Product Description

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

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32128 in DVD
• Brand: Victor
• Released on: 2005-02-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 60 minutes

Customer Reviews

Very Useful, Good Quality
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.

Good Instruction
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.

Great Basic Fencing Instruction DVD
I thought this was a great DVD for beginning fencers. It was basic - but not boring. It covered many aspects that I have seen taught in fencing classes that I have attended. I wish there were more videos/DVD's like this one.