The Fence & the Guard

Hi Dave

Having a think as i do! Was the fence and guard something taught to you by The Warfields or did you bring this into your teachings / training at a later stage?

If it was brought in by you, how did you come about it?
Was it through your time on the door, the confrontations you had personally or just by people watching.

Cheers
Stu

we all actually have to thank Geoff for the title 'the fence', but obviously the actual technique is as old as the arts..
We never had a name for it as such, although very common in some old ju-jutus, the Fence was called the FEND..
and the Guard was always the , well 'guard'...
Geoff brought more appreciation and emphasis to the move by tailoring his verbals around it

We used to just use both as openers... no verbals as such other than maybe a strong Kiai shout as we pushed away..

Think combining both movements with the GUARD first, moving into the fence from the guard with a strong Kiai shout.. thats more or less how we did it in the 70's, and most often from a slight 'off angle' to get more loss of balance from the opponent..

Many of the old timer martial artists used similar openers.. Phil Milner for one.. there was a move I think called (sorry if my memory gets the japanese wrong its been over 30 years) Metsu-bushi Ken-Go.. which was used against someone drawing a weapon, like a sword.. the idea was to push the elbow and shoulder at the same time against the drawing arm, timing it best so that you pushed him away as his arm was ACROSS his body... then you supposedly drew YOUR sword and attacked, cutting him down.

Geoff in conversation said he had seen a lot of doormen use 'poorly applied' FENDS, and he came up with the Fence as a good starter..

Geoff used it as well as anyone, but it DID pre-date him by roughly 2000 years, but he certainly refined and polished the FENCE, but he didnt use the GUARD a lot in the sessions I had at the AT7 when I used to go down teaching his boys..

its good it has become established as a opener, its a corker..

but I genuinely cant make ANY claims to the move.. I just was taught the Guard into FEND rather than straight to FENCE..

So give Mr Thompson credit for adapting the stuff into the Fence as we know it

Thanks Dave
Appreciate the lengthy reply.