Rock, paper, fencer scissors

The Tactical Wheel is a progression of actions commonly used to teach shooters tactics. While there are major issues with using the wheel on all three weapons, as noted in a previous post of mine, it does get fencers thinking about how to choose the right tactic at the right time to score a hit. But how does an instructor get the beginner or intermediate fencer to understand the relationships in this tool? One approach that I have used with success is a modification of the Rock Paper Scissors game.

The first step is to make sure your fencers know the elements of the wheel. As a standard part of our warm-up, we recite the wheel out loud as a group. I want my fencers to know the flow of the simple attack, defeated by the parry and response, deceived by the compound attack, intercepted by the parry hit, and in turn, defeated by the simple attack.

The second step is to assign a number of fingers to each action: 1 for single attack, 2 for parry-response, 3 for compound attack, and 4 for parry strike. Instead of the clenched fist, flat hand, or forked fingers of rock, paper, or scissors, fencers will throw from one to four fingers.

The third step is to define which action beats what other actions. To some extent, this depends on your evaluation of the wheel and the weapon the fencers are riding. For example, 2 (parry response) beats 1 (single attack) on all three weapons. However, 4 (parry hit) will lose to 1 (single attack) on foil, but can sometimes result in a double hit or success on epee or saber (a coin flip can be used to inject this level of uncertainty).

You are finally ready to fence. This drill can be done as a pair of fencers, a team of three against another team of three, or as two lines opposite each other with the fencers turning from one line to the other as they are defeated. If the intention is to use the exercise as a warm-up activity, the number of repetitions should be limited. One solution in the rotating format is that the winner of a hit stays up and the loser rotates. However, it can also be used in 5-touch (combat), 10 or 15-touch (direct elimination) or team formats. Longer formats allow fencers to begin analyzing the opponent’s patterns (although the 4-way structure probably prevents the application of pure yocaine powder logic) and for teammates to observe and share that information. Use the standard commands “on guard”, “ready” and “close”, with the shooters pulling one to four fingers on “close”. The stress level in decision making can be increased by reducing the interval between commands to fence.

It may seem that the same training can be achieved by practicing fencing, but the isolation of the decision about which action from the fencer’s ability variable to perform it emphasizes the choice of technique. Exercise does not require equipment, so it is well suited to warm-up or cool-down activity. It is faster than combat, but maintains a high degree of competitiveness among shooters. We have found it to be an effective training tool in our efforts to improve the tactical sense of our fencers.