CM-J
CM-J turns the saber around. Saberist A works the movement in an inverted grip — the hilt held so the blade runs down from the fist rather than up from it — and every attack, parry and spin in the sequence is shaped by that one change.
The choreography around the grip is deliberately plain. Eleven steps, no locks, no completes, and a parry answering every attack. Nothing competes with the thing being learned.
Saberist B has a choice. Answering in a standard grip keeps the contrast visible and makes the movement easy to read from outside. Taking the inverted grip as well turns CM-J into an exchange fought entirely reversed, which is harder and considerably more striking to watch.
Notation
Wide tables
The table below is wide. On a phone, turn the device landscape; the table can also be scrolled sideways.
| Player | s1 | s2 | s3 | s4 | s5 | s6 | s7 | s8 | s9 | s10 | s11 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saberist A | Ig 3P | Ig11 | Ig1 | Ig7 | Ig3-Spin | Ig 3P | 5 | 9 | 3 | 7 | 11 |
| Saberist B | 3 | 11P | 1P | 7P | 3P-Spin | 3 | 5P | 9P | 3P | 7P | 11P |
Read down each column as usual. The eleven steps fall into two halves.
Igis the inverted grip, listed in the Notation Legend. It is written on Saberist A's cells through the first six steps, and the lesson describes the whole movement as Saberist A's inverted-grip drill.- Steps 1 and 6 are Saberist B's. B strikes
3and Saberist A takes it on an inverted-grip parry,Ig 3P. The same exchange opens the movement and closes its first half. - Steps 2 to 5 are Saberist A's, and B answers each with the parry of the same number:
Ig11against11P,Ig1against1P,Ig7against7P. - Step 5 is shared.
Ig3-Spinand3P-Spinare the same beat — both Saberists spin, one attacking on the 3 line and one parrying it. - Steps 7 to 11 are a straight run. Saberist A attacks
5,9,3,7,11and Saberist B parries each in turn. No spins, no grip marks — the second half is written plain, and it is where the sequence picks up speed.
Telegraph
A forward flourish performed in the inverted grip — Ig-Fl-Fwd.
The telegraph is the silent signal that calls CM-J before an exchange begins. See LUMINA Games for how telegraphs are used in play.
The inverted grip
Every movement up to this point assumes the blade leaves the hand in one direction. CM-J removes that assumption.
Turn the hilt over and the blade now extends downward from the fist. Nothing about the target lines changes — a 1 is still a 1-o'clock attack, an 11P is still a parry on the 11 line — but almost everything about how the arm reaches them does. Attacks that were natural are now awkward, and attacks that were awkward become surprisingly direct. That inversion is the entire lesson, and it is why the sequence is short enough to memorize in a few minutes and long enough to take weeks to make clean.
Three things change immediately.
The first is where the blade sits at rest. In a standard grip the blade is out in front, between the two Saberists, and it is visible at all times. Inverted, it hangs down and back along the forearm, which means a Saberist who is used to seeing their own blade in the corner of their eye no longer does. The blade has to be known rather than watched.
The second is the parry. Ig 3P opens the movement, and it is the first thing to practise, because an inverted parry is not a standard parry with the wrist turned over. The blade meets the attack from the other side, and the structure holding it there is the forearm rather than the wrist. Get that structure right and the parry is solid; get it wrong and it collapses on contact.
The third is the spin at step 5. Both Saberists turn on the same beat, one striking the 3 line and one parrying it, and the Saberist in the inverted grip is turning a blade that trails behind the hand. A spin that is comfortable in a standard grip needs re-learning from the beginning here — which is exactly why it sits at the midpoint, with five steps before it to settle into the grip and five after it to recover.
Then the second half opens out. Steps 7 to 11 are five attacks and five parries with nothing else in them: 5, 9, 3, 7, 11. After the constraint of the first half, that run is where a Saberist finds out whether the grip has actually become comfortable or has merely been survived one step at a time.
If both Saberists take the inverted grip, the movement changes character rather than difficulty. The parries meet at unfamiliar angles, the whole exchange sits lower, and the pair should expect to reset their working distance before running it that way.
Purpose
CM-J is designed to teach:
- the inverted grip, noted
Ig, as a working grip rather than a flourish - attacking on familiar target lines from an unfamiliar hand position
- the inverted parry, and the forearm structure that holds it
- spinning with a blade that trails behind the hand
- knowing where the blade is without being able to see it
- reading an opponent whose blade is reversed
Training method
Phase 1: The grip alone
Take the grip with no partner and no sequence.
Turn the hilt over and simply move: hold the blade still, swing slowly along each of the six beginner lines, and return. Do this until the grip stops feeling like a trick and starts feeling like a position. Nothing in CM-J is worth attempting before that happens.
Phase 2: The parry
Practise Ig 3P on its own, statically, with a partner striking 3 slowly.
This is the movement's foundation, and it is worth more repetitions than anything else on the page. Confirm at every repetition:
- the blade meets the attack rather than being pushed by it
- the forearm, not the wrist, is holding the structure
- distance is safe
- the parry can be repeated the same way
Phase 3: Steps 1 to 6 statically
Walk the first half one step at a time, with a full stop after each.
Add nothing to it yet, including the spin — perform step 5 as a plain 3 and 3P for now. The point of this phase is that Saberist A finds each target line from the inverted grip without hunting for it.
Phase 4: The spin
Add step 5 as written, out of sequence.
Both Saberists turn together, so agree the direction and the timing before either of them moves. Practise it as a single beat, repeated, until the turn and the strike arrive at the same moment. Only then put it back into the first half.
Phase 5: The second half
Run steps 7 to 11 on their own.
Five attacks, five parries, in order, at low speed. This half has no complications in it by design, so it is the place to work on the flow of the grip rather than its mechanics.
Phase 6: The whole sequence
Join both halves, slowly, and add speed only when the grip is reliable.
If Saberist B is also working inverted, run the whole movement once more from Phase 3 with that change in place. It is a different sequence in the hands, even though nothing on the page has changed.
Teaching note
CM-J should be taught as a language drill, not as a fight.
The hazard that belongs to this movement is the part of the blade a Saberist cannot see. Inverted, the blade hangs behind and below the hand, which puts it near the Saberist's own legs and near the floor, and puts the tip somewhere neither Saberist is looking. Give the pair more room than the sequence appears to need, and check the space behind and below before every repetition rather than once at the start.
It is also worth telling students why a grip gets a movement of its own. The notation does not change here — the target lines, the parries and the spin are all written exactly as they would be in a standard grip. What changes is the body performing them. CM-J is the clearest demonstration in the library that the notation describes what happens between two Saberists, not how any one of them holds a hilt.
When CM-J is clean, continue to CM-K, which brings a staff into the exchange, or return to the Extended Library.