an initial attack and begun to retreat, but you must "step on" the student's retreat and close the distance. Situation Four emphasizes that the student must be in balance at the end of the first attack (this is obviously true in all the distance situations, but it is especially important here). The student must not have extended their initial attack too deep. Novice fencers are often punished in this situation by having made their initial attack to the opponent too deep AND with a loss of balance, with the resulting loss of time to react when the coach (or the opponent) closes distance.

Situation Four can take many forms of blade work. In the first example the student has made a simple attack on the first action to the opponent's near target, and a parry riposte to the opponents deep target on the second action . Here is another example: the student attacks the near target, and leaves the blade out for the opponent to find. The opponent attempts to "grab" the blade while moving forward too quickly – a classic foot before hand error – and the student derobes the attempt to find the blade and scores to the opponent's deep target with a remise. Situation Four may also occur when the student attacks the near target as a preparation and then ducks or esquives the counter-attack from opponent.

The Case of the Feint and Disengage.

The feint and disengage may be thought of as a "special case" of distance Situations One, Two, and Four

It is important to point out that foot actions and hand actions do not necessarily have a one-to-one ratio. A single piece of foot work (such as a lunge) may have one, two, or more blade actions associated with it. As mentioned previously, a simple approach to the feint-disengage is to consider the tactic as two actions: a first forward motion, a disengage, and a subsequent motion. In the case of a feint and disengage done in the lunge, the footwork is all one action.

The student comes to a distance and begins a lunge to your near target. You stand your ground, but attempt to parry. The student disengages and accelerates the lunge to score to your deep target. This is the use of Situation One with two blade work motions and one footwork motion.

The student starts the same attack, and you make a parry while stepping back (increasing the distance) the student disengages around the parry, and accelerates the lunge, but changes the target focus to your hand or forearm. This is a feint and disengage with Situation Two. This could also be done with an attack to your near target, a small parry as you open the distance, and the student scores with a disengage and thrust with additional footwork (advance or lunge).

Again the student attacks the near target and you attempt to close the line while stepping forward. The fencer disengages away from the parry and scores against the your deep target, either shortening the lunge or collapsing the hand on the hit.. This is Situation Four.

In each case the fencer begins the same attack, but changes target based on the change in distance by you. These actions span the gambit from a foreseen beginning and foreseen end (often the case with Situation One) or they can be foreseen actions with an unforeseen end (in the case of distance Situation Two) , or even a change of decision action (in the case of Situation Four).

These actions represent many of the common distance situations in épée. It's easy to see how these four templates can have a variety of actions built on to them. The student is not constrained by footwork or blade work, provided that both make sense in the context of the action. For instance, in Situation Two, the student makes the first attack, and you simply step back. The student makes a beat attack with lunge to the inside of the arm. Just as easily, the student could have made a press, disengage flick to the outside of your arm, a change beat, disengage back to the inside of the arm with a longish advance, or a "pick" to the bottom of the hand with a lunge. None of these actions would necessarily be wrong, and the student's choice of actions would reflect part of the rational of the lesson (to work on strengths, work on weak actions, learning a new action, etc).

Advanced work: Combining the Situations

To increase the difficulty of the lesson, you can combine these actions in logical ways and force the student to see the differences between the Situations presented, and then take the appropriate action. You must give clear signals (by either moving late or moving early) so that the student may differentiate between the various situations. My own advice is to do this situations in a sequential way (one after another, in order), and end the lesson with the situations presented in a random order..

The combinations are:

Combining Situations One and Two. The student makes an attack to the near target. If the coach stands still – while making a defensive or counter-offensive blade action – the student closes the second distance to the coach's deep target. If the coach retreats, the student makes their second attack to the near target again.

The student knows that they are going to make an initial attack to the near target, but cannot plan on your reaction. They must come to the first distance poised and ready to finish to the appropriate target. This can even become a change of decision action if the student has closed the distance to the point where they are making an compound attack to your deep target, and must change their target in mid-lunge to the hand or forearm as you leave the space early.

