Should we establish light saber martial styles?

[SOTJ]

Ah, that clears things up quite a bit. The comparisons to the Force, then real life saber combat confused me (and I'm sure you understand why that would be a tad overly confusing). Uilos718 is correct though, quite a bit has already been done in this area. NY Jedi is a good example. Could you give an explanation of how those various techniques you listed connect with the Seven Forms? That would clear up any remaining confusion

[Master Rel]

I am working on the realistic relation to the seven forms.

That is the sort of conversation I wanted to have from day one.

The seven do seem to be more founded on the ideals of the Japanese sword culture.

This sort of structure of you follow it far enough back you will find high ranking samurai that had specific and unique techniques that they passed along to their students and fellow samurai.

General Yoshida Honda may favor a particular sword or technique, say the quick draw and cut rather than showing the blade first.

Etc. for each region and house.

I was looking to apply techniques from around the globe to provide more balance and universal appeal.

So it is my intent to find examples of the seven forms in martial arts/styles so we can overlay more than just fast, quick, aggressive, defensive, etc.

[navajas]

Sword training applies to LED sabers.

And thank you for taking the time to see my point.

To expand mine further with a little more time on my hands about why I think this has more to do with fiction than combat, take the quote above: I agree 100%. However, LED training applies in almost no meaningful way to "lightsabers". Where I'm not sure I get this thread (past the perfectly understandable fictional exercise) is the fact there already are myriad of ways to use and train with swords and clubs (jo would be good). Do them holding an Ultrasaber et voila!

Now "Lightsaber" martial arts in "reality" would bear almost no resemblance whatsoever to any of the above. Don't believe me? Spin your LED club around for a few minutes. Warm up, do some strikes, fancy ass flourishes here and there, whatever floats your speeder. Ok, now, take the blade off and do the same damn thing. Recognize the couple dozen times you'd have cut yourself in at least three pieces had the thing been real. And that's just the tip, OF the tip, of the iceberg. Parries, beats, stops, attacks, binds, holds, slips and ripostes that all have martial application with swords and clubs are at best utterly meaningless, and at worst suicidal, with a lightsaber. Momentum is irrelevant! Blade angle is irrelevant! Acceptable injury is non-existent! <---- That's a big, big deal in the real world.

Oops, the time I thought I had just evaporated.

[Master Rel]

And thank you for taking the time to see my point.

To expand mine further with a little more time on my hands about why I think this has more to do with fiction than combat, take the quote above: I agree 100%. However, LED training applies in almost no meaningful way to "lightsabers". Where I'm not sure I get this thread (past the perfectly understandable fictional exercise) is the fact there already are myriad of ways to use and train with swords and clubs (jo would be good). Do them holding an Ultrasaber et voila!

Now "Lightsaber" martial arts in "reality" would bear almost no resemblance whatsoever to any of the above. Don't believe me? Spin your LED club around for a few minutes. Warm up, do some strikes, fancy ass flourishes here and there, whatever floats your speeder. Ok, now, take the blade off and do the same damn thing. Recognize the couple dozen times you'd have cut yourself in at least three pieces had the thing been real. And that's just the tip, OF the tip, of the iceberg. Parries, beats, stops, attacks, binds, holds, slips and ripostes that all have martial application with swords and clubs are at best utterly meaningless, and at worst suicidal, with a lightsaber. Momentum is irrelevant! Blade angle is irrelevant! Acceptable injury is non-existent! <---- That's a big, big deal in the real world.

Oops, the time I thought I had just evaporated.

Alright, I'll bite.

If it was your purpose to get this thread on track for the Way of the Saber section then you could have just let it go once your note of compliance was acknowledged...

By your signature, you have a few LED sabers.

My thought would be why?

There is a disdain in your inference with the finger quotations, "lightsabers".

So if the idea is not to enjoy the act of swinging a lightsaber in the real world, hence why I suspect the majority of people who own and practice with LED sabers have them...the act of role playing jedi or sith from Star Wars.

