CM-K

CM-K brings a second weapon into the Saber Standard. Saberist A carries a saber; Saberist B carries a staff, and the movement is written for that mismatch rather than around it.

It interprets the first half of the duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. CM-L continues the same fight.

CM-K was notated by Armando Valdivia and Alfred Smith.

Notation

CM-K is written in five short tables, read in order.

Wide tables

The tables below are wide. On a phone, turn the device landscape; any of them can also be scrolled sideways.

Part 1

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7
Saberist A	1	5		7X		1P	Duck
Saberist B	L1P	R5P	Spin R>L	L7PX	X-O	R1	L10©

Part 2

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7
Saberist A	3P - Back	1	5		7X		1P
Saberist B	L3	L1P	R5P	Spin R>L	L7PX	X-O	R1

Part 3

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7
Saberist A	Duck	3P - Back	9PX	11P		5P	12P
Saberist B	L10©	L3	R9X	L11B	Spin R>L	L5	R12

Part 4

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7
Saberist A		11P	4P	Duck	3P	8P	4P Spin L > R
Saberist B	R12	L11	R4	J10©	L3 Back	R8	L4

Part 5

Player	s1	s2
Saberist A	7©	9©
Saberist B		3©

Read down each column as usual. Saberist B's row is the one that reads differently from every other movement in the library.

Every cell in Saberist B's row begins with L or R. That letter is the hand that strikes with the staff — L for the left hand, R for the right. Hand positions on the staff are the Saberist's own choice; the lesson recommends the right palm facing down and the left palm facing up.
The hands alternate almost every beat. L1P, R5P, then L7PX, then R1 — the staff turns end over end through the exchange, and which hand drives each strike is as much a part of the notation as the target number.
X is a lock, from CM-E. It appears in both rows at the same step: 7X against L7PX in Parts 1 and 2, and 9PX against R9X in Part 3.
B is a bash and J is a jump, both in the Notation Legend. L11B in Part 3 is a left-handed bash on the 11 line; J10© in Part 4 is a jumping complete on the 10 line, which is the attack Saberist A ducks.
© is a complete, taught in CM-C. The swing carries through rather than stopping — which is why Saberist A answers L10© with a Duck rather than a parry.
X-O follows the lock. In both openings it sits between L7PX and Saberist B's next strike, on a beat where nothing is written for Saberist A. The demonstration video shows what happens there.
A blank cell means nothing is written for that Saberist on that beat. They hold while the other acts.
Parts 1 and 2 are the same phrase. Part 2 opens with Saberist A stepping back on a 3 parry against L3, and then repeats 1, 5, the spin, 7X, X-O and 1P exactly as Part 1 wrote them, one step later in the count. Part 3 opens on the two beats that closed Part 1 and opened Part 2 — Duck against L10©, then 3P - Back against L3 — before the movement turns into new material at 9PX.
R12 closes Part 3 and opens Part 4, where Saberist A's cell is left empty. Saberist A's 12P against it is written once, at the end of Part 3.

Telegraph

Saberist A: two fingers pointed at the opponent, then down. Saberist B: the staff pointed down in front of you, at the 5 position.

Both halves are given, one for each Saberist — A signals with the hand, B with the staff.

The telegraph is the silent signal that calls CM-K before an exchange begins. See LUMINA Games for how telegraphs are used in play.

The staff

Everything before CM-K is written for two Saberists holding the same kind of weapon. Both rows of every table describe the same instrument, so a 5 in one row and a 5P in the other are two versions of one action. The staff breaks that symmetry, and the notation has to carry the difference.

It carries it with a single letter. L or R in front of every one of Saberist B's cells says which hand is driving the strike, and that is the whole of the extra vocabulary CM-K needs. The target numbers are unchanged. The parries are unchanged. What is new is that the weapon has two working ends, and the notation has to say which one is coming.

That is more information than it first appears to be. A saber strike is one blade travelling one path, and a defender who knows the number knows where it is going. A staff strike is one end of a long weapon rotating around two hands, and the other end is going somewhere too. Reading R5P means reading not only the 5 line but which end of the staff is answering on it — and therefore where the far end has swung to, and what it is in position to do next.

For Saberist B the lesson is the alternation. Look down the row: L1P, R5P, L7PX, R1, L10©. The hands trade almost every beat, and each trade turns the staff over. Performed well, that is a weapon in continuous rotation with a strike falling out of it at each half-turn; performed badly, it is a series of separate swings with the staff hauled back into position between them. The recommended hand positions — right palm down, left palm up — exist to make the turn possible without regripping, and they are worth setting before any of the sequence is attempted.

