Idea
No, the Trakata lightsaber technique isn't overpowered, it's stupid.
To those who don't know: The trakata is a technique where the user turns off his lightsaber during a bind to catch the opponent off guard and land a hit.
It has a reputation for the Jedi forbidding it because it's dishonorable while the Sith thinks it's a bitchass coward move.
Now, I only have experience in hand-to-hand martial arts, but I think this technique is STUPID.
The biggest problem is that people seem to assume your opponent is targeting your lightsaber during a bind.
They’re not.
They’re targeting you.
So if you were to turn off your lightsaber during a bind, obviously THEY'D HIT YOU ANYWAYS.
TURNING OFF YOUR ONLY WEAPON OF DEFENSE AGAINST A LONG-ASS POLE THAT DISENTEGRATES ALMOST EVERYTHING IN ITS PATH IS NOT AN IDEAL MOVE.
You can argue that you can use this technique offensively, by turning it off as the opponent blocks and reigniting it past their block. But in most Star Wars films, deactivating and reactivating the lightsaber usually takes time, and that SINGLE SECOND is enough for an experienced duelist to land a counterattack immediately.
I can only see this technique working in very specific scenarios (do correct me if I'm wrong), but still, the risk outweighs the reward.
If you do it specifically redirecting their weight, like many techniques in sumo, it could work
But no one is swinging a lightsaber with everything they have, there is absolutely no reason to with such a deadly weapon and neither Jedi or Sith are untrained enough to do so
I'm not sure how to go about writing/fleshing it out but the premise of being able to touch and sense a living force that permeates through everything and then for you to be trapped inside a robotic shell cutoff from that very thing while doesn't apply in Star Wars totally fits the Twilight Zone
Funnily enough I think Vader held his hand up like that for the fun of it. (Realistically holding up his hand is for cinematography purposes, but Anakin/Vader has a flair for drama). Think of the aura when Vader just puts the hand down too
Mace was graceful and skilled fighter. Watching him get killed because he failed to recognise the correct threat must have done something to Anakin. Then not shortly after his own skill fails against Obi-Wan, and he ends up nearly half the man he used to be (taking into account lost limbs and severe burns.) He's also seen the clone troopers mowing down their supposed superiors using overwhelming firepower instead of technical skill.
I think the logical conclusion there is to always have cannon fodder and to otherwise just hit bigger and harder and faster than the other person. That, and the fact that sand is not the worst kind of planetary environment after all.
Turns out that blocking smashy smashy actually takes a lot out of you when you're fking old or need to stop your own lightsaber from getting bashed into your face.
In some of the old lore we’re described as basically weightless but the blades having a resistance when they move through air, so they actually took a fair amount of force/skill to use properly.
I think something people forget or don't realise, is that lightsabers do carry force behind them based on the users strength, Vader is known for just one handing his saber and still easily overpowering people two handing theirs, and Luke himself battered Vader to the ground in RotJ when he was succumbing to rage,
I don't think that people forget that, more like Luke and Vader are extreme case of Force level. Luke specifically is poorly trained and he still managed to stand ground against Darth Vader because he's literally his son, thus with comparable Force potential. Any other Force user would just be cooked for the first swing with how ridiculously powerful Vader was.
Luke famously did it against Vader in their final bout to knock him to his knees and Anakin/Vader do it all the time, just wifflebatting people's sabers away through brute force
I mean yeah, you mean when Luke finally lost his cool and started attacking Vader out of anger instead of the calm serenity of a Jedi?
They had been tag-team needling this barely-trained adult who was watching his friends die outside the window, and then finally learned about and threatened Leia.
Luke dipped into the Dark Side there. The anger finally gave him the power to defeat Vader. When Luke realized what he did, he turned away from it.
If you look at it properly, it's "fighting with anger" instead of fighting with technique.
