Fencing is distance. This DVD gives you the grounding you need to build a strong footwork game.

Tyshler Footwork Training (DVD) - Training video from Tyshler Fencing School This DVD is a great introduction to fencing footwork, including many drills designed to get you doing your footwork correctly. This is a must for every beginning fencer and should be in every coach's video library! This is in DVD-R format.

This DVD contains both English and Spanish language tracks. 

David Tyshler is a professer of the Russian State Academy of Physical Education, and was a prizewinner of the World Championships and the Olympic Games. He has has coached five Olympic champions. Gennady Tyshler, Ph.D., has coached six World Champions and one Olympic Champion.

When the footwork exercises begin, the video clips feature several different fencers. These fencers are in uniform, and they execute their footwork actions against a curtained background. The moves are clear, the fencers are experienced, and the tripod-mounted camera rarely needs to pan. (It's not plain how good some of these fencers are, until you try the actions yourself... like the one where you jump up from a lunge and cross your legs, landing in a lunge again. These fencers make it look easy.) Explanations of each exercise are offered with a good, clear English voice-over.

The footwork exercises are presented with increasing difficulty.

• The En Guard position (7 exercises)
• Training of step forward and backward (4 exercises)
• Training of the Lunge (13 exercises)
• Training of the jump forward and the jump backward (5 exercises)
• Training of the step-forward lunge and jump-forward lunge (5 exercises)
• Training of the fleche attack (6 exercises)
• Training footwork combinations (11 combinations)

You will need to create your own daily regimen from these footwork exercises. Apart from the order of introduction, the video does not offer a "start with this routine, and then progress to this and that" sort of timeline. These exercises are received wisdom, and (as good as it is) the video doesn't tell you how to internalize them and make them your own. For that, you must run these routines until you can do them in your sleep.