I wasn’t really planning to write this post at all, but a discussion on Fencing.net surrounding this blog has got me thinking that it is a good idea.

I have been taught a number of different ways to think about distance and heard others throughout the years.  I’m just going to describe them here.

Keeping distance

This is the most simplistic understanding of distance and is the way most beginners are taught.  It is certainly the way I was taught.  The idea is that there is some “correct” distance from which all fencing actions should start.  This is usually taught as advance-lunge distance.  Within this conceptualization of distance, the goal of a fencer is to stay at advance lunge distance until someone attacks.  If one fencer moves forward, the other should move back to maintain distance.

From all the coaches that teach this, I have never heard one of them discuss what to do when your opponent’s lunge distance is longer than your advance lunge distance.  These are generally the same coaches who tell their students they were too close when the opponent hits them.  The problem with this is that the fencer with the shorter advance lunge will always be within range of the fencer with the longer range.  If they are “keeping distance” when the opponent attacks, they are reacting to the attack by trying to keep out of range.  If a fencer is reacting to distance, they are a tempo behind by the time the distance changes and are not in control of that distance to start with.  Therefore, I believe that teaching this concept of distance does the student a disservice.

Assessing distance

Michael Marx’s students all know that the first thing you do at any point in a bout is assess distance.  What this means is that wherever you are as either fencer moves, you need to know if you can get to the opponent with a one tempo action before they can get away.  Michael teaches a lot of footwork actions such as check steps and varying the size of steps to adjust distance and hide getting into and out of distance.  This is a great idea, but it never resonated well with me because I struggle with being constantly in a position to take advantage of the distance once I make my assessment.  This conceptualization works well for a lot of people, but since I struggle with it, I don’t use it much when coaching.

Red zone, dead zone, out

I picked up this concept from Travis Exum, who in turn learned it during his time training in France.  The basic idea is that distance is divided into three zones.  The red zone is where both fencers are within range of a one tempo attack.  Out is where neither fencer is in range of a one tempo attack.  The dead zone is where the fencer with the longer range is within range of a one tempo action, but the fencer with the shorter range is not.

I find this concept to be very useful and is easy for even beginning students to understand.  The goal of the fencer with the longer range is to get the fencer with the shorter range stuck in the dead zone.  The goal of the fencer with the shorter range is to create scenarios where they can get to the red zone while minimizing opportunities for the opponent to hit in the dead zone.

The drawback to relying entirely on this conceptualization of distance pedagogically is that it does not inherently include strategies for how to either trap the opponent in the dead zone or get through the dead zone.  I still love it as a starting point for distance discussions, but it needs to be supplemented with discussions on tactics surrounding it.

Tactically dependent distance

I have never really heard a name put to a variety of the more complex conceptualizations of distance I have been exposed to, so I’m calling the whole group tactically dependent distance.  This conceptualization is that distance dynamically expands and collapses constantly throughout a point.  Movement is all about controlling the expansion or collapse depending on what action a fencer is trying to hit.  Counter attacks usually require an expansion of distance.  Attacks require a collapse of distance.  Getting to the point of expanding distance before a counter attack or collapsing during an attack requires numerous cycles of expansion and collapse as preparation to the final distance adjustment.  I go into more detail on this in my post on the role of footwork.

I think this is the best conceptualization of distance for a competitor, but it can be the most difficult to teach.  To get to this point, I try to teach much of this implicitly to beginners while they work on more easily understood skills.  For example, when teaching a beginner to hit an angulated counter attack (one of the first actions I teach), I get them to initiate the action with a check back (half advance turned into a retreat).  When teaching disengage based attacks, I make a half advance as I parry so the student is attacking into distance that is collapsing, not expanding.  I realize that I am still in control of distance at this stage of lessons, but it prepares students for the concept later.

When I explicitly start teaching students to think about distance, I usually begin by introducing the red zone, dead zone, out conceptualization and then working on strategies to trap the opponent in the dead zone or to get through the dead zone with minimal exposure.  From there, we can start generalizing the concept of distance to depend on more than just the range of the two fencers.