“Football” Exercise to Maintain and Recover – Practice

The Football Game

Football is a fencing game that allows you to practice all of the techniques of posture, movement, finding, regaining control, and maintaining control. The play area should be a channel with two end zones (the scoring areas) behind either player. When you have lost the three advantages you must back up and try to regain them. When you have the three advantages you move forward and force your partner to back up.

1. Begin with both you and your opponent in posta breve, out of measure, in the centre of the play area.
2. The first objective is to find your opponent’s sword at misura larghissima.
   You can move forward and attempt to find their blade, or wait and attempt to find them as they move forward.
3. Once someone has been found, the next stage begins: The one who has lost control must move backward and attempt to recover the finding; the one in control moves forward and attempts to keep control. As long as you are in a weak position you must move backward.
4. Should you recover control, then the roles switch and you move forward until control is lost again.
5. Once someone has been driven into the end zone the game is over. The one who was driven into the end zone has lost. Reset and play again.

Play slowly and deliberately and build in speed as you build in perception and precision. The goal is to both learn the skills of maintaining and recovering control but also to hone your perception of when you have and have lost control.