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Holding the grip too tight leads to numerous problems. The arm must be the primary strength control, although these muscles should be used to a minimum until action occurs. Many fencing attacks and parries require very flexible wrist movements in order to properly execute parries, counter-parries, envelopments, disengages and coupes. A tight grip also degrades the accuracy of point placement, since the arm will then move with the wrist and displace the point. Any preliminary arm movement is a signal of things to come ("telegraphing your moves"), and the movements become larger and slower. The famous Italian fencer and master, Santelli, told his fencers to ".... grip the weapon as if you have a small bird in your hand". Note that this is a pistol grip foil, and that the French foil is held and fenced differently, since the grip is comparatively long and must be maneuvered around the wrist as the blade changes position). Then lightly wrap the other fingers around the grip as shown below. The blade should be in line with the arm, both vertically and horizontally. Note that three fingers do most of the holding. A characteristic undesirable bend at the wrist is not unusual for beginning fencers, and it must be corrected at the earliest possible opportunity. There should be a slight bend at the elbow in the en garde position, and the elbow must be kept in toward the body. Keep the blade aligned with your forearm so that the arm lies in a vertical plane. The blade will tend to go toward the direction in which it is pointed, so the blade must be in line with both the target and the forearm, pointed toward the target. There is a tendency to bend the hand to the right and somewhat downward, which will make the point go towards the right and below the target. Aldo Nadi taught very small (with some exceptions), efficient movements and recommended the use of a tight wrist strap in order to be able to use very fine finger control for foil fencing. The wrist strap also helps keep the blade in line. Bela de Tuscan used very flexible wrist movements combined with finger control for sabre fencing, and this method can also be used for foil. The lunge will tend to move toward wherever you point your forward foot, so point it directly toward your opponent. The position of the knee can also cause problems, so keep it vertically over the front foot. Like Sabre, Foil is governed by the rules of Right-of-Way. Because of this, much of foil fencing is consisted of fencers battling for right-of-way. When one fencer makes an attack, the opposing foil fencer will usually attempt to parry the attack and, if this is successful, riposte. To avoid being parried, the attacker may use several tactics, such as disengages or coupés, which are different ways to avoid the opponent's blade. Also, some attacks may begin with an absence of blade, that is to say, the attacker moves forward with his blade out of the range where the defender could parry it. The ending objective of such an attack it to place the blade in the opponent in too short a time for him/her to react. Because of the precise order and timing of movements needed to fence foil, if one fencer fails to execute their movements, it often results in a touch. Foil fencing is significantly slower then Sabre however, because scoring touches with the tip of the blade is more difficult. In this way it is like epeé. Fencers must not only be striving for the touch, but be keenly aware of their own openings. Also, like epeé fencers, foil fencers may "cross-over" with their feet. Therefore, the flèche is a common tactic in both weapons. Lines -- according to the French system of fencing, space above your bell guard is high line; space below is low line. For right-handers, the space to the right of their bell guard is outside line; space to the left of the guard is inside line. Thus we have four quadrants known as lines: high-outside, high-inside, low-outside, and low-inside. As the fencer's bell guard moves around, his target surfaces they may be found in different lines. For example, an octave invito with the bell guard next to the front thigh would leave the flank in that fencer's high-inside line. Should that fencer assume a lifted septime parry his flank would be in his low outside line.
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