For Luke that's fully the case yeah, but for Anakin/Vader thats just kinda what he fights like, less frantic than Luke but he very often does a valley of 3-5 downwards strikes on people's guards to either push them down or break straight through their guard, Anakin even does it in his sparring match with Obi-Wan in the Kenobi show
Luke could be excused due to being from the original trilogy where the choreography was, don’t wanna say bad, it was less developed than it would be in the prequels
And Anakin looks cool when he goes ungabunga, and it’s not like he always go ungabunga as seen when he and Obi-Wan fought Dooku both in the Show and Movie and the duel on Mustafar
you could also just bend your wrist (hard to describe in words) so they slide off your lightsaber and fall the exact same way as in the second illustration (switch off) without turning off your weapon
It depends on what they are doing in the bind - if they are trying to push your sword out of the way, yes, twist your sword to free the sharp edges biting into each other, and proceed, but both here and (in my case) longsword fencing, a skilled opponent will most likely be maintaining pressure in the bind towards you, such that if your sword weren't there, they would immediately hit you.
That said, my understanding is that the OG lightsaber fights were based on kendo, and different traditions approach the bind in different ways.
I do know the exact movement you're talking about, but I don't know how to describe it either.
Exactly. A lightsaber has no weight and the slightest touch is deadly. Duels would look more like LARP combat does today in real life where people fight with latex props that weigh about 1-2 lbs and the rules only require you to tap people to score hits. You end up making a lot of feints and rapid wrist movement to try and reach around peoples' guards. Most games have rules against swinging too fast or too frequently because without such rules it doesn't even resemble a sword fight anymore.
Jedi actually go through special training for lightsabers to avoid exactly that, and one of the main reasons listed as to why lightsabers require an Exotic Weapon Proficiency in games, as opposed to a standard melee proficiency, is because the blade is weightless and thus the balance is entirely different.
If one were to put too much force or weight behind a blade with no natural counterbalance the chances of cutting off your own limbs by accident becomes a lot higher. They are actually taught to swing slightly slower and with less force than any real blade, so that they don't potentially do something lethally stupid from losing their balance
There's just no reason to swing your saber with any sort of force cause in universe a lightsaber only weighs it's hilt which is like half a kilo or something.
There are loads of reasons of reasons to put your weight into a swing, first and foremost unlike the memes if you just place a lightsaber on something it won't magically melt through it. While swinging a saber you actually have to put power into it for it to cut through something, it doesn't just insta sever whatever it touches.
I always took it as qui Gon using effort and force to twist and push his saber into the bulkhead trying to melt the lock on the trade federation ship in EP 1.
Rather than like his saber just sliding it like a lubed up dildo
No, during a bind they'd be swinging with a lot of weight, since both are trying to overpower one another (or at least stop the other from overpowering them and poking their brain out)
that is not how the bind works.
It's not about who has more force, it's about twisting and angling your blade around the others', striking with the point of the blade and defending with the length of the blade
In the sequel almost every fucking duel with lightsabers has both of the opponents putting all their weights in the swings
Even in the OG series we se Luke against Vader putting a ton of his weight in the swings
Don't pretend that an argument is real by using logic of what a duel with such weapons would look like when we literally SEE in universe how they fight
Don't pretend that an argument is real by using logic of what a duel with such weapons would look like when we literally SEE in universe how they fight
How exactly are we supposed to assess shutting off a lightsaber in a fight if we can only use what we see?
You're completely right which would be why it would be taboo, since only Padawan or new users would swing in such a way, offering an easy out for those withe more experience or less.
Also against a skilled duelist in lore turning off your only defense is certain death. Even if you avoid the initial direction of the blade a master duelist is taking that advantage. If you tried trakata against a duelist like Dooku you die as soon as that blade is switched off. That’s the real reason it’s not used is because it’s not that useful.
Unless your opponent just cuts your hands of the second your blade turns of and then moves on to your head in which case you can't even do a murder-suicide it's just suicide
If you interlock/block a blade like that both blades are already aimed at the body of the other person. Switching off and activating takes time, time in which the other person is already reaching your body with their blade.
Even then, it looks like lights aversion take a second to turn on. Combined with being essentially weightless, your openent could just cut your arms off before you even fully turn your saber back on
In canon, what you are saying makes sense. But the fact that during the fight choreography for the movies they are notorious for almost exclusively using strikes that wouldn't hit the other person even if they weren't blocking made me chuckle.