If you just enjoy the LED sabers for what they represent in the real world, then that is cool.  A lit up stick with a grip.

It is not really a saber, no edge for reality checks.

It is a club.

If you are comfortable enough with your available skills or ability to find such, well then again, wonderful.

I certainly am.

But, as it is a point of belonging to a forum, a small community of like minded people to compare and share ideas.  Communicate these and other aspects to better ourselves.

So rather than relishing in my good luck and particular fortune for having significant martial training to apply to the act of using a LED saber in the real world...for the purpose of dueling in a jedi/sith aspect in a manner as close as is possible without video games...I choose to look at the collective threads and read what others are saying...I see quite a few questions about styles, forms, and a fair amount of unfamiliarity with using said LED sabers with confidence.

I said to myself "hey, start a thread to focus thoughts of LED saber dueling using real world martial arts...add to the existing information with input and interaction of the forum", so I did.

If I got carried away with the secondary fluff, well I accept this and will not lose any sleep.

I for one am interested in LED sabers for the connection to Star Wars.

If LED sabers mean something else to you, well that is just fantastic.

I can accept that this thread did not go as planned, but that is the nature of communication and creative process.

Nothing ventured and all.

And just a passing thought...I do put a fair amount of consideration to the actual real world aspects regarding the LED saber dueling, before I mention it.

As a trainer I understand that poor information can become a ugly layer cake, quickly.

"Where I'm not sure I get this thread (past the perfectly understandable fictional exercise) is the fact there already are myriad of ways to use and train with swords and clubs (jo would be good). Do them holding an Ultrasaber et voila!"

Actually the majority of the common sword, club, and short staff techniques have aspects of incidental and purpose contact that would be nightmarish if applied to what the LED sabers were meant to represent...lightsabers.  Jo staff as noted, bad choice as the majority of the hand grips consider the mid section as a pivot and alternate hand hold, used for applying pressure, striking, and breaking opponents grip of their weapon.

In fact most weapons of a related nature touch the user's body...with exception to some focus blade work as seen with styles that teach the wait and counterstrike approach.

Thus I was searching and hoping to get some help from the forum to fill in the gaps...

Kendo is quite close to the jedi ideal, within reason...it teaches focus, calm, and empty mind...all this creates a spring of potential without strain or stress; at a high level...low level is full of strain, stress, and much bruising.

But as with the seven forms, which I was seeking to put real world aspects to, there are other schools of thought rather than the Kendo focus and act.

I found myself thinking that I would approach the real world LED sabering as I had with my other training...that others may not have have the luck to partake of...that kendo ideal (not that my technique is ideal, hardly, more ¡Ay, caramba! than ideal)...but less than spectacular for a viewer, and as I am not training with LED sabers for some covert military aspect or clandestine operation I have to consider the potential audience and even my selfish appreciation of the effort...vanity is my name.

So I thought to ask a few questions out loud.

"which of the seven forms do you prefer?"  a common response was that these were not styles but rather an approach...hmmm

"Should we establish light saber martial styles?"

That is how I ended up starting this thread.

Not to hear myself think or read my own writing.

Not to argue inane concepts that bring nothing positive or constructive to the process.

You noted that the thread took a weird turn.

100% true, my fault.

Moving on...there is room IMO to develop or at least come to a general idea of what these forms would look like if applied to what we can do in the real world, with consideration of what these LED sabers represent...lightsabers.

As noted this does not mean everyone would have to acknowledge these or even use them...but some would and that would be worth the effort in my mind.

