Improve Your Feints Without a Partner

Mastering the feint is challenging aspect of rapier fencing in the best of times because the overall success of a feint relies on one fencer’s ability to sell the feint as a real attack and the other fencer’s ability to read it as real or not. In short: it’s Deception vs. Insight. And with COVID-19 severely limiting in-person practices, improving your feints and deceptive game is extra challenging. What we can do, however, is focus on the mechanics of our feints. The closer our feints look to our real attacks, the higher chance those feints have to succeeding. Here are some tips for analyzing and improving your feints without a partner. And to be honest, video analysis work like this is a great tool for improving your rapier-game even when in-person fencing practices are doable. FREE VIDEO TOOLS FOR YOUR SELF-ANALYSIS: Lightworks DaVinci Resolve Filmora iMovie WeVideo Special thanks to ATHENE SCHOOL OF ARMS in Cambridge, MA for use of their space! DONATIONS: If you enjoy this video and are willing to donate some money during my COVID unemployment, that would be greatly appreciated. It will allow me to continue teaching online classes as well as produce historical European martial arts content. ⚔️SOCIAL⚔️ IG: Twitter: Youtube: Blog: ⚔️ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR⚔️ Justin Aucoin (Remy Delemontagne de Gascogne in the SCA) has been fencing since 2006, first as a foilist and then joining the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in 2010. For the past eight years, he has studied Italian rapier, going through the works of Giganti, Capoferro, Fabris, and most recently, Alfieri. His current area of study is 17th Century French martial arts. As a competitor, Remy has won numerous rapier tournaments in the SCA -- both in singles and in group melee -- including Carolingia’s Baronial Champion, East Kingdom Crown Champion, and named 6x to the Pennsic Champs team. He is also a former general of the East Kingdom Rapier Army, is a member of the SCA’s Order of Defense, and holds a Silver Broach and a Maunche for his historical martial arts research, and a Silver Wheel for his coaching service. Outside of the SCA, Justin has taught rapier at Athena School of Arms, one of Boston’s premiere HEMA schools. He is a Level One student guide & apprentice instructor through Academie Duello. He is also a certified personal trainer through NASM.