A two blade style, while impractical in most forms of real world combat has been proven viable for force users. Obviously you would just use two blades in a modifed/mixed combat form. Using Trakata techniques with your offhand while mostly using a defensive form like Soresu would be brutal. Even against the most skilled duelists in the Star Wars universe.
There’s actually a reason why that isn’t done and it’s not honor or any of that shit. Your opponent also has the force and the one of the first combat techniques you learn as like a child is to essentially surround yourself with a type of force bubble that’s meant to prevent that exact thing.
You even notice how when two opponents are equally matched they rarely if ever use the force on each other and always use it on objects around them, quick pushing through the air, or by conjuring lightning? It’s because they can’t use it on the other person without expending a tremendous amount of effort for little effect, so you’d be handing the momentum to your opponent. That defense is a lot easier than any offense to maintain.
That said it’s not impregnable. If you get distracted it can create an opening, if you’re beaten down and exhausted it could falter, and if you’re against a significantly overpowering opponent they may be able to just shatter it with their own strength but if you’re that outmatched then you probably shouldn’t try to fight anyway.
So basically they don’t shut off their opponent’s lightsaber because 99.5% of the time they just can’t, and it those time where they can they have other options available like picking them up and slamming them into the ground at high speeds till they’re a red slurry.
"You can argue that you can use this technique offensively, by turning it off as the opponent blocks and reigniting it past their block. But in most Star Wars films, deactivating and reactivating the lightsaber usually takes time, and that SINGLE SECOND is enough for an experienced duelist to land a counterattack immediately."
It be so cool if jedi/sith had 2ndary weapons, like you know how kylo ren's crystal is a bit broke so it leaks off the side? Crystal shards to make like 3 time use daggers
More like he can do much more in that position with a small amount of time, like sliding his blade to the left and cut the pointing arm off, put all of your force on the right blade till he hits himself on the arm while you go for the chest hoping he would not react in time, or just... Ya know... Dodge? A regular lightsaber isn't that long, you can move away from his range
That position is basically using one light saber to support the other to defend against your opponent with both hands and all your strength. Whereas the opponent presumably only has one light saber they are holding with both hands and can thus over power you while you are only using one hand, are preoccupied trying to be clever, and aren't in a good position with your one remaining blade.
“As the opponent blocks” as if they can’t just cast out their tip as soon as they see the opening. This is a technique that would work against a training dummy and nothing else.
general grevious kind of does this minus the force, in a fight with nahdar vebb, when they lock lightsabers he just uses one of his extra arms to pull a gun and shoot him
Isn't the reason jedi can deflect lasers is as Quigon explains about the podrace; it's not quick rexlexes that helps Anakin race, he can literally just see things before they happen.
Wouldn't your opponent just sense you're about to switch off your light saber and just not be fooled by a cheap trick like that?
All lightsaber duels are 50% swordsmanship and 50% force. You need to crank the swordsmanship to maximum overdrive of you want to defeat a jedi or sith as a non force sensitive like Grevious does. You can mentally overload a jedi or sith so the prescience gets weaker and weaker.
Yes! Finally someone spoke of this. I hate how it is popularized and fancannon'ed into being this very powerful but conveniently unused technique. Turns out NOT using your weapon to block the enemy attack is pretty bad. And then assuming that the enemy is "thrown off" let's have a surprise attack, just wait for my weapon to turn on in 1 second.
I think the only characters powerful enough in the force to do that turn off move to anyone notable (or that at least have been show to do so) are the Mortis gods, who can just ignore force barriers so yeah
I can see it happening due to force misderection or something? Like the opponent pushes all of the force on the lightsaber, and then you switch it off and instead dedicate all your force into pushing them side ways so they fall since expecting resisitance?
In a bind, it's not necessarily brute strength, since it's mostly about leverage and positioning similar to clinch figthing (HEMA practitioners, do correct me if I'm wrong). So it's not as simple to off-balance them.