[navajas]

Man, knowing how much more pissed off I get when I'm pissed off and someone tells me to calm down I'll refrain here. It's not my intent to rile anyone. I have toy lightsbaers because they rock and lightsabers are the coolest thing ever. If only glowingly positive opinion is welcome here I can move on. I'll try and phrase my point one more time and if reading it still gets your spines all jacked up I'll leave you be:

Almost nothing you could learn or practice holding something like an ultra saber would be transferable in any practical way to a "real" lightsaber. I have nothing against fictional thought problems, and I engage in them regularly (Who would win in a fight, Indiana Jones or Han Solo?). Since your initial post confused many concepts (fiction from Star Wars, applicable real world skills, and BS make believe mystical marital art super powers) I didn't (sort of still don't) understand, baring in mind the preceding, what you're after.

Are we marrying Kendo with some Jedi lightsaber form? All the arm raised, downward, waist up, head centric, strikes of Kendo are all but pointless with a lightsaber. Look, to win a fight with a lightsaber all you have to do is pass the vector of the blade (at whatever arbitrary distance is described by the length set by the user) through almost any part of your opponent's body, at any time. No edge, no weight, no momentum, no strength, no force (little 'f') required. A lightsaber duel wouldn't look like a sword fight in any way we are used to conceiving, visualizing or choreographing. Hell, it'd probably look more like push hands than anything else.

That's what I don't get with what you're trying to do. There simply is no real world analogue for the skills required to actually use something like a lightsaber. Say we cross our blades in a classic Errol Flynn X. All I have to do to kill you is slide my arm forward, angle my blade toward your head and wiggle my wrist back and forth a couple times in your face. Of course you probably do not want me to do that, so, you'd shove the angle of my emitter out of line before I did. But I'd feel you trying to do that so I'd swim my blade under out of the way of your push and just run it down the length of yours till I sliced your fingers, then hilt, then torso, in half. But you'd notice the change of my attack and press that vector back out of the way and then simply point your hilt at me and move your arm down. If I didn't get out of the way or have the presence of mind to shift, lay my blade parallel with the ground and shove upwards, I'd be sliced down the middle like a stem of broccoli. After their initial clash, the blades in a lightsaber duel may very well never part until one person was dead.

And none of the above has any corollary at all with existing martial arts because there's nothing in the world as utterly lethal as a weightless infinitely sharp energy blade.

Does this mean we should all stop choreographing kick ass fight scenes? Course not. Just because Luke uses his lightsaber like it's a piece of re-bar does it mean I don't enjoy watching him hammer away at Darth as he lays on the ground? Hell no it doesn't. But as far as matching an existing martial art to their use, or creating one from scratch to mimic their real world application, I just don't think it's possible or fruitful.

[SOTJ]

If you'll notice, they clearly don't use the lightsabers the way you think they should So unless you've never seen the movies, or read any of the books, you should realize that the lightsabers are wielded somewhat similarly to swords. Even though your description of a duel would be more realistic, that is not what is used. Hence the Forms. Hence the idea that the Forms can be performed using real-world materials.

If only glowingly positive opinion is welcome here I can move on.

You can express negative opinion. No problem. But do it in a respectful way, if you really must express it. If you can't do that, move on.

[Master Nero Attoru]

All right guys, this is getting a bit ridiculous.  Enough sniping back and forth, it's time to let this one go.  Here, I'll try to mediate this as best I can.

Navajas has a point in that a true lightsaber would behave in no way like a sword or any other weapon we use in the real world.  A weightless energy blade would require a 100% different approach than a katana, or a broadsword, or a staff.  I'd like to thank him for bringing that up, because it's an excellent point that everyone, and I mean everyone, often forgets when talking about lightsabers.  Since we all use LED lightsabers as substitutes, we often get wrapped up in their usage and how it would apply to a REAL lightsaber.  Truth be told, while I love lightsabers, I'm not even 100% sure I'd be up for wielding one - all my knowledge and technique in using a blade would become more or less useless when I picked up the thing.  Because we can't really account for this, we just tend to treat lightsabers like real swords, and it's just one of those things that has to be assumed.

