CM-H
CM-H is six hits that cross the body in a zig-zag, run without stopping.
It is one of the shortest movements in the Extended Library and one of the easiest to keep going, which is exactly the point. Once the six hits are automatic, a pair has a reliable phrase they can carry into longer choreography and build improvisation around.
Notation
| Player | s1 | s2 | s3 | s4 | s5 | s6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saberist A | 2 | 10 | 3 | 8 | 5 | 11 |
| Saberist B | 2P | 10P | 3P | 8P | 5P | 11X |
This is the plainest table in the Extended Library, and reading it takes three observations.
- Saberist B answers each attack with the parry of the same number.
2is met with2P,10with10P, and so on. Nothing in the first five steps asks either Saberist to do anything but attack and parry. - Every strike crosses to the other side of the body from the one before it.
2to10,3to8,5to11— high right to high left, middle right to low left, low right to high left. That alternation is the zig-zag the movement is named for. - The last step is a lock, not a parry. Saberist A's
11is not turned aside;11Xcatches it, and the movement holds there.Xis the lock introduced in CM-E.
Telegraph
Both hands holding the saber hilt horizontally.
The telegraph is the silent signal that calls CM-H before an exchange begins. See LUMINA Games for how telegraphs are used in play.
Continuous flow
Flow is what happens when the recovery from one strike is already the preparation for the next.
A sequence learned step by step tends to be performed step by step: strike, return to guard, strike, return to guard. That is the right way to learn it and the wrong way to perform it. Every return to guard is a moment where nothing is happening, and a fight assembled from them looks like a list of attacks rather than a fight.
CM-H is built to remove those gaps, and the zig-zag is how it does it. Because each strike finishes on the opposite side of the body from where the next one starts, the blade is already travelling in roughly the right direction when the previous hit ends. There is nothing to undo. The end of 2 is most of the way to the start of 10; the end of 10 is on the way to 3. Run in order, the six hits describe one continuous path across the body rather than six separate journeys out from the middle.
That is why the movement is short. Six hits is enough to feel the path and not so many that a Saberist has to think about which comes next — and thinking about which comes next is the other thing that puts gaps in a sequence.
Saberist B has the same problem in mirror image. Five parries in a row, alternating sides, have to be found without resetting between them, which means the parry is taken where the attack is going rather than where the last parry left the blade. A defender who returns to a neutral guard after every parry will always be a beat behind on the next one.
The lock at the end is the movement's full stop. Five exchanges run continuously and then stop dead, held, on the sixth. Coming to a genuine standstill after continuous motion is harder than it sounds and is worth practising as its own skill: the flow has to end on a decision, not run out of momentum.
Because the phrase is short, self-contained, and ends somewhere definite, CM-H is a natural place to improvise around. Vary the tempo, vary the footwork, vary what happens after the lock. Do not vary the six hits themselves — the sequence is the fixed thing that lets everything around it move.
Purpose
CM-H is designed to teach:
- continuous motion through a sequence, with no reset between strikes
- a zig-zag attack path that alternates across the body
- attacking and parrying on alternating sides without returning to guard
- six-hit phrasing as a unit that can be dropped into longer choreography
- ending continuous motion on a deliberate stop
Xas a lock that closes a movement- a fixed phrase as a foundation for improvisation
Training method
Phase 1: Static walkthrough
Take the six hits one at a time, standing, with a full stop after each.
Confirm at every step:
- both Saberists agree which target the number names
- the parry meets the attack cleanly
- distance is safe
- the step can be repeated the same way
Do not attempt to connect anything yet. The zig-zag has to be correct before it can be smooth.
Phase 2: Pairs
Join the hits two at a time — steps 1 and 2, then 2 and 3, then 3 and 4, and so on.
Each pair is where a crossing happens, and each one is a small problem of its own: how does the blade get from the end of the first hit to the start of the second without going back to the middle? Solve them individually.
Phase 3: Slow continuous flow
Run all six hits at low speed without a stop anywhere in them.
Speed is not the goal here and will make the gaps harder to see. Run it slowly enough that both Saberists can feel exactly where the blade pauses, then work on that seam.
Phase 4: The lock
Add the lock at step 6 last.
Practise arriving at it out of continuous motion, which is the part that needs work — a lock entered while still travelling is the one place this movement can get careless. Enter it slowly and by agreement, as always, and only bring the preceding five hits up to speed once the stop is reliable.
Teaching note
CM-H should be taught as a language drill, not as a fight.
The hazard that belongs to this movement is its own smoothness. Continuous motion invites speed, and CM-H is easy enough that a pair reaches the point of running it comfortably long before they have earned the right to run it quickly. Six hits with no stops in them leave no moment to correct a mistake, so pace is added only when the path is identical every repetition.
It is also the first movement where a Saberist is asked to make a sequence look like one action rather than six. That is a performance skill as much as a technical one, and it is the reason CM-H sits where it does in the library.
When CM-H is clean, continue to CM-I, which takes the same idea into completes, or return to the Extended Library.