CM-O

CM-O, known in the school as Space Samurai, interprets the duel between Musashi and Tanaka from Westworld, Season 2, Episode 5.

It is the first movement in the library that is not a single sequence. CM-O joins two separate choreographies end to end and performs them as one continuous movement, which makes it the longest piece of unbroken choreography an Extended Library Saberist has met so far.

The notation is by Amen Abdou. Both roles are demonstrated in the lesson video by Amen Abdou and Alexis Adames.

Notation

CM-O is written in four tables, read in order. The first two are the opening sequence; the last two are the sequence joined onto it.

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 (Tanaka)	7©	1©	9©	5©	12	1B	0
Saberist B (Musashi)	Dodge L	Dodge R	Dodge Back	Spin R>L	12P	1B	0P L>R

Part 2

Player	s1	s2	s3
Saberist A (Tanaka)	7B	1X	SS
Saberist B (Musashi)	7B	1X	SS (Push L)

Part 3

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7
Saberist A (Tanaka)	4P	8P	4P	8P	1	9©-B	4
Saberist B (Musashi)	4	8	4	8	1P	7©-B	4

Part 4

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4
Saberist A (Tanaka)	0	7P	5X	12X
Saberist B (Musashi)	0P-UP	7	5X-M	12X (Ig)

Read down each column as usual, and read the four tables as one movement rather than four.

Part 1 belongs to Saberist A. Four completes in a row — 7©, 1©, 9©, 5© — and not one of them is parried. © is a complete, taught in CM-C, and Saberist B answers all four by leaving the line: Dodge L, Dodge R, Dodge Back, then Spin R>L.
The roles swap at Part 3. Saberist B attacks 4, 8, 4, 8 while Saberist A parries all four, and then the attack changes hands again at step 5, where 1 meets 1P.
B is a bash and X is a lock, both taught in CM-E. Steps 6 of Part 1 and 1 to 2 of Part 2 run 1B, then 7B, then 1X — with both Saberists writing the same cell each time.
SS is the saber stand-off, the prolonged lock listed as S+S in the Notation Legend. It ends Part 2, with Saberist B pushing left out of it.
0 is a thrust, as in CM-D. It closes Part 1, answered by 0P L>R, and opens Part 4, answered by 0P-UP — a thrust parry taken upward.
Ig is the inverted grip from CM-J, and it appears in the last cell of the movement: Saberist B locks 12X in an inverted grip against Saberist A's 12X.
Step 7 of Part 3 is written 4 in both rows, and step 6 pairs a complete on the 9 line against a complete on the 7 line. The demonstration video shows how both beats resolve.
Both locks in Part 4 are held. 5X against 5X-M and 12X against 12X (Ig) finish the movement bound rather than struck.

Telegraph

Saberist A steps forward, bends the front knee at 45°, places the saber at the rear hip as if holstered, and tilts the head forward as if to lunge.

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

Two sequences in one movement

Every movement so far has been one sequence. It has a telegraph, a shape, a finish, and when the finish arrives the movement is over. CM-O is two of those, performed without stopping between them, and that changes what a Saberist has to hold in their head.

The joining place is what makes it work. Part 1 ends on a thrust and its parry; Part 2 opens with a mutual bash and closes in a stand-off; Part 3 opens with the attack in the other Saberist's hands. Nothing announces the seam. There is no reset, no return to guard, no second telegraph — the stand-off simply releases and the second sequence is already running.

That is why the stand-off is where it is. SS is a prolonged lock, held while both Saberists are bound and neither is moving, and it is the one point in a long movement where the pair can find each other again. It absorbs the seam: whatever was slightly early or slightly late in Part 1 is corrected inside the hold, and both Saberists come out of it together into Part 3. A join placed anywhere else would need the pair to be in perfect agreement at speed. Placed at a lock, it needs only that they arrive.

The two halves are also built differently, and running them back to back is the point of the exercise.

Part 1 is asymmetric. One Saberist attacks with four carried completes and the other never touches them, answering with Dodge L, Dodge R, Dodge Back and a spin. That is CM-F's lesson — the body leaving the line instead of the blade meeting it — but performed with a saber in hand, against completes, and while the dodges themselves travel left, right and backwards. A Saberist who dodges late here has nothing to fall back on, because a complete does not stop.

