CM-M

CM-M is built on constant attack, answer, and reversal of direction. It interprets a duel between Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker, from a deleted scene of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.

Everything in the library up to this point answers an attack by giving ground. The defending Saberist parries, ducks or steps back, and the exchange travels away from the attack. CM-M turns that around: the Saberist under attack advances, closes the distance, and the defence becomes forward pressure. It is the first movement in which the direction of the exchange is fully inverted.

CM-M was notated by Rhamses Nazario and Enrique Santana.

Notation

CM-M runs seventeen 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	s8	s9	s10
Saberist A (Anakin)	7P	S-CCW	D	J + S-CCW	4	12			3Pm6	S-CW
Saberist B (Dooku)	7	S-CCW	2©	5©	4P	12P	Re	S-CCW	3

The run

Player	s11	s12	s13	s14	s15	s16	s17
Saberist A (Anakin)	3Pm6x	x	1B	11B	12P	Re	Special
Saberist B (Dooku)	9x	x	1B	11B	12

Read down each column as usual. What is unusual here is how often the two rows carry the same cell.

Initiative changes hands twice. Saberist B attacks through steps 1 to 4, Saberist A attacks at steps 5 and 6, and Saberist B attacks again at step 9. Neither Saberist holds the attack for long, which is what gives the movement its back-and-forth shape.
S-CCW and S-CW are spins, counter clockwise and clockwise, listed as S CCW and S CW in the Notation Legend. There are four of them, and both Saberists spin together at step 2.
© is a complete, taught in CM-C. Saberist B's 2© and 5© carry through rather than stopping, and Saberist A answers them with D — a duck — and then J + S-CCW, a jump into a counter-clockwise spin.
3Pm6 is a parry with a modifier. It is a 3 parry taken with the tip pointing down at 6, the example the Notation Legend gives for M. Saberist A uses it twice, at steps 9 and 11.
Re is a recoil, a bounce back off the parry. Saberist B recoils at step 7 and Saberist A at step 16, in both cases immediately after their attack has been answered.
x holds into the next move. At step 11 both Saberists write it — 3Pm6x against 9x — and at step 12 both rows carry x alone. The blades stay bound across two beats before the movement continues.
Steps 13 and 14 are identical in both rows. 1B and then 11B are bashes struck by both Saberists on the same beat, on the same line.
Special closes the movement. As in CM-E, the notation names the slot and the Saberists performing it choose what fills it.
A blank cell means nothing is written for that Saberist on that beat. They hold while the other acts.

Telegraph

Both Saberists point their saber tips down at 45°. Saberist B holds at shoulder level; Saberist A at mid-section level.

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

Inverting the exchange

A movement has a direction. In CM-A the attacker comes forward and the defender holds or gives way; in CM-F the whole second table travels backwards while one Saberist retreats from a series of swings. Watch any of the Core Library from across a room and you can see which way the exchange is running.

CM-M is the movement that runs the other way, and it is worth being precise about what that means. The defending Saberist does not simply stand their ground. They step into the attack, take it at a shorter distance than it was thrown for, and end the beat closer to their partner than they began it. The attack was designed for one distance and it arrives at another, and that is the whole mechanism.

The notation shows it in the first four steps. Saberist B opens with a 7 and follows it with two completes, 2© and 5© — long, carried swings that need room. Saberist A does not take a single step back against any of them. The 7 is parried, the 2© is ducked, and the 5© is answered with a jump into a spin. Three attacks, three answers, and no ground given.

The cost of that is timing, and it falls on both Saberists. A completing swing thrown at a partner who is closing is a swing whose safe distance is changing while it travels, so Saberist B is committing to an arc that has to clear a target which is not where it was when the swing began. Saberist A has to be under the swing early, not on time. Late is not a smaller version of correct here; late is the blade arriving where the head is.

What the pressure buys is the turnover at step 5. Saberist A, having closed all the way through the opening, is already at the distance an attack needs — so the 4 and the 12 at steps 5 and 6 do not require a step forward to set them up. The defence has done that work. Saberist B recoils at step 7, spins away at step 8, and attacks on the 3 at step 9, and the exchange has changed hands twice in nine beats without either Saberist travelling to make it happen.

