CM-P

CM-P interprets the duel between Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, the same fight CM-M draws on.

At twenty-eight steps it is the longest movement in the Extended Library, and it is the first one written all the way to a conclusion. The exchanges do not simply stop when the sequence runs out: one Saberist goes to the ground, loses the saber, and the other picks it up. CM-P is choreography for the end of a fight.

CM-P was notated by Kristianna Jones, assisted by Victoria de Cun.

Notation

CM-P runs twenty-eight steps, written in three 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	s8	s9	s10
Saberist A	Kick	4	9	5	7B	5©	Plum	1x 180	P CC	1B
Saberist B	Drama	4P	9P Inv	5P	7B	Jump back	Plum Turn CC	1PX 180	Spin away	1B

Part 2

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7	s8	s9	s10
Saberist A	7B	1B	12	5B	7B	3	3P Inv	1	12	3X
Saberist B	7B	1B	12P	5B	7B	3P Inv	3	1P	12P	3P X

Part 3

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7	s8
Saberist A	12 R	11@	Turn CW	9 BB	12 Px	Step side	12 push	Take saber
Saberist B	11 @	12R	Turn CCW	9 P Inv	12 X	Fall 0	Saber down

Read down each column as usual. The thing to watch across all three tables is how often both rows carry the same cell.

B is a bash, from CM-E, and CM-P is built on it. 7B in Part 1, then 7B, 1B, 5B, 7B through Part 2 — and in every one of those beats both Saberists write the same cell, so both are striking rather than one answering the other.
Plum is the plum flourish, listed as Fl-OA in the Notation Legend. Both Saberists perform it at step 7 of Part 1, Saberist B turning counter clockwise out of it.
© is a complete, taught in CM-C. Saberist A's 5© at step 6 of Part 1 carries through, which is why Saberist B answers it with Jump back rather than a parry.
X is a lock and x holds into the next move. 1x 180 against 1PX 180 binds the blades and turns the pair 180° while they are bound; Part 2 closes on 3X against 3P X; Part 3 locks again at 12 Px against 12 X.
The attack changes hands repeatedly in Part 2. Steps 6 and 7 trade it inside two beats: 3 against 3P Inv, then 3P Inv against 3, the same pair of cells swapped between the rows.
Inv marks several parries — 9P Inv, 3P Inv, 9 P Inv — and Kick is the opening beat, listed as K in the Notation Legend.
Part 3 opens on a swap. Saberist A's 12 R meets Saberist B's 11 @, and on the next beat the two cells change places. Both Saberists then turn, one clockwise and one counter clockwise.
The movement ends with a fall and a disarm. Saberist B's last cells are Fall 0 and Saber down; Saberist A's are 12 push and Take saber. Nothing is written for Saberist B on the final beat.
Some cells are written in the lesson's own shorthand — Drama, P CC, 9 BB, 11@. The demonstration video shows those beats.

Telegraph

Claw, then position 1.

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

Bashing, and a fight that ends

Most movements are an argument between an attack and an answer. One row says 1, the other says 1P, and the exchange is a conversation in which each Saberist is doing something different from the other. CM-P spends a great deal of its length doing away with that.

Look at Part 2. Steps 1, 2, 4 and 5 are 7B, 1B, 5B, 7B — and both rows are identical on every one. Neither Saberist is defending. Two blades are driven at the same line at the same moment and stopped against each other, four times in five beats. That is a bash used the way this movement uses it: not as a way to break a guard, but as the sound of two people who have stopped trying to out-fence one another.

It has a specific effect in performance, and it is worth naming for students. A parry reads as skill — someone saw the attack and answered it. A mutual bash reads as force, because nobody answered anything. A run of them reads as a fight that has become a struggle. That is the shape the middle of CM-P is drawing, and it is why the bashes come in runs rather than singly.

It is also why they are the most carefully rehearsed beats on the page. In every other movement, a mistimed attack meets a parry that was placed to receive it. Here there is no parry in either row, so the only thing keeping a mutual bash safe is that both Saberists agreed on the line, the height and the meeting point beforehand and have not drifted from it.

Between the runs, the movement keeps handing the attack back and forth faster than anything before it. Steps 6 and 7 of Part 2 are the clearest case: 3 against 3P Inv, and then exactly the same two cells with the rows exchanged. The attack is taken, answered, and returned in two beats. Part 3 opens the same way, with 12 R and 11 @ swapping places between steps 1 and 2. A Saberist who thinks of themselves as the attacker or the defender for any length of time will be behind in this movement, because the roles change every second or third beat.

Then there is the finish, and it is what makes CM-P different from everything before it.