For Saberist A the lesson is reach. A staff is longer than a saber, and it is longer at both ends, so the distance at which Saberist A is safe is not the distance CM-A through CM-J have trained. Notice how much of Saberist A's row is not blade work at all: Duck twice, 3P - Back twice, a jump-height complete to avoid in Part 4. Against a staff, moving out of the way is not a fallback for when the parry is unavailable. It is a primary answer, and it is used here as often as the parry is.

The two locks are where the mismatch is most visible. 7X against L7PX in Parts 1 and 2, and 9PX against R9X in Part 3, each bind a saber to a staff — and a staff in a lock still has a free end, held by the other hand, at a completely different distance. Locks with a staff are entered slowly, at an agreed angle, with both Saberists clear on where the far end has gone.

The repetition in Parts 1 and 2 is the movement's way of teaching all of this. The same six beats are run twice, separated only by Saberist A stepping back on 3P - Back, and Part 3 begins by running the seam a third time before it moves on. That is deliberate: the phrase is short, it contains a spin, a lock and a complete, and running it twice before the fight develops gives both Saberists the pattern in their hands before the choreography asks anything new of them.

Part 5 ends the movement with three completes. Saberist A carries through on 7© and 9©, Saberist B answers the second with 3©, and the exchange finishes with both weapons still travelling rather than stopped or bound.

Purpose

CM-K is designed to teach:

choreography between two different weapons rather than two of the same
L and R as the hand that strikes with the staff
alternating hands so the staff turns over continuously between strikes
reading a weapon with two working ends
working at staff distance, where evasion is a primary answer rather than a fallback
locking a saber against a staff safely
holding a short phrase steady through repetition before the fight develops

Training method

Phase 1: The staff alone

Saberist B works the staff with no partner and no sequence.

Set the hand positions first — right palm down, left palm up is the recommendation — and then simply turn the staff over, left hand to right hand and back, slowly, until the rotation happens without regripping. Learn where the far end is at every point in that turn. Everything else in CM-K depends on this.

Phase 2: Distance

Stand the pair at the distance the staff actually needs and check it before anything is performed.

Saberist A should find the range at which the staff can reach them and the range at which it cannot, from both ends, and Saberist B should confirm both. This phase produces a working distance, not a sequence.

Phase 3: Part 1 statically

Walk the seven steps of Part 1 one at a time, with a full stop after each.

Confirm at every step:

both Saberists agree which target the number names
Saberist B's striking hand is the one the cell names
the parry, duck or lock meets the attack cleanly
distance is safe for the whole staff, not just the striking end
the step can be repeated the same way

Phase 4: The lock and the spin

Practise 7X against L7PX, and Saberist B's Spin R>L, as isolated beats.

These are the two places in the phrase where the staff's far end moves furthest from where Saberist A is looking. Enter the lock slowly and by agreement, every time, and agree the direction of the spin before either Saberist moves.

Phase 5: Parts 1 and 2 together

Run the repeated phrase twice through, joined by 3P - Back.

This is the movement's spine. It should be reliable, at low speed, before Part 3 is introduced — the repetition exists so that the pattern is automatic by the time the choreography develops.

Phase 6: Parts 3 and 4

Add the new material a part at a time.

Part 3 brings the bash and the second lock; Part 4 brings the jumping complete and the longest run of continuous staff attack in the movement. Work each on its own before joining it to what comes before.

Phase 7: The finish, then pace

Add Part 5 last, then bring the whole movement up to speed.

The three completes at the end travel further than anything else in CM-K, so they are set at the distance the completes need. Speed is added to the runs of blade work only, and never to the locks.

Teaching note

CM-K should be taught as a language drill, not as a fight.

The hazard that belongs to this movement is the end of the staff nobody is watching. A saber has one dangerous end and it is the one both Saberists are looking at. A staff has two, and the far one moves fastest exactly when the near one is doing something interesting — during a spin, during a lock, during a bash. Every phase above is run at a distance that accounts for the whole weapon, and a pair that has grown comfortable with the sequence is the pair most likely to let that distance close.

It is also worth naming what a second weapon means for the notation. Nothing in CM-K required a new system. A single letter in front of the target number was enough to carry a different weapon through an entire movement, because the notation describes what happens between two Saberists rather than what either one is holding. That is the argument for writing choreography down in the first place, and CM-K is the clearest example of it in the library.

When CM-K is clean, continue to CM-L, which carries the same duel into its second half, or return to the Extended Library.