The lunge, the main form of attack in fencing, is properly composed of two actions: the extension of the arm and the lunge of the legs. In classical fencing this is taught initially as two separate actions. Extend and then lunge. The extension establishes the threat and the lunge delivers it (it is vital that the threat is established before any leg movement is made). Over time the distance between the two actions is reduced moving from ‘extend and then lunge’ to ‘extend lunge’ to simply ‘lunge’.
Equally with the lead. The lead must become before any movement and when you begin it will be lead and then move but eventually it will become simply ‘lead’ or ‘move’. This analogy came to me while working on that simple little exercise of both partners doing the move of the turn in a straight line, side-step, ocho-forward, side-step, ocho-backwards. It is a great exercise for making the concept of disassociation apparent and because if it is not done in the form of BAM! lead, move it just does not work and you can see people getting confused awfully quickly.
Ooooh that’s really interesting. I want to try that now.