Part 3 is symmetric. 4, 8, 4, 8 against 4P, 8P, 4P, 8P is the plainest attack-and-parry writing in the Extended Library — four beats where both rows say the same thing about the same lines, and the only difference is the P. After the dodges of Part 1 it reads as the fight settling into a rhythm, which is exactly what a repeated four-beat exchange does to an audience.

Then the movement ends on locks rather than a strike. 5X and 12X bind twice in the last three beats, the second with Saberist B in an inverted grip, and CM-O finishes with both blades held together and neither Saberist struck. A movement that opened with four unanswered swings ends with nothing moving at all.

The demand this makes is stamina of attention rather than of body. Eleven steps into a twenty-one step movement, both Saberists are still inside choreography they agreed on a minute earlier, with no reset to recover from a mistake. Lose the count in Part 3 and there is no telegraph to catch it. That is the skill CM-O trains, and it is the reason to keep the two halves as one piece rather than teaching them as two.

Purpose

CM-O is designed to teach:

performing two sequences as one continuous movement with no reset between them
holding a long count without a telegraph to recover on
dodging completing attacks with a saber still in hand
using a stand-off as the seam that joins two sequences
symmetric attack-and-parry rhythm across repeated lines
thrusts and their parries, taken both across and upward
finishing a movement on a lock rather than a strike
locking in an inverted grip

Training method

Phase 1: 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
the dodge leaves the line the complete is travelling on
the complete is thrown at a length both Saberists have agreed
the step can be repeated the same way

The four completes are the reason to take this slowly. A dodge cannot be late, because there is no blade in the way of a swing that carries through.

Phase 2: Part 3 statically

Walk the seven steps of Part 3 the same way.

The four repeated beats — 4, 8, 4, 8 — are the easiest material in the movement and the easiest to run mechanically. Take them as four separate attacks with four separate parries, and only let them become a rhythm once each one is correct on its own.

Phase 3: The bashes, the lock and the stand-off

Practise Part 2 as three isolated beats.

Both Saberists write 7B and then 1X on the same beats, so both are moving toward the other with nothing defending. Set the meeting point for the bash, enter the lock slowly and by agreement, and then hold the stand-off for a full count before Saberist B pushes left out of it. This is the join between the two halves, and it deserves its own session.

Phase 4: The finish

Practise Part 4 on its own.

The thrust and its upward parry come first, then two locks in three beats, the last one taken in an inverted grip. Set the grip change before the lock rather than during it, and enter both locks slowly, as always.

Phase 5: Each half continuously

Run Part 1 into Part 2, and Part 3 into Part 4, as two separate runs.

Each half should be reliable end to end at low speed before the two are joined. If either Saberist loses the sequence, restart that half from its first step rather than picking it up mid-phrase.

Phase 6: The whole movement

Join the halves at the stand-off and run all twenty-one steps without stopping.

Expect the count to be the difficulty rather than any single beat. Run it slowly and completely, many times, before any of it is brought up to speed.

Phase 7: Performance pace

Add speed to the dodges and to the four repeated beats of Part 3, and leave the bashes, the locks and the stand-off where they are.

CM-O should read as one movement that changes character halfway through, not as two movements played in sequence. Holding the stand-off at its rehearsed length is what makes the join disappear.

Teaching note

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

Two hazards belong to this movement. The first is the opening: four completes in a row, none of them parried, answered only by a Saberist moving out of the way. Nothing stops those swings if a dodge is late, so the length of each complete is agreed before it is ever thrown at speed, and the dodges are rehearsed at full commitment from the first repetition. The second is the pair of mutual bashes, where both rows carry the same cell and neither Saberist is defending — beats like that are set slowly and never accelerated.

Length is a hazard in its own right here. Twenty-one steps with no reset is long enough for concentration to drift, and a movement is at its least safe on the beat after attention has wandered. Run CM-O in halves for longer than seems necessary, and stop the moment either Saberist starts to search for the next step.

It is also worth telling students what joining two sequences means for the notation. Nothing was added to the language to do it. Four tables in order are read exactly as one table in order would be, because the notation numbers steps within a sequence and says nothing about how many sequences a performance contains. That is what makes longer choreography possible without a longer vocabulary.

When CM-O is clean, continue to CM-P, or return to the Extended Library.