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Foil was primarily developed as a training weapon for beginners to master the classical technique of the art of fencing. From this it has now become a full weapon in its own right and is considered a discipline independent for epee with many highly advanced fencers solely fighting foil.
The foil is the smallest and lightest of the three weapons. It has a flexible, thin blade that bends easily when a hit is scored. The guard is small, and does not cover the hand, but provides the distinction between blade and handle. At the tip of the blade is a metal button. To score a hit the opponent must be hit with sufficient force to fully press the button. Only the tip of the blade will score a hit, so slashes and side cuts are not permitted.
The target in foil is the torso only (no heads, arms, or legs). Fencers wear a metal jacket called a lamé over the white fencing jacket to cover the target area. This allows a circuit to be completed when the button of the opponent’s blade is pressed on the lamé but not on the rest of the fencer’s body.
Foil is fought under Right of Way rules. This means you can only score a hit if you have the right of way, that is to say - are attacking.
The Right of Way rule is notoriously complicated and often causes disputes between fencers and presidents. The most important characteristic of the Right of Way rule is that if both lights come on only one fencer can get the point. The fencer attacking gets the point. The definition of an attack is not simply to be moving forwards - that would be too simple. If you parry (block) you opponent’s attack in that moment you gain Right of Way, if you then capitalise on this by extending you arm towards the target you would win the point should you both hit on target at the same time.
I appreciate that is highly complicated. It’s hard to explain without a sword. My advice is to fence lots of foil with a President that understands Right of Way. It is something you tend to learn intuitively. To begin with you don’t have a clue what happened, then you kind of instinctively know who should get the point but don’t know why, and finally you can articulate what happened and describe it to the fencers and get them to believe you. It will come - honest.
Because of the Right of Way rule parries are crucial in foil training. You need to be able to stop attacks and capitalise on them to get the points. Simple parries include quarte, sixte, septime, and octave, with progression to prime and seconde as appropriate. These are basically arm and sword positions that correspond to a line of attack to a different part of the target. More complicated parries include techniques to hold your opponent’s blade out of the way, and evade their attempts to do the same.
Foil rules tend to encourage good classical technique - hence why foil was created as a training weapon. Good footwork, good awareness of distance, and neatly executed bladework will take you far in foil.