Every movement so far ends because the notation runs out. The last attack is parried, or the blades bind, or a special move closes the phrase, and the two Saberists are still standing in the same relationship they started in. CM-P ends because one of them loses. Saberist B thrusts and falls, the saber goes down, Saberist A pushes on the 12 line and picks the weapon up. Eight beats of Part 3 do what the previous twenty could not: they settle the fight.

That asks something new of both Saberists. Saberist B has to fall — deliberately, on a chosen line, in a controlled way, while holding a saber they are about to give up. Saberist A has to take a weapon from a partner who is on the ground, which means arriving at a known place at a known speed, with a hand-off both have practised. Neither is a fencing skill. Both are performance skills, and CM-P is where the library asks for them.

The reason to learn a movement written to a conclusion is that a duel in performance needs one. A sequence that stops is a drill; a sequence that resolves is a scene. Everything CM-P teaches before Part 3 — the bash runs, the fast handovers, the bound turn — is arranged so that the fall, when it comes, reads as the outcome of what happened rather than as the point at which the choreography ran out.

Purpose

CM-P is designed to teach:

sustaining a twenty-eight step movement across three tables
bashes struck by both Saberists on the same line and the same beat
runs of bashes as the shape of a fight rather than as single events
passing the attack back and forth every few beats
turning 180° with the blades bound
the plum flourish performed by both Saberists together
staging a controlled fall as part of choreography
finishing a movement with a disarm taken from the ground

Training method

Phase 1: Part 1 statically

Walk the ten 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 parry, jump or bash meets the attack cleanly
the opening kick is thrown to an agreed target, at an agreed distance, with no contact
the step can be repeated the same way

Perform the complete at step 6 at half its eventual length for now.

Phase 2: The flourish and the bound turn

Practise step 7 and step 8 of Part 1 as isolated beats.

Both Saberists flourish at the same moment, so agree the timing before either moves. Then set the bound turn: the blades meet on the 1 line, hold, and the pair rotates 180° together. Enter it slowly, every time, and agree which way the turn goes before it is attempted.

Phase 3: The bash runs

Practise the four bashes of Part 2 as a block, at low speed.

This is the most important phase in the movement and the one to spend the most time on. For each of 7B, 1B, 5B and 7B, both Saberists set the line, the height and the exact point where the blades meet, and then repeat it until it is identical every time. Nothing in either row defends, so the agreement is the safety.

Phase 4: The handovers

Walk steps 6 to 10 of Part 2 one at a time.

The attack changes hands twice inside these five beats. Take them slowly enough that both Saberists can say out loud, at each step, which of them is attacking — and keep taking them slowly until neither has to.

Phase 5: Part 3 to the fall

Walk steps 1 to 5 of Part 3, ending at the lock.

The two opening cells swap between the rows, and the turns go opposite ways, so this is a short block that is easy to mirror incorrectly. Confirm the direction of each turn before running it.

Phase 6: The fall and the disarm

Practise the last three steps on their own, on a floor that has been checked.

Saberist B sets the fall first, without a saber in hand, until it is safe and repeatable. Then it is rehearsed holding the saber, then with the saber going down on an agreed spot. Only then is the hand-off added: Saberist A steps in and takes the saber from a known place, at walking speed. This block is never brought up to performance pace.

Phase 7: Continuous flow, then pace

Run each part end to end, then all twenty-eight steps at low speed, and only then add speed.

Speed belongs to the attacks, parries and handovers. It does not belong to the bashes, the bound turn, the fall or the disarm, and CM-P reads better when the ending is slower than the middle.

Teaching note

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

Three hazards belong to this movement, and all three are unusual. The first is the volume of mutual bashes: six beats across the movement where both rows carry the same cell and neither Saberist is defending. The second is the bound 180° turn, where the pair rotates with the blades together and each Saberist loses sight of the other partway through. The third is the fall, which is the only time in the library a Saberist goes to the ground inside a sequence — it is rehearsed on a checked floor, on its own, without a weapon before with one, and it is never accelerated.

The disarm at the end deserves its own note. A saber is taken from a partner who is lying down, which means the two Saberists are at very different heights and one of them cannot move away. Agree exactly where the saber lands, exactly where Saberist A stands to collect it, and treat the whole beat as a hand-off rather than as a grab.

It is also worth naming what a written ending does for a performance. The notation did not need a new symbol to say that a fight is over — a fall, a saber down and a saber taken are written in the same cells as any other action. What the sequence gains is a shape: a beginning that opens with a kick, a middle that grinds through bashes, and an end that resolves. That is a scene rather than an exchange, and it is what the Extended Library has been building toward.

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