What Is a Remise in Saber Fencing? Renewing the Attack After a Miss

Published September 23, 2026

A remise in saber fencing is a second offensive action that follows your original attack without withdrawing the arm. Parents hear the word when both lights fire and the referee gives the touch to the attacker’s renewal instead of the defender’s late riposte.

A remise in saber fencing is a second offensive action that follows your original attack without withdrawing the arm. Parents hear the word when both lights fire and the referee gives the touch to the attacker’s renewal instead of the defender’s late riposte.

USA Fencing’s Basics of Competition page focuses on the clean sequence: attack, parry, riposte. The renewal terms live in the FIE Technical Rules. Those are what referees cite on the strip.

The three renewal words FIE uses

FIE Technical Rules (August 2026), t.13:

Remise. A simple and immediate offensive action which follows the original attack, without withdrawing the arm, after the opponent has parried or retreated, when the opponent has either left the blade without riposting or has made a riposte that is delayed, indirect, or compound.
Redoublement. A new action, simple or compound, against an opponent who has parried without riposting or who has only avoided the first action by retreating or displacing the target.
Reprise of the attack. A new attack executed immediately after a return to the on-guard position.

The coaching short version: a remise keeps the arm and the threat alive; a reprise resets to en garde first.

When a remise can score

In saber, priority (right-of-way) decides who owns the touch when both colored lights are on. USA Fencing explains the parent version: the fencer who starts a correct attack keeps priority until the defender parries or the attack fails, and hesitation can hand priority to the other side.

Under FIE saber conventions in t.106:

If the defender makes a successful parry, then pauses (a delayed riposte), the attacker may renew with a redoublement, remise, or reprise (t.106.3.c).
If the attacker remises, redoubles, or reprises after the defender’s parry and the defender’s riposte was immediate, simple, and executed in one fencing time without withdrawing the arm, the attacker alone is counted as hit (t.106.4.f). In that case the clean riposte wins.
Simultaneous attacks conceived and executed together score for neither fencer.

So the remise is not a free second bite. It scores when the defender failed to take over priority cleanly. That is why coaches yell for an immediate riposte after every parry drill.

What it looks like from the strip

Electric scoring lights a hit. It does not name the phrase. The referee reconstructs who attacked, whether the parry closed the line, whether the riposte left without a pause, and whether the attacker’s renewal was a remise or something else.

Common parent confusion:

Both lights does not mean an automatic double. In saber, one side usually gets the touch.
A soft tip flick after a closed line may still be a good parry under t.105 even if the box flickered.
A late riposte after a clean parry often loses to the attacker’s remise.

For the defense side of this sequence, see Parry and Riposte in Saber Fencing.

How to drill it without inventing rules

Keep the lesson short:

Partner A attacks. Partner B parries and ripostes immediately.
Same attack. Partner B hesitates after the parry. Partner A remises to valid target.
Partner A recovers to en garde and starts a new attack (reprise). Partner B treats it as a fresh phrase.

Use a referee or coach to call priority out loud. The box alone will not teach the distinction.

Sources

USA Fencing, Basics of Competition (parry, riposte, right-of-way)
FIE Technical Rules, August 2026: t.9, t.13, t.14, t.105, t.106 (PDF)
Olympics.com, Fencing overview (piste and bout framing)

Train the renewal in Bethesda

Saber Nation is a saber-focused club at 4701 Sangamore Road, Suite LL2, Bethesda, MD. Private lessons and group classes spend real time on parry–riposte speed and clean renewals under priority. Questions? Contact us.