While I acknowledge the points Navajas makes, I can see where Relmeob began here.  I personally love the comparison of lightsaber forms and real world martial arts - it's one of the main concepts here in the "Way of the Saber" section.  He has stated previously that he has a pretty good amount of martial arts experience, so we always welcome that kind of positive contribution to the forum.  This section really celebrates that kind of thing, since after all the only way we really can approximate the Forms is through our own knowledge of various martial arts.

The only comment I have on this situation overall is that a clarification of Relmeob's purpose would be helpful to quell any further dispute.  I think the problem Navajas was having was that he couldn't really see what the intent of this thread was, and I admit I had the same issue.  Your first posts were lengthy yet informative, but unfortunately didn't really express what your point was.  You listed lightsaber forms and martial arts styles, very effectively comparing them, but ended it there.  The title, "Should we establish light saber martial arts styles," indicates to me that you wish to contemplate creating new martial arts styles based on lightsaber combat, yet your posts here seem to show that you wish to apply various existing ones.  Perhaps this could be further explained.

All tension aside, there is some very good information on this thread, so I encourage you all to sheathe your swords (see what I did there?) and work together for more productive lightsaber combat discussion.

[SOTJ]

That's sort of what I've been trying to say, sorry if I came across as sniping Jedi Relmeob already explained:

I am working on the realistic relation to the seven forms.

That is the sort of conversation I wanted to have from day one.

The seven do seem to be more founded on the ideals of the Japanese sword culture.

This sort of structure of you follow it far enough back you will find high ranking samurai that had specific and unique techniques that they passed along to their students and fellow samurai.

General Yoshida Honda may favor a particular sword or technique, say the quick draw and cut rather than showing the blade first.

Etc. for each region and house.

I was looking to apply techniques from around the globe to provide more balance and universal appeal.

So it is my intent to find examples of the seven forms in martial arts/styles so we can overlay more than just fast, quick, aggressive, defensive, etc.

[Master Rel]

All right guys, this is getting a bit ridiculous.  Enough sniping back and forth, it's time to let this one go.  Here, I'll try to mediate this as best I can.

Perhaps this could be further explained.

All tension aside, there is some very good information on this thread, so I encourage you all to sheathe your swords (see what I did there?) and work together for more productive lightsaber combat discussion.

Indeed.

I did take it personally as this is the first aggressive individual I have met on the forums. The subtle jabs and jibes tend to irritate to an extreme, actually one of the few things that really bother me...I do not expect or even desire everyone to agree with me or my opinion...just don't candy coat or camouflage  bellicose thoughts, say what you mean even if you are being an a-hole...

Again, my fault for adding all the bells and whistles to the original thought process...that is the part where we all were confused, me included...I started the thread with a lump of clay thought "hey..." and not a finished presentation.

I should have done a better job of establishing the proto nature of the original thought.

Yes I am sure real lightsabers would act differently than a broad sword or an actual saber, but that said I suspect there would be some relation to actual real world balance and function as the energy presents form...it is not an ethereal wisp of energy it is far more related to concentrated plasma held within a tight containment field...plasma has mass, mass has weight, weight has resistance, etc. I am thinking the weight is not so much the issue like a real world sword, the center of balance is much closer to the hand like a dagger but has the reach of a light long weapon like an epee or foil, with the impact of a great sword or more.

So while the spinning and flashy techniques that we often see on the movies and in our own efforts is fun to watch, it is also terrifying if you consider the reality of this blade touching your flesh on accident...but in the end we are enjoying the aspect of connecting to a science fantasy story...not science fiction...anti-gravity, millions of clones, thousands of alien species, terraforming, and even the light sabers as shown within the movies are complete fantasy...and that is ok...I love it all.

When we try to apply reality to the impossible then it is going to be a mess.

Now the aspect of the martial arts involved with using light sabers, that is something we can grasp and relate to...beyond the 20' backflips using the force and other magic aspects, which I like but lack the ability to emulate.

We do not have lightsabers, but we do have the shinai version...LED sabers.



A direct example of what I am considering, as it is ill advised to start learning to use a katana by using the sharpened sword itself...the learning curve would leave a bloody pile of phalanges, limbs, and portions of bodies.

