CM-S

CM-S shows that a movement can be built out of anything — including a shape. It takes the design of the letter S, runs it, then flips it and runs it the other way, and it introduces the lock spin: two Saberists bind their blades and turn their bodies together through the stand-off.

Nothing in the library before this one was drawn before it was notated. CM-S was, and that is the reason it is worth learning even before the lock spin is.

CM-S was notated by Spencer Jock.

Notation

CM-S is written in two tables, read in order.

Wide tables

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

Part 1

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7	s8	s9	s10
Saberist A	1	10©A	3	5©A	7X	SS+	SX-CCW	11	2©A	9
Saberist B	1P	Duck	3P	Jump	7X	SS+	SX-CCW	11P	Duck	9P

Part 2

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7	s8	s9
Saberist A	7©A	5X	SS+	SX-CW	Pause	12	12	3P	Special
Saberist B	Jump	5PX	SS+	SX-CW	Pause	B1-L	B1-R	S3

Read down each column as usual. The two tables are the same shape twice, turned the opposite way the second time.

©A is a complete across — a complete carried wide, vertically across — listed in the Notation Legend. CM-S is full of them: 10©A, 5©A, 2©A, 7©A, and every one is answered by leaving the line rather than meeting it, with a Duck or a Jump.
X is a lock, from CM-E, and SS+ is the saber stand-off, the prolonged lock listed as S+S in the Notation Legend. Each half of the movement locks, holds the stand-off, and then spins out of it.
SX-CCW and SX-CW are the lock spins. They are written in both rows at the same step, because a lock spin is one action performed by two people: the blades stay bound and both Saberists turn, counter clockwise in Part 1 and clockwise in Part 2.
Pause is a written beat. It follows the second lock spin, and it is held rather than passed through.
Part 2 answers Part 1. Both halves open with a complete across, close into a lock, hold a stand-off and spin — the second one turning the other way. That reversal is the shape the movement is named for.
Special closes the movement, in the sense CM-E gives it: the notation names the slot, and the Saberists performing it choose what fills it.
B1-L, B1-R and S3 are written in the lesson's own shorthand. They are Saberist B's three beats after the pause — the first two answering Saberist A's repeated 12, the third answered by Saberist A's 3P. The demonstration video shows them.

Telegraph

Draw a line in front of you across the ground.

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

The lock spin

A lock stops a fight. Two blades bind, both Saberists hold, and for as long as the bind lasts nothing travels — which is why locks are used as rests, as in CM-L, and as finishes, as in CM-O. A lock spin takes that still moment and makes it move.

The action is simple to describe and hard to do. The blades stay bound; both Saberists turn their bodies around the point where the blades meet; the bind is still there when they come out the other side. Notice how the notation writes it: SX-CCW appears in both rows, at the same step, spelled identically. That is unusual and it is deliberate. A 1 against a 1P is two Saberists doing different things that fit together. A lock spin is two Saberists doing the same thing, and the cell says so.

That single detail is the whole safety lesson. In an ordinary lock, each Saberist can hold their own blade steady and the bind stays where it is. In a lock spin, both are moving, so the bind only survives if both are moving at the same rate around the same centre. If one turns faster, the blades slide; if one turns wider, the bind opens. Neither Saberist can fix this alone, and neither can rescue it once it starts to go — which is why the stand-off comes first. SS+ sits immediately before both spins, and its job is to give the pair a held, settled bind to begin turning from.

The rest of CM-S exists to put the spin somewhere it makes sense, and this is where the shape comes in. Each half of the movement runs a line of attacks, gathers into a lock, holds, and turns — and then the second half does the same thing with the turn reversed. SX-CCW in Part 1, SX-CW in Part 2. Drawn on the floor by two Saberists moving, that is a curve, a turn, and a countercurve: the letter, and then the letter flipped. The telegraph tells you as much before the movement even starts, since it asks the Saberist to draw a line across the ground.

The attacks around the spins are chosen to keep that shape legible. Almost every one is a complete across, and every complete across is answered by a Duck or a Jump rather than a parry. That matters for the drawing: a parry stops an attack, and a stopped attack does not travel anywhere. A complete carried across, with the other Saberist dropping under it or leaving the ground over it, keeps the blade moving through its whole arc. The shape stays visible because nothing interrupts it.

