Introduction to foil fencing is taught by Michael Bradley, a private instructor from Mailbu, California. Michael's career began at the University of New Hampshire, where he was a premier fencer and coach. Michael has been in intense competition and coaching since 1978, studying with a number of fencing instructors and masters before coming to California in 1983. In demonstrating the techniques in this program, Michael is joined by his comrade-in-arms, Brian Kendrigan and by one of his students, Leslie Lian.
Product details
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer
:
No
MPAA rating
:
NR (Not Rated)
Product Dimensions
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7.75 x 5.25 x 0.5 inches; 3 ounces
Director
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Michael Bradlcy
Media Format
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Color, Closed-captioned, Multiple Formats, NTSC
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I bought Bradley's video in order to help my students review the basic forms of foil fencing. The instruction on this presentation covers all of the basic ideas of foil fencing: advance, retreat, lunge, parry, and riposte. Bradley covers the ideas of basic attack and defense and deceiving the opponent. It is a good introduction to the basic ideas of the sport.
There are a few quibbles. The presentation is fairly static, with a single, fixed camera throughout. This makes for an overall dull presentation and the youngest fencers in my group have a hard time sticking with it. Adding camera angles and a more polished presentation would help. Adding chapters in the menu for each section would have helped in using this video for class instruction. The video also needed some distinct drills at the end of each section to help reinforce the learning. As it is, the drills are spotty, placed randomly throughout the presentation.
The style and technique of fencing is a bit dated, going back to the pre-electric era. For the foil purists, this may be a good thing, but for the modern sport of foil fencing, some instruction on the modern sport would have been helpful. I know this is a basic video, but I also would have liked to hear at least an introduction to the ideas of time (tempo) and distance - two concepts often ignored in basic instruction because they are thought to be too advanced. Technique is nice, but learing basic tactics of attack and denfense must be addressed.
Overall, a good buy for those who want a visual introduction to foil fencing.
This video, available in both VHS (listed by the director, Bill Myers) and DVD (listed by the instructor, Michael Bradley) formats, offers a very useful and clear introduction to essential (foil) fencing techniques. Some of the information is wrong (points are no longer scored against the receiver, but for the toucher), and others I disagree with (his en guarde stance is more epee than foil), but most of the instruction is very good, and the quality is also good. Overall, this is the best instructional video I've seen for fencing, and I wish there were more like it.
This is a very informative video that explains the basics of fencing. The instruction is fast paced and very well packed with information.
There was on problem though. For some reason my DVD player built into my television would not read it. But I gave it to a friend and he viewed it with his DVD player, and later I bought another DVD player, that didn't read it the first time I tried but read it the second time.
This video is very practical for the beginner, it covers the most basic elements of the sport, and provides specific instruction and details on basic fencing techniques and terminology. However, the filming style and narrative techniques leave little to be desired. Shot with a single camera in a gymnasium, we follow the lessons from our instructor who is clearly qualified to teach, but is not an engaging host. There are some sound and lighting glitches that give the film a very homemade quality. This is a practical video for those who want to see specific drills and tips for actual fencing. Definitely for the beginner...but this is what it aims at.
Overall, we liked the video since it was so basic. But we were disappointed with the actual video footage, there were times that we were suppose to be copying his footwork but the camera angle wasn't low enough to actually see his footwork. That was frustrating.
