CM-V

CM-V interprets the duel between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi from the third episode of Kenobi.

It is twenty-seven steps of one-sided pressure. Saberist A attacks almost without pause; Saberist B answers six of those attacks by parrying and then shoving the attacker away, and never once takes the initiative. What the movement trains is what to do when you cannot win an exchange and can only survive it.

CM-V was notated by Stephen Carter.

Notation

CM-V is written in three tables, numbered continuously through all twenty-seven steps.

Wide tables

The tables below are wide. On a phone, turn the device landscape; any of them can also be scrolled sideways.

The opening

Player	s1	s2	s3	s4	s5	s6	s7	s8	s9	s10
Saberist A	9B	0	10©	3B	Pause	9	Pause	5	9	Pause
Saberist B	9P + Pushback	St-B+L	D	3P + Pushback		9P		5P	9P + Pushback

The middle

Player	s11	s12	s13	s14	s15	s16	s17	s18	s19	s20
Saberist A	9		5	9x	9B	Pause	12	9		7Px
Saberist B	9P + Pushback	S CCW	5P	9Px	9P + Pushback		11P	9P + Pushback	S CW	7x

The finish

Player	s21	s22	s23	s24	s25	s26	s27
Saberist A	11x	SS > CCW	x12	Pause	12x	Guide x12 > x9	Force Push
Saberist B	11Px	SS > CW	11P		11Px	Guide	x11P > x9P

Read down each column as usual. Two words repeat more than any target number does: Pushback in Saberist B's row and Pause in Saberist A's.

Six of Saberist B's cells end in Pushback. Each is a parry and then a shove — 9P + Pushback five times and 3P + Pushback once — and each is answered on the following beat by a Pause or by Saberist A resetting to attack again.
Five of Saberist A's cells are Pause, and Saberist B has none. The attacking Saberist is the one who stops, every time, and it is always immediately after being pushed away or after a bash.
The 9 line carries the movement. Saberist A attacks it seven times across the twenty-seven steps. No other line appears more than twice.
B is a bash, 0 is a thrust as in CM-D, and © is a complete, taught in CM-C. All three appear in the first four steps, before the movement settles into its pattern.
x keeps a lock into the next move, from the Notation Legend. The last third of the movement is almost entirely bound: 9x against 9Px, 7Px against 7x, 11x against 11Px, then x12, 12x and 11Px again.
SS is the saber stand-off, the prolonged lock taught in CM-G and written S+S in the Legend. At step 22 both Saberists turn inside it, and their cells name opposite directions — SS > CCW against SS > CW. The demonstration video shows the turn.
Guide is written in both rows at step 26, where Saberist A's cell reads Guide x12 > x9: a bound blade moved from the 12 line to the 9 line while the bind is kept, with Saberist B guided along with it and answering x11P > x9P at the finish.
St-B+L is footwork — step back and left, from the Legend's St-B and St-L — and D is a duck. They are Saberist B's only two answers in the movement that are neither a parry nor a lock.
Force Push closes the movement, written for Saberist A alone.
A blank cell means nothing is written for that Saberist on that beat.

Pushing back

Defence in the Core Library is a parry. The attack arrives, the blade meets it, and the exchange either changes hands — as CM-D sets out — or continues. Nothing in that arrangement addresses the situation CM-V is about, which is being attacked by someone you cannot answer.

Look at Saberist B's row across the whole movement. There is not one attack in it. Twenty-seven steps, and every cell is a parry, a lock, a step, a duck, a spin, or a shove. That much is shared with CM-L, which is also a defence with no counter in it. What CM-V adds is the shove.

9P + Pushback is a parry with something on the end of it. The blade meets the attack, and then Saberist B drives the attacker away — not to gain an opening, because Saberist B never takes one, but simply to make room. It happens six times, and the pattern around it is always the same: the parry stops the attack, the pushback buys distance, and Saberist A's next cell is a Pause or a fresh approach.

That is what makes the movement read the way it does. A defender who only parries looks overwhelmed. A defender who parries and shoves looks like someone holding a losing position on purpose, which is a different thing and a much harder thing to perform. The pushback is the difference between surviving and being beaten slowly, and it is written into the notation rather than left to acting.

Saberist A's pauses are the other half of the same idea. Five times the attacking Saberist simply stops — after the opening flurry, after a bash, after being pushed away. An attacker who never pauses is a machine, and an audience stops believing the defender can survive. The pauses are where the attacking Saberist chooses to stop, and they are what make the pressure legible as pressure rather than as noise.

Then the movement changes character completely. From step 14 onward, almost every beat is bound. 9x against 9Px, 7Px against 7x, 11x against 11Px — the lower-case x carries each bind into the next step rather than releasing it, so what would elsewhere be a series of separate locks is one long engagement that keeps changing shape. Distance, which the pushbacks kept opening, closes and stays closed.