So the shinai is a direct representative of the katana...as close as it can be.

I look at the LED sabers as wonderfully interactive lightsaber shinai; which is a compliment.

The clay nugget of an idea that started the thread is that we could apply real world martial art techniques to the established lightsaber concept forms.

Not necessarily the whole style per say, but perhaps a mixed martial arts approach...a little from wushu, some moves from kendo, and a flourish from pencak silat to better flesh out the form concept of form 3 for example.

We could share the form and function of these styles, pictures, videos, etc. and have a common point of interest and reference.

That is where I intended to go...again I apologize for the flash bang tactics to generate interest in the subject...it was just flag waving 

I just seek to apply what we can with what we have...we have the Star Wars background fluff, we have lightsaber shinai/LED sabers, and we have dozens+ of established martial art styles to pick from...in the end I would like to have a collection of real world examples of techniques to emulate the concept of the seven (and other varietal) forms.

Hopefully the current idea of the thread is on the right path and is less confusing with the intent.

Thanks everyone...all constructive input is welcome and encouraged...

[navajas]

It is surprising to me that you took anything I wrote to be "aggressive", or that anything I wrote were jabs or "snipes". I veil nothing. If I think your thought process or opinion is wrong or needs clarification, I tell you, as is obvious here. I WAS the first person to critique your thread but you must own the fact that you took it personally. I've been here a long time and you are the first person (people) to react so emotionally to me speaking my mind. The only "personal" comments being written in this thread are by you and SOTJ, about me. Shall I quote them for you? My thoughts were directed solely at the concept: Surely your concept, but according to you that's open for discussion.

Regardless, carry on. Whatever the moderators want to allow you to say about me will stand. The last word is yours.

[Master Rel]

Fair enough...moving on.

[SOTJ]

Navajas, I am sorry for offending you. I didn't intend for anything to be insulting or personal.

Moving on....

I've been trying to find a real-world martial arts equivelant to Ataru, but I am at a loss. Any ideas?

[Master Nero Attoru]

Navajas, I am sorry for offending you. I didn't intend for anything to be insulting or personal.

Moving on....

I've been trying to find a real-world martial arts equivelant to Ataru, but I am at a loss. Any ideas?

Ataru is hard... it was conceived right around the time they gave Yoda a lightsaber, so it effectively became the "fast and acrobatic" form that describes him.  Then they decided to apply it to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in TPM... which I still don't understand really.  I guess they don't have to compensate for size as much, so they're not as exaggerated?  I digress.

Basically, I would say it depends on which Ataru you're talking about.  If you want to find something that's similar to Yoda's style, good luck!  That's certainly the one extreme of Ataru, and probably wouldn't be very practical at all without the aid of the Force (which sadly we don't have).  A style more like Obi-Wan's youthful aggression in TPM, which as I said is also considered Ataru, is much more reasonable.  I don't have as much experience in martial arts per se, but ninjutsu seems to fit in fairly well. 

I'm not just talking Hollywood ninjutsu either - "true" ninjas (which people debate the existence of) would naturally want to use the element of surprise.  To me, this fits in with Ataru's main focus - confusing the opponent and keeping him/her off guard.

[Jammo]

So I've been thinking about certain things and have come to the conclusion that its as much about how you view it as how you do it. I reserve the right to be vague about what that means...

[Luna]

I think Form I is the easiest to find a real-world equivelant to. It's the starting point of every martial art involving blades. Form V is also pretty straightforward. I would say that the hardest to find an equivelant to would be Form IV. Not many people are capable of focusing on speed and completely on offense (at least not for more than a little while), so it would be pretty tough to find any martial art that involves losing energy that fast on purpose. Ninjutsu is probably the closest, just take out the defense.

So I've been thinking about certain things and have come to the conclusion that its as much about how you view it as how you do it. I reserve the right to be vague about what that means...

That can be taken so many ways....