CM-L

CM-L is the second half of the staff duel begun in CM-K. Saberist A carries a saber, Saberist B carries the staff, and the same lesson video carries both movements.

Where CM-K trades initiative back and forth, CM-L does not. Saberist B attacks from the first beat to the last, and Saberist A answers all sixteen steps without a single attack of their own. It is the longest unbroken defence in the Extended Library, and that is what it is for.

Like CM-K, it interprets the duel between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and it was notated by Armando Valdivia and Alfred Smith.

Notation

CM-L runs sixteen steps, written in two tables.

Wide tables

Both tables below are wide. On a phone, turn the device landscape; either table can also be scrolled sideways.

The opening

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7
Saberist A		9P	5P	Jump	3P	1P	11P
Saberist B	Fl:P L-R	R9	L5	R7© (x2)	L3	R1	L11

The run

Player	s8	s9	s10	s11	s12	s13	s14	s15	s16
Saberist A	4P	8P	1P	3P Back	9PX	L1P	R5P	12P
Saberist B	R4	L8	R1	L3	R9X	1	5	12	Kick

Read down each column as usual, and notice what is missing: there is no attack anywhere in Saberist A's row.

Saberist B carries the whole movement. Every step is a staff attack, and Saberist A answers each one with a parry, a jump, a step back or a lock.
L and R name the striking hand, as in CM-K — the staff turns over between strikes, and the letter says which end is coming. The hands alternate almost every beat: R9, L5, R7©, L3, R1, L11.
Fl:P is the vertical front propellor flourish, listed as Fl-P in the Notation Legend. Saberist B opens the movement with it while Saberist A does nothing at all.
R7© (x2) is struck twice. It is a completing 7 — a low line, carried through rather than stopped, delivered right-handed and repeated — and Saberist A's answer to both is Jump.
© is a complete, taught in CM-C; X is a lock, from CM-E. The single lock is at step 12, where 9PX meets R9X.
Steps 13 and 14 are written differently. Saberist B's 1 and 5 carry no hand mark, and Saberist A's parries carry L and R instead. That is how the source lesson writes them; the demonstration video shows the beat.
The movement ends on a kick. Kick at step 16 is Saberist B's only unarmed action, and nothing is written for Saberist A against it.

Holding a long defence

A defence in the Core Library lasts one exchange. An attack arrives, it is parried, and the roles change over — CM-D is built on exactly that switch. CM-L removes the switch and asks what happens when it never comes.

Sixteen attacks arrive in a row. Saberist A parries fourteen of them, jumps one, and finishes standing still while a kick lands. There is no point at which the defending Saberist gets to answer, and no point at which the pressure lets up, and that is the entire subject of the movement.

Three things make a long defence different from a short one, and all three are visible in the notation.

The first is that the parries stop being separate decisions. Look at steps 8 to 11: 4P, 8P, 1P, 3P Back. Four lines in four beats, high to low and back, with nothing between them. A Saberist who takes each parry, recovers to guard, and then looks for the next one will be late on the second and lost by the fourth. Each parry has to be taken from wherever the last one finished, in the direction the next attack is already coming from. That is the same continuous-motion skill CM-H teaches on the attacking side, arriving here on the defending side and under far more pressure.

The second is that the defence has to travel. 3P Back at step 11 is the only cell in Saberist A's row that names footwork, and it is placed exactly where the sequence needs it — a parry taken while giving ground, resetting the distance before the lock at step 12. A long defence that stays rooted runs out of room, because a staff at full extension will always find the range eventually. Giving ground at the right moment is a defensive action in its own right, and CM-L writes it into the middle of the phrase rather than leaving it to instinct.

The third is that not everything can be parried. Step 4 is a completing 7 struck twice — a low line, carried through, and coming back. Saberist A's answer is Jump, because a blade in the way of a carried low sweep is not a defence, it is a collision. Against a staff, choosing between the parry and the evasion is part of reading the attack, and this movement puts the choice in the middle of the opening phrase where it cannot be avoided.

Then there is the lock at step 12, and it is the only moment in sixteen steps where the attack stops. 9PX against R9X binds the saber to the staff, holds, and gives both Saberists a beat of stillness in the middle of a continuous assault. In performance that is where an audience catches up. In training it is where the defending Saberist finds out whether they have been breathing.

What follows the lock is the fastest part of the movement — 1, 5, 12 in three beats, straight into the kick — and it works because the lock came first. A run of attacks after a held moment reads as an escalation. The same run without it would read as more of the same.

The kick is the finish. Saberist B's only unarmed action in the movement ends it, and nothing is written for Saberist A in reply. A defence that has held for sixteen steps against the weapon is ended by something that is not the weapon at all, and that is the point the sequence is making.

Purpose

CM-L is designed to teach:

sustained defence across a long phrase with no change of roles
taking each parry from where the last one finished, without returning to guard
choosing between a parry and an evasion as the attack demands
giving ground deliberately, as a defensive action rather than a retreat
answering a repeated, completing low attack with a jump
a lock used as the single rest in a continuous assault
an unarmed finish against an armed opponent

Training method

Phase 1: The opening statically

Walk steps 1 to 7 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 meets the attack cleanly, and at a distance safe for the whole staff
the step can be repeated the same way

Perform step 4 as a single stopping strike for now, parried rather than jumped. The jump is added later.

Phase 2: The jump at step 4

Practise R7© (x2) and Jump as an isolated pair of beats.

This is the most dangerous beat in the movement and it deserves its own session. Set the height of the sweep, the timing of the jump, and the second repetition, slowly and by agreement, and repeat it until the two Saberists arrive together every time. Speed is added last, and only here.

Phase 3: The run statically

Walk steps 8 to 16 the same way, one at a time.

The four parries at steps 8 to 11 are the block to concentrate on. Take them in order and pay attention to where each parry finishes rather than to where it starts — that is what makes the next one reachable.

Phase 4: The lock and the finish

Practise step 12 on its own, then steps 13 to 16 as a run.

Enter the lock slowly and by agreement, as always, and remember that the far end of the staff is still free while the near end is bound. Then set the kick: agreed target, agreed distance, no contact, exactly the same every repetition.

Phase 5: Slow continuous flow

Put all sixteen steps together at low speed, without stopping.

The seams are the entry to the jump, the entry to the lock, and the exit from it. If either Saberist loses the sequence, restart from step 1 rather than picking it up mid-phrase.

Phase 6: Performance pace

Add speed to the runs of parries, and leave the jump, the lock and the kick where they are.

CM-L should accelerate after the lock and not before it. That shape is the difference between a long defence that builds and a long defence that simply continues.

Teaching note

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

Two hazards belong to this movement. The first is fatigue: sixteen attacks in a row is genuinely tiring for both Saberists, and a tired parry is a late parry. Run it in halves for longer than seems necessary, and stop the moment either Saberist's timing starts to drift — the last thing a pair should practise is what this sequence looks like when they are too tired to perform it. The second is the low sweep at step 4, which is struck twice, carries through, and is answered by leaving the ground. Nothing else in the Extended Library asks a Saberist to jump a completing attack, and it is set at an agreed height, at an agreed speed, before it is ever run in sequence.

It is also worth telling students what a movement without a single attack in one row is doing in a notation system. CM-F wrote a full sequence for a Saberist with no weapon; CM-L writes one for a Saberist who never attacks. Both are complete movements, both are written in the same language, and neither needs a special case to be read. A row of parries, jumps and ground given up is notation in exactly the same sense as a row of strikes.

When CM-L is clean, continue to CM-M, which inverts the direction of the exchange, or return to the Extended Library.