Then there is the Pause. It comes directly after the second spin, and it is the only beat in the movement where the notation asks for nothing at all. Coming out of a lock spin, both Saberists are turned around, off their starting marks, and probably not quite where they expected to be. A written pause is how a notator says: arrive, settle, and let the audience see where you have ended up. Movements that leave that beat out play their best moment and then rush past it.

The finish is quick by comparison — two 12 attacks answered in succession, one exchange on the 3 line, and a Special — and it works because the shape has already been drawn. By that point CM-S has made its argument: a movement does not have to begin with a fight. It can begin with a line on the ground.

Purpose

CM-S is designed to teach:

building a movement out of a shape rather than out of an exchange
the lock spin, and reading a cell that both Saberists perform identically
entering a spin from a settled stand-off rather than from a fresh bind
turning both directions, so the shape is drawn and then mirrored
completes across, answered by ducking and jumping rather than parrying
holding a written Pause after the movement's biggest action
closing with a Special

Training method

Phase 1: Completes across, and the answers

Practise ©A on its own, with the ducks and jumps that answer it.

A complete across travels further than anything most Saberists have performed to this point, and four of them are in this movement. Set the height and the arc of each one, agree whether it is being ducked or jumped, and rehearse each pair until the two Saberists arrive together. Nothing carrying that much blade is run at speed early.

Phase 2: The stand-off

Practise the lock into SS+, held, without the spin.

Enter the bind slowly, settle it, and hold it for a full count. Both Saberists should be able to feel where the blades meet without looking at them. That contact point is the centre the spin will turn around, and it has to be reliable before anything rotates.

Phase 3: The lock spin, one direction

Add SX-CCW to the stand-off, at walking pace.

Turn together, slowly, one step at a time, keeping the bind. If the blades slide, stop and restart from the stand-off rather than correcting mid-turn. Both Saberists are performing the same action, so both should be counting it the same way — out loud, at first.

Phase 4: The lock spin, the other direction

Practise SX-CW the same way, then the Pause that follows it.

Reversing the turn is not automatic. The footwork changes, the bind is approached from the other side, and a pair comfortable with one direction will often be clumsy in the other. Give it its own session, and finish each repetition by holding the pause at full length.

Phase 5: 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 duck or jump leaves the line the complete across is travelling on
the lock, stand-off and spin happen exactly as rehearsed
the step can be repeated the same way

Phase 6: Part 2 statically

Walk the nine steps of Part 2 the same way, and decide what the Special will be.

Choose the special move before practice rather than during it, and keep it the same every repetition.

Phase 7: Continuous flow, then pace

Run each half end to end at low speed, join them, and only then add speed.

Speed belongs to the attacks and the answers. It does not belong to the stand-offs, the spins or the pause. CM-S should read as a shape being drawn steadily, and a rushed lock spin is both the least safe and the least legible thing in it.

Teaching note

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

The lock spin is the hazard, and it is a hazard of a kind the library has not presented before. Every other dangerous beat in the Extended Library is dangerous because one Saberist might be early or late. A lock spin is dangerous because two Saberists are turning while bound, so a mistake is not one blade arriving wrongly — it is a bind coming apart between two people who are both already committed to a rotation. Enter it only from a settled stand-off, turn at walking pace for far longer than seems necessary, and stop the whole movement rather than trying to save a spin that has started to slide.

The completes across carry the ordinary warning in a larger form. They are long, they are carried, and they are answered by a partner who is ducking under or jumping over them, so the height of each one is agreed and fixed before speed is added anywhere.

It is also worth telling students what CM-S is doing in the library at all. It is not an interpretation of a filmed fight and it does not come out of an exchange between two people. It began as a letter, and the choreography was fitted to it. That is a legitimate way to make a movement, and the notation records it no differently from anything else — which means a Saberist with a shape, a story or an idea has everything they need to write it down.

When CM-S is clean, continue to CM-T, or return to the Extended Library.