Almost a year ago, as we were all finding new routines of a summer in lockdown, instead of baking bread, making a jungle of houseplants, or going on long relaxing walks, I found myself watching tones of Youtube videos. Being ever mindful of my father’s admonition that “screens will melt your brains,” I justified my binging by watching, not aimless content, but World Cup finals of my favorite fencers. Now, I’m going to share a few pieces of advice that I wish I had at the start of last year.
First piece of advice: watch on a computer with a screen larger than your cell phone. It’s important to get as many of the details as possible, and watching on a phone just doesn’t cut it. Additionally, the Youtube phone app skips forwards or backwards in ten second increments as opposed to five seconds. While that may seem trivial, those five seconds can mean the difference between skipping through the dead space of fencers resetting or skipping into the middle of an action and losing all context.
There are a ton of channels on Youtube. I’d recommend starting with fan favorite channel “Cyrus of Chaos,” then move into the FIE Fencing Channel (Their bouts are less well organized, but they have more of them, and commentary besides), and Fencing Vision. There are a few channels specific to each country – channels from France, Russia, and the Asia-Pacific, although these channels have the draw backs of often being untranslated or in different alphabets.
There are a few important hotkeys to remember. Spacebar is the pause button. Period is the command for “one frame at a time FORWARD,” and comma is the command for “one frame at a time BACKWARD.” Using period and comma in conjunction with spacebar will allow you to really zero in on the exact moment a fencer starts their attack, or the precise technique they use to execute their motion. Many videos from the FIE channel will already have high frame rate slow motion replay, although the replay doesn’t always start at the right time or have the right angle to really understand what’s happening. We also have the arrow keys: right arrow will skip forwards 5 seconds, left arrow skips back 5 seconds. I’ve found that skipping forwards in 5 second increments will often cut out all the dead space in a bout, letting me watch the best parts of a match.
As a fencer myself, I can say that just by watching high level fencers I was often inspired by their tactics, their execution, their form and ability. I clearly remember the first moment that I saw 2x World Champion Sofia Velikaya deliver an incredible low-line attack that inspired me to mimic her for years afterwards. High level fencers are all the time watching and learning from their rivals, their teammates, and from youtube itself. Now, you can too, with just these few simple hints to get you started.