When can I hit my opponent?

The goal of fencing is to hit your opponent without getting hit yourself. Obviously, there are some times when you can hit your opponent without any possibility that he can defend himself. Equally obviously, there are other times when you have no chance of hitting your opponent before he can defend himself. So to figure out what you need to do in order to hit, you first have to be able to distinguish between situations where you can hit, and situations where you can’t.

I’ve heard this called one-tempo distance. However, this can be confusing or misleading, because there’s actually a lot more to it than distance. For example, the physical distance between you and your opponent may be one that you could cover in a lunge, but there can be a world of difference introduced by simply considering which direction you or he is moving, or where his blade is. Therefore, I’ll use the term one-tempo situation instead.

The definition of a one-tempo situation is a time when all relevant conditions indicate that you can hit your opponent with a simple (one-tempo) action, before he can successfully evade, defend, or counterattack. There are several components which contribute to this:

• The physical distance between the fencers
• Which direction and how quickly each fencer is moving, if they are moving at all
• How quickly each fencer could start a new footwork motion – this encompasses such maxims as “Try to attack when your opponent is in the middle of advancing”
• Where each fencer’s blade is and which direction it is moving – this encompasses such maxims as “Feint into an open line, attack an opening line”
• How far the attacker can reach and/or lunge; defender’s reach is also important in epee and sabre
• Expectations of the defender’s probable behavior, e.g. previous reconnaissance shows that his parry four is big and early
• Probably many other factors, maybe not all definable

Note that most or all of these are changing constantly and rapidly. Moments when they all combine to produce a one-tempo situation are relatively rare, and usually fleeting.