I am a Wing Chun man, who was lucky enough to have a brilliant Sifu.
Wing Chun was originally developed in secret at the Sil Lum temple in Shaolin as a brutally effective art to rapidly train a rebel army to take on the Manchus, who had occupied most of Northern China and parts of the South with an iron fist and an overwhelming army of stormtroopers... sound familiar?
But I also trained briefly in Sakura Kan Jiu Jitsu.
My understanding of the history of Sakura Kan Jiu Jitsu, is it was the open hand combat technique of the feudal samurai.
As you can imagine, any samurai who found himself thrown from his horse in the middle of a battlefield, with no katana, short-sword or pike/spear, was in a world of trouble, and any Jedi (or Sith) who lost their sabre would be in the same (sinking) boat.
As a result, Sakura Kan training involves the most direct and brutal moves available - the idea being to f*** someone up very quickly, take their weapon, and maybe survive.
Our training involved a lot of Judo throws and grappling, a lot of simultaneous defence/attack techniques I recognised from Wing Chun, and a LOT of how-to-grapple-a-weapon-off-your-opponent-and-kill-them-with-it training.
We were also regularly trainied in techniques like diving somersaults over a katana swung at waist height, or diving under a katana swung at neck height. Another favourite was "how to fall face first onto a knife sticking out of the ground and keep your chest from being impaled".
All of which would be wonderful techniques to learn and incorporate into fan-films.
For example, a scene where your lightsabre is lost facing multiple enemies. A diving somersault/forward roll over a waist-high sabre swing, rising up to grasp the second opponent's hilt and elbow, using their own sabre to impale them from behind* as you deliver a high kick to opponent #1 to knock them back for a moment, then turning back to face opponent #1 with opponent #2's blood-spattered sabre as opponent #2 crumples at your feet?
EPIC!!
I don't face psychotic swordsmen most Saturday nights at the local bar, and in a real-world fight I use Wing Chun to defend myself.
But if you want to learn techniques that involve unarmed warriors versus warriors with swords - that will look good on film - then my personal opinion and advice is to seek out a qualified Sakura Kan Jiu Jitsu Sensei.
Be aware that belts are hard-earned in Sakura-Kan, and often the instructor will hold a "lowly" coloured belt, so judge them on ability, not on any expectation that anyone lower than a black-belt is a novice.
Hope that was helpful
