The on-guard position is the entire game compressed into one posture. Everything starts from it, every movement returns to it. There is one canonical en garde and a handful of variations that modern competitive fencers adopt to suit their body and game.
En Garde (Classical)
Feet at roughly a right angle, front foot pointing down the strip, back foot perpendicular. Heels in line with each other, about one and a half foot-lengths apart. Knees bent so the kneecaps sit roughly over the toes. Weight evenly distributed, 50/50, with the centre of gravity sunk between the feet.
Weapon arm extended at about 120 degrees, point threatening the opponent’s wrist or chest. The non-weapon arm is bent up and back for balance, though épéeists often drop it lower than foilists do because there is no need to keep it clear of target.
This is the textbook reference. From here you can advance, retreat, lunge, or parry without resetting.
En Garde (Modern Competitive)
The same skeleton, but compressed. Feet a touch closer together so the recovery from a lunge is faster. Knees bent deeper, hips lower. The torso leans slightly forward over the front knee, putting the head behind the bell guard.
Most international épéeists fence out of some version of this. It looks less “noble” than the classical en garde and more like a sprinter waiting for the gun.
Low En Garde (Cannone Style)
A deep, coiled crouch. Hips dropped almost to a half-squat, weight slightly favouring the back leg, weapon arm held low with the point angled up toward the opponent’s hand. The blade arm is often only half extended, hiding the real reach until the explosion.
The trade-off is obvious. You can launch a brutally fast attack from this position because your legs are already loaded, but holding it costs energy and your blade is further from the target if you need to make a quick parry.
Romain Cannone built an Olympic gold around this stance. It is not for everyone, but if your legs hold up, it is the most explosive starting position in the sport.
Upright En Garde (Borel Style)
Taller, more relaxed, knees only lightly bent. Weight stacked over the hips rather than the front knee. The weapon arm is more extended than usual, often nearly straight, with the point at the opponent’s wrist or forearm.
This is the stance of a fencer who wants to win the bout with their hand, not their legs. Yannick Borel uses height and reach to keep the opponent at point distance and chip away with prises de fer and small blade taps. It is conservative, patient, and exhausting to fence against.
Half-Crouch (Sport-Specific Compromise)
Between the modern competitive and the deep Cannone crouch. Knees bent enough that a balestra-lunge feels coiled but not so deep that holding the position for a 3-minute bout drains the legs. This is what most national-level épéeists actually use.
If you are starting out, train this. It generalises.
Recovery Stance
Not really a stance on its own, but worth naming. After a lunge, the goal is to pull the front foot back into a slightly shortened en garde, ready to retreat or relunge. Keeping the recovery deliberate (rather than just standing up) is what separates someone who can defend after their attack from someone who is wide open the moment they miss.
(y-) Left-Handed Notes
Left-handed fencers stand mirrored. Same shapes, but their target lines are reversed, so a right-hander’s quarte parry covers what would be sixte against another righty. About 30 percent of elite épéeists are lefties (compared to ~10 percent of the general population), so training against a lefty is a skill in itself, not a curiosity.
Sources
- FIE Technical Rules (t.42-t.45 on weapon and target)
- USA Fencing: Épée Basics
- The Inner Game of Fencing (Nick Evangelista)
- Cannone vs Heinzer (Tokyo Olympic Final)
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