What happens after you build a lightsaber and spend some quality time swinging around your brand-new blade in the privacy of your home? Where do you go from there? A lot of collectors develop an interest sooner or later in the stimulating world of lightsaber dueling. If this is the sort of activity that appeals to you, then you have plenty of company, as organized lightsaber dueling is rapidly growing in popularity, with the backing of several internationally known athletic associations and martial arts studios.
Those who become involved in this aspect of fandom soon realize that lightsaber dueling is a complex, demanding discipline. For anyone who is in this position—not a total beginner, but eager to learn more—we present this short guide of advanced lightsaber tricks. As we’ve said before, there’s only so much you can learn about dueling on the internet—you have to get out and do things. But we can show you a couple of secrets that may inspire further study.
Lightsaber duels between beginners are awfully primitive affairs. Usually you end up with two people who keep jabbing and swinging their sabers around in a clumsy way. To get beyond this level, you need to learn how to use a lightsaber effectively. One way to do that is to learn some lightsaber spins. Basically, spinning a lightsaber involves using hand and wrist rotation to swing the blade in a (more or less) circular pattern.
Spins might seem to be kind of superfluous—how can you score on your opponent while you’re just swinging your saber around? Actually, learning spins serves two valuable purposes:
Spins also help you get more out of your lightsaber in general, even when you are away from the combat circle, or have no interest in duels at all.
You can’t get into top-level lightsaber tricks until you have mastered the basic spin, which forms the foundation for many of those advanced moves you see on the internet.
Here’s how it works:
You have now completed a lightsaber spin! Incidentally, be sure to practice on a carpet or another type of soft surface, because you can expect to drop your saber plenty of times before you get the hang of it.
The action we have just described may be difficult to visualize, so here’s a useful lightsaber spin tutorial that shows all the steps.
Once you’ve mastered the basic spin (this could take a while), you can get into more complex moves, like the Obi-Ani spin, the Soresu Circle of Protection, and other neat lightsaber tricks. Again, not everything is directly applicable to lightsaber duels, but these tend to be excellent practice exercises that will enhance your combat readiness.
A few more suggestions for expanding your combat knowledge:
In the limited space we have here, all we can really do is indicate some avenues for exploration on your training quest. If you’d like to learn more about lightsaber combat, visit our online discussion forum at SaberForum.com. You can also contact us with your questions about our inventory.
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