Then the movement stops dead. 3Pm6x against 9x binds the blades, and both rows carry x again at step 12, so the bind is held for two full beats. That is the only stillness in CM-M, and it sits directly after the busiest run in the movement. In performance it is where an audience catches up with what they have just watched.

Out of the bind come the two beats that make CM-M unmistakable. At step 13 both Saberists strike 1B, and at step 14 both strike 11B — the same bash, on the same line, on the same beat, from both sides. Nobody is defending. Two attacks meet in the middle twice in a row, and the identical cells in both rows are the notation saying exactly that. These are the two beats to set most carefully, because there is no parry in either row to control what happens if one Saberist is early.

The finish returns the movement to normal order: Saberist B attacks 12, Saberist A parries and recoils, and CM-M ends on a Special. After a sequence spent inverting the exchange, ending on an open slot is fitting — the last word belongs to the Saberists performing it.

Purpose

CM-M is designed to teach:

answering an attack by closing distance rather than giving ground
turning a defence into forward pressure
reading a completing attack early enough to duck or jump it while advancing
spins as part of the exchange rather than decoration between beats
a parry written with a modifier, 3Pm6
holding a bind across beats with x
bashes struck by both Saberists on the same beat
passing the attack back and forth without either Saberist travelling to set it up

Training method

Phase 1: Distance

Before any of the sequence is performed, agree the two distances the movement uses.

Stand at the distance Saberist B's completes are thrown for, then have Saberist A walk forward to the distance they will actually be answered at. Both Saberists should see how much shorter the second one is. Everything in CM-M depends on that gap being understood before it is performed at speed.

Phase 2: The opening statically

Walk steps 1 to 4 one at a time, with a full stop after each.

Confirm at every step:

both Saberists agree which target the number names
the parry, duck or jump meets the attack cleanly
Saberist A finishes the step closer than they started it
the step can be repeated the same way

Perform the completes at half their eventual length for now.

Phase 3: The duck and the jump-spin

Practise 2© against D, and 5© against J + S-CCW, as isolated pairs of beats.

These are the two most dangerous beats in the movement, because both are a carried swing answered by a Saberist who is moving toward it. Set the height of each swing and the timing of the answer slowly and by agreement, and repeat each pair until the two Saberists arrive together every time. The spin is added to the jump only once the jump alone is reliable.

Phase 4: The turnover

Walk steps 5 to 10 one at a time.

This is where the attack changes hands, and the thing to watch is that neither Saberist steps to make it happen. If Saberist A has to move forward to reach the 4, the opening did not close enough distance — go back to Phase 2 rather than fixing it here.

Phase 5: The bind and the bashes

Practise steps 11 and 12 as a held pair, then steps 13 and 14.

Enter the bind slowly and by agreement, and hold it for a full count of two before releasing. Then set the two bashes: they are struck simultaneously, so agree the line, the height and the meeting point for each, and run them at low speed for far longer than they appear to need.

Phase 6: The finish

Decide what the Special will be, and run steps 15 to 17 as a unit.

Choose the special move before practice, not during it, and keep it the same every repetition. The recoil at step 16 is what sets it up, so the two are rehearsed together rather than separately.

Phase 7: Slow continuous flow, then pace

Put all seventeen steps together at low speed, then bring the movement up to performance pace.

The seams are the entry to the bind, the exit from it, and the two bashes. Speed is added to the parries, the spins and the attacks; it is never added to the bind, the bashes or the jump.

Teaching note

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

The hazard that belongs to this movement is the closing distance. Every other movement in the library is safe at a distance the pair sets once and keeps. CM-M is not: the distance shortens inside the opening by design, and it shortens while carried swings are in the air. The pair should set the closest point the movement reaches and rehearse there, rather than setting the starting distance and discovering the closest point at speed.

The two mutual bashes carry the same warning in a different form. Steps 13 and 14 have no parry in either row, which means neither Saberist is answering the other — both are attacking, and the blades meet because they were aimed to. Beats like that are agreed in advance, run slowly, and never accelerated to make them look stronger.

It is also worth naming what CM-M does to the notation. Nothing new was needed to write a sequence that runs backwards. The same target numbers, parries and completes describe an exchange moving toward the attacker instead of away from it, because the notation records what happens between two Saberists rather than which way the fight is drifting. Direction is something a movement has, not something the language has to be taught.

When CM-M is clean, continue to CM-N, which brings a second saber into the exchange, or return to the Extended Library.