Understand that your timing will influence the student's choice. If you step back very late (after the student has started their attack to your deep target) the student should score to your deep target, no matter what your intention was. If you step back just as (or even before) the student finishes the initial attack to the near target, the student should not over penetrate the space on the second attack, and only re-engage the near target again.

Combining Situation Three and Four. The student makes the initial attack to the coach's near target. If the coach is late in following as the Student leaves the space, the Student should re-attack the near target (Situation Three). If the coach "steps on" the Student's retreat – closing the space faster than the Student is leaving – the Student must execute Situation Four and score against the coach's deep target.

Again, the Student discriminates between the two situations by the timeliness of your closing the space against the student. It is important to make sure that you chose the right "moment to go" against the student, so that they will have a choice to make.

Depending on the blade work you dictate for the second action, a very alert student may elect to vary the situations on their own initiative, by either pulling he distance early (and forcing you to follow) or not pulling enough distance and allowing the space to collapse so that they have put themselves into Situation Four deliberately. This would be the mark of a very sophisticated student.

Conclusion

Many types of footwork can be "slotted" into each situation as appropriate, and so footwork for each situation is undefined. Once the situations are understood by the student, you should ask the student to vary the footwork as much as possible. A short lunge can be used in place of and advance as the first attack, for instance. In the final action, a fleche can substitute for a lunge. The student can initiate the first action in a situation with a forward or backward check step, depending on the next action in the sequence. Changing the footwork in a given situation gives the student more flexibility and more variety in their attacking patterns, as well as playing to the student's particular footwork strengths, or exercising weaker footwork actions in the lesson.

In all four of these situations, the movement patterns are very precise. Real fencing is not like this. Motion on the strip is continuous, and fencers do not "take turns" in moving. However, a step that is very small or very late will not necessarily impact the theme of the action. For example, in Situation One, you may begin to retreat after the student attacks the deep target, but if that retreat begins significantly after the start of the student's final attacking footwork, the student will still score, assuming the subsequent attacking footwork to the deep target is done immediately and is technically correct. In Situation Four, it may be that the student opens the distance on the second action, but not in time to be ahead of your own attack; they may only enough to make the riposte or other action to your body easier. Making small steps, or out of time steps do not impact the applicability of the four situations, in my opinion.

Using these four situations has been very valuable for me as a coach. Not only are these four situations common in épée, they allow me to focus on giving the lesson and watching the student, instead of deciding what happens next. These situations reinforce good balance and footwork skills. Finally, they show the student the necessity of never extending an initial attack or preparation-as-an-attack out too far against an alert and wary opponent.

For you, the coach, these four situations (and their combinations) are a valuable base to build beginning to intermediate level épée lessons. Adding preparations to the "front" of the lesson and additional actions to the "back" of these four situations can expand them even further, into very complex lessons suitable for advanced competitive students.

I am indebted to Coach Gary Copeland for his initial thoughts on this subject that lead to this manuscript.

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 ¹ I consider the opponent's foot a "far" target. The foot is often physically close to the student, and can be hit in one action, but the path the student's point must travel to reach the foot (as well as the amount of exposure that often is required to score against it) gives it many of the characteristics of a "deep target".

 ²The fencer who fences with a strong absence of blade has effectively taken away the near target, but added another complexity which will be discussed later.

 ³In modern epee, the invitation is not the passive taking of a particular guard or invito of classical epee, but more active preparation that encourages the opponent to attack a line they think is vulnerable, or even chases the opponent's blade into a position that makes it vulnerable to an attack by the student.

Written January, 2011. Reformatting and style changes on August 2011.

Copyright by Allen L. Evans. This article may be reproduced freely, as long as it remains unmodified and his copyright notice is included.

In the 1990's Coach Gary Copeland concluded that the complexity of epee distance situations could really be broken down into four, easily identified patterns of movement. These patterns of moement can provide a frame work for teaching the epee fencer to not only recognize scoring opportunities, but also provides the coach a simple framework for mixing and matching core blade actions.