Customer Reviews

Fencing: Techniques of Foil, Epee and Sabre

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Brian Pitmans book is an excellent, down to earth guide to Fencing, he cover the three weapons Foil, Epee and Saber that are used in Olympic style of fencing.

Some Fencing books are to much concerned with the history of Fencing and often teach old or even outdated styles, that may be interesting in itself but if you want to compete in modern fencing you need modern, practical down to earth kind of book and this is it, also if you just want to Fence for fun this book is great, after all most people who want to Fence do it for the joy of it and not to be historically correct and beautiful, you Fence in order to hit the opponent and prevent him from hitting you, of course good and fun Fencing can be beautiful and even though the traditionalist are always complaining about the look of modern Fencing you can see many examples of top Fencers today who are not only very good but also Fence beautifully.

In his book Brian begins, in part one, with the basic history of fencing the aim of the game the rules and conventions and some basic warm up exercices, part two is about the Foil and part three and four are about the Epee and the Sabre.

He covers the footwork the attacks and defences and the strategy of the game and the book is full of good advice about, not only how to get a good technique but also how to use it that technique in an efficient manner, in other words how to Fence well.

My version of the book is from 1993 and some of the rules have changed (it changes almost every year) but the rest is still up to date and relevant.

I have not seen a better book about Fencing so far

i really hate to give this book a bad review, because it is clear and well-written. it provides a brief overview of the essential elements of each of the three weapons. it's not specific enough to for anyone to be able to learn a new move from it, but if you're looking for a quick, "big picture" bullet-list of the important things to keep in mind for this parry or that footwork, this will do the job.

the biggest problem is the book's age. it presents electrical scoring as the big new thing, and still teaches the cross-over and fleche in sabre, which have been illegal for 17 years now, and does not teach the flunge. the speed and preferred tactics of the other weapons have also changed considerably over the 20+ years since this book was written, so... it's not at all bad for what it is, but unfortunately it's more of a historical document at this point. a new edition would be great.

also note that the picture in this amazon listing is a mistake - it's a picture of an entirely different book.

We review this book before we fence each day. it is very practical and detailed information on the fundamentals.