Your fencer is in trouble. The opponent is being successful on both the attack and the defense. Your fencer's game seems to be falling apart. The opponent just scored again. As your fencer walks back to the on guard line you have 8 to 15 seconds before the referee is going to call "on guard" for the next touch. How do you use that time?
The job of the strip coach is a difficult one. Relegated to a coach's box at the end of the piste or sitting behind the barrier, you are in a less than ideal place to see the action and are far enough removed from the fencer to make oral coaching difficult. And you have very little time to get your fencer the help he or she needs.
The important first step is to have taught your athlete a specific mental drill for use during that period. If your fencer has a process that uses this time to plan for the next touch, you have a structure that encourages input. If not, you are further behind the power curve.
The key rule is one piece of advice and one only. The fencer has the absolute minimum time to integrate your advice with his or her observation of the opponent, sense of what is possible at the moment, and understanding of how the referee is interpreting the bout. Our brains work best in dealing with one stimulus at a time, and each of your instructions is a stimulus in this context.
The absolute bottom line is positive, not negative. Communicating displeasure to a fencer when they are already under stress simply raises their stress level and heart rate, reducing further their ability to control the action. The idea that you have to abuse your fencer to increase their motivation simply is counterproductive in almost every athlete almost all of the time. Make your message positive.
The tactical reality is that you must send your message in a way that does not give the opponent a key to your fencer's next action. In a bout an opponent's team mate acting as a strip coach yelled "disengage." The fencer dutifully executed that action on the next attack, right into a perfect circular 6 parry riposte combination. My fencer heard "disengage" and was ready. Even general advice like "watch your distance" can provide an opponent a sense of the plan of action.
There are three options - give instructions in a language the opponent is unlikely to speak. However, if your fencer is not absolutely fluent in that language you risk miscommunication, as well as imposing a translation burden in the limited time. A second better option is number codes; this makes sending in a play a simple number call an opponent is unlikely to decipher. But if you take this route, keep the list very short, and drill on it constantly in practice. Given the distance down the strip your fencer may be, a third option is hand signals - these have a legendary role in baseball, demonstrating that they work under pressure in limited time. Again, keep the list short and practice, practice, practice.
Above all, remember that the fencer on the strip is the one who is fencing. Your perspective as a strip coach is not the same as the athlete's. Your view of the action is different, you lack the fencer's understanding of his or her body at the moment, and you lack subtle cues that your fencer has read in the opponent. As a strip coach you are offering tactical advice, but most of all you are providing steadiness and calm and confidence in your actions and demeanor.
About this Author
Walter Green is a Maitre d'Armes (Fencing Master) certified by the Academie d'Armes Internationale. He teaches modern competitive and classical fencing, historical swordplay, bayonet fencing, and Asian martial arts swords at Salle Green ( http://www.sallegreen.com ), the fencing school he operates in Glen Allen, Virginia. Maitre Green also trains fencing coaches through the Pan American Fencing Academy ( http://panamfencing.com ).
Copyright 2010 by Walter G. Green III. All rights reserved.
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