The Effect of the Varied Style on Learning Basic Stances and Footwork in Foil Fencing for Students

This research examines how varying teaching styles impact university students across novice to intermediate levels when learning the basic stances and footwork of foil fencing, noting how these factors play a part in the students’ skills acquisition, performance effects and retention. While having been in the system was a large portion of why most people ended up studying fencing, the traditional model of fencing instruction, while prevalent, may fail to address the individuality of physical touch-mixed learning on a skills basis and so the students in classes may not reach their full potential both technically and in terms of engagement. In this experiment based study, we evaluated the full-impact of whether students who are taught with a diversified teaching style (e.g., based on adaptive learnings strategies, variability of tasks, and interactive instruction) learning processes will outperform their peers whoare taught with traditional teaching methods with fixed, instructor-centered demonstrations and repetitive drills. Sample: 40 University of Diyala students (Experimental and control group) Both teams were pre-test and post-test on five basic fencing techniques of Basic Stance, On-Guard, Forward (advance), Movement, Retreat and Lunge Technique. The data shows that performing variety of learning strategies helped greater improvements in coordination, movement efficiency, and technical execution of the experimental group than the control group. Data was analyzed through various statistical methods including paired t-tests and independent t-tests which concluded that the different teaching style resulted in significantly better skill acquisition, increased engagement and better performance retention. The findings emphasize the need for flexibility and student-centeredness in the content and methods of sports education, especially in racquet sports such as fencing. The findings have practical ramifications for coaches, trainers, and curriculum designers, suggesting the incorporation of adaptive teaching strategies to improve training efficacy. The future directions may include the assessment of the effect of technology-assisted learning, retention of the skills in the longer run, and the applicability of different styles of teaching adapted to many other disciplines of sport, thereby paving the way for improving the discipline of pedagogy in sports.