At the centre of that is the stand-off at step 22, and it is the moment the whole movement has been arranged around. Both Saberists turn inside the bind. Their cells name opposite directions — SS > CCW and SS > CW — so the two of them rotate as one thing, which is only possible because the bind before it was held rather than remade.

The last two steps are unlike anything else in the library. Guide x12 > x9 moves a bound blade from one line to another without letting go of it, with Guide written in Saberist B's row too, because a guided blade needs both Saberists working. And then Force Push, written for Saberist A alone, with Saberist B's blade travelling x11P > x9P as it lands.

That ending is worth understanding for what it says about the movement rather than for its effect. CM-V spends twenty-six steps establishing that Saberist B can hold this off — parrying everything, shoving the attacker back six times, never once giving ground for free. Then the fight ends with something no parry answers. The pushbacks worked until they did not, which is exactly the shape of the scene the movement comes from.

Purpose

CM-V is designed to teach:

defending for a full movement without ever taking the initiative
the parry-and-shove, and using distance rather than a counterattack as the answer
pausing as an attacker, so that pressure reads as deliberate
carrying a bind across many consecutive steps with x
turning inside a stand-off, with each Saberist naming their own direction
guiding a bound blade from one line to another
sustaining a single-line attack — seven attacks on the 9 — without it going flat

Training method

Phase 1: The parry and the shove

Practise 9P + Pushback on its own, statically, before any sequence.

This is the movement's foundation and it appears six times, so it deserves more repetitions than anything else here. Agree exactly where the hands go, how far Saberist A travels, and how hard the shove is — then keep all three fixed. The Saberist being pushed provides the movement; the shove does not throw anybody.

Phase 2: The opening statically

Walk steps 1 to 10 one at a time, with a full stop after each.

Confirm at every step:

both Saberists agree which target the number names
the parry meets the attack cleanly before the shove begins
the pauses are held for an agreed count rather than passed through
distance is safe
the step can be repeated the same way

Phase 3: The repeated 9

Run steps 11, 15 and 18 as a set, out of sequence.

Saberist A attacks the 9 line seven times in this movement, and each one has to look like a fresh attempt rather than a repetition. Work on approaching the same line from different distances and at different speeds. This is a performance problem, not a technical one, and it is the thing most likely to make CM-V dull.

Phase 4: The bind

Practise 9x into 9Px, 7Px into 7x, and 11x into 11Px as a continuous run.

The skill is the join rather than the lock: each bind is carried into the next step rather than released and remade. Enter every one slowly and by agreement, and walk the whole run at a quarter speed until both Saberists know where the other's blade is throughout.

Phase 5: The stand-off and the turn

Set step 22 on its own.

Both Saberists turn inside a held bind, each in the direction their own cell names. Settle the stand-off first, without turning at all, then add rotation a quarter turn at a time, stopping at each stage to check the blades are still bound and neither Saberist has had to reach. Check the floor around the pair before every repetition.

Phase 6: The guide and the finish

Practise Guide x12 > x9 against Guide, then the last beat.

A guided blade moves because both Saberists move it, so agree the path, the speed and the end position. Then set the Force Push and Saberist B's answer as an agreed pair — what it is, how far Saberist B travels, and how they arrive — exactly as any special move is agreed in CM-E.

Phase 7: The whole movement, then pace

Join all twenty-seven steps at low speed.

Speed goes into Saberist A's attacks and Saberist B's parries. It does not go into the shoves, the binds, the stand-off, the guide or the finish. If either Saberist loses the sequence, restart from the beginning of the table they are in.

Teaching note

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

The hazard that belongs to this movement is the pushback, and it is a hazard precisely because it happens six times and starts to feel routine. Hands on a partner are agreed the way an attack is agreed — placement, distance, force — and they are re-agreed at the start of every session rather than assumed from the last one. A pushback that grows by a few inches each repetition is the normal way this goes wrong, and neither Saberist will notice it happening.

The long bind is the other thing to watch. From step 14 to the end, the two Saberists are close together with blades engaged for most of the movement, and closeness that lasts stops registering as closeness. Reset the distance deliberately between repetitions.

It is also worth telling students what a row without a single attack in it is doing here. CM-L wrote one for a Saberist who parries sixteen times. CM-V writes another, and adds a way for that Saberist to affect the fight without ever striking — by taking back distance. A movement can be entirely defensive and still have both Saberists acting on each other, and the notation says so plainly: Pushback is a cell like any other.

When CM-V is clean, continue to CM-W, or return to the Extended Library.