Approaching Drill – Practice

Immediate Practice

10 minutes – Practice approaching and gaining on the inside and outside. (Best done wearing masks and gorgets.)

• Your partner applies pressure any time after you have made the offensive posture. Before this point you may not have sufficient amounts of the three advantages to resist your opponent (more on how to deal with this later).
• Be sure you gain full leverage, turn fully into seconda or quarta, and that you go in proper order.
• Make sure that you gain in the offensive posture and keep the weight back. Then having fully gained you lunge.
• Practice the action broken into distinct pieces before smoothing it out:
  • Gain in the offensive posture.
  • Lunge to complete the thrust.
  • Recover to the offensive posture, maintaining the three advantages.
  • Relax back to the defensive posture.
• Alternate with your partner.
  • 5 Inside, 5 Outside, then switch roles.
  • Then try alternating inside, switch, inside, outside, switch, outside.

Ongoing Practice

• As a warm-up to your training sessions, start by gaining and striking through a partner’s weapon, with your partner providing resistance. At least 30 lunges per side (right and left) is recommended in each training session to help develop the proper feeling and mechanic.
• The gaining mechanic is central to Italian Fencing and should be practiced throughout your fencing career.