A to Z: Disengage

The A to Z Challenge is posting every day in April except Sundays (we get those off for good behavior.) And since there are 26 days, that matches the 26 letters of the alphabet. On April 1, blog about something that begins with the letter “A.” April 2 is “B,” April 3 is “C,” and so on. This awesome challenge is hosted by founder Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Tina Downey at Life is Good, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude 2.0, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Matthew MacNish at The QQQE, Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Livia Peterson at Leave it to Livia, L. Diane Wolfe at Spunk on a Stick, and Nicole at The Madlab Post

My A to Z theme is fencing and swordplay, focusing mainly on fencing terminology, but with a few favorite movie fencing moments thrown into the mix too. Why: I love fencing and swordplay!

D is for Disengage: a circular movement of the blade that deceives the opponent's parry, removes the blades from engagement, or changes the line of engagement.

Disengage is my all time favorite type of attack or riposte while foil fencing, and when I fenced I found a great deal of success with it. There is nothing else like circling your blade around and around in an attack while your opponent tries to parry it unsuccessfully.

Other Good "D" fencing terms:

Deception: avoidance of an attempt to engage the blades; see disengage

Derobement: deception of the attack au fer or prise de fer.

Direct: a simple attack or riposte that finishes in the same line in which it was formed, with no feints out of that line. .

Displacement: moving the target to avoid an attack; dodging.

Double-time: also "dui tempo"; parry-riposte as two distinct actions.  

Dry: also steam; fencing without electric judging aids.