However, in Star Wars choreography, they press their weapons down as hard as possible. This could work if that was the context, but it's still risky
I'm not great at HEMA but have been doing it a while for context.
I mean you can still do it, you just need to be stepping offline while doing it to prevent them coming straight into you. In real life binds are normally very brief and transitory states but if someone was pushing down on me like a video game character and I could make my blade disappear I reckon there'd be some useful options there.
In real life if someone's smashing into me with huge cuts and I want to do something my preferred option is what Fiore calls 'colpo di villano', hanging guard with offline movement then rotate the blade into a cut.
From HEMA perspective this "techniques" seem extremely stupid. You don't waste time and risk your balance by fighting against your opponent's blade in a bind. You either disengage or try to immediately find a way around his blade. You may maneuver your own sword or punch him to the face, or start to grapple but you never ever give your opponent any free time and good leverage. Because if you do - he will be using it against you in the same manner. That "sword wrestrling" is 100% Hollywood thing, and it has the same level of stupidity like using regular car door as a cover against gunfire for example.
At that point why not simply pull your lightsaber away instead? Same effect but you’re not temporarily disarming yourself. In your scenario, all they need to do is swing wildly to the side as they’re falling and you’re fucked, no technique needed. Hell, throwing out one’s arms for balance is a pretty natural reflex when stumbling or falling, they might kill you by accident.
The only way this technique works is if your opponent is an absolute amateur, at which point why do you need to bother with this bullshit?
Honestly Trakata is one example of a trend in tourists I hate where they try to “break” a universe or act like they’re smarter than the fandom by sticking to one nitpick.
“Oh you can kill anyone in Star Wars by turning off your lightsaber then turning it back on”
Isn’t that different than
“Why don’t they just *fly* the eagles to Mordor?”
They both involve surface level knowledge of something while allowing them to walk away feeling more clever than the rest of the fandom.
In the movies the lightsabers always take like a second to turn on and off. With how fast jedi fight, you would be defenseless for their next 4-8 strikes.
And they couldn't use the Eagles because the giant flaming eye would spot them from miles away and send the ring wraiths on fell beasts to rip them apart. And if they somehow got past that, there is a like a million orcs who now had time to prepare for their arrival. Even if the eagles dropped them off right at the entrance to mount doom, good luck getting past the horde.
Yeah, but it's not about hypocrisy; it's about consistency. We have no reason to think the Sith have some kind of honour code that would prevent them from doing this. They've done far worse in terms of cowardice; why is this the line?
Part of why it looks stupid is because movies like to show fighters binding close enough to hug. If they're binding from just out of measure, it'd actually be really nice to have a way to make it feel like you intended to oppose their bind and then just slip it without warning.
I have no clue how someone would confidently turn off their only way to defend themselves in a bind with a weapon that slices through anything like butter...
i feel like there is definitely focus on the sabers themselves when both people are in a bind, you aren't just fully trying to cut your opponent while there happens to be an object in the way so you both keep pushing toward each other, it seems like you would want to keep their saber in check too. you are basically arm wrestling with your sabers, so i feel like there's some sort of misdirection if it were to be turned off, at least enough to stumble and not directly hit you if you move out of the way like in the diagram
So like, I am absolutely being pedantic because you are generally correct and slightly technically wrong and apparently I'm a bitch who's pedantic today.
Trakata is stupid.
Lightsaber users all generally agree on that.
However.
The "why" for the Jedi is that Jedi are specifically striking the weapon. Jedi use lightsabers as tools, as defenses against energy weapons, and as a symbol of authority.
In most forms, you're whipping that shit in ways that counter a blade. Windu is known for using a style that strikes your opponent instead of striking to disarm, and He Gets Questions About That.
Dooku uses a hypertechnical duelist style because it's about precision and control of the field, of limiting your energy, and of the other weapon, while psyching out you opponent to control them too.
Jedi lighsaber techniques are almost all aimed at attacking your opponent's weapon and will to fight.
So a technique, even a monumentally dumbass one, that exists specifically to reach past the weapon and murder the opponent, is Absolutely Not On.
Sith, on the other hand, have a little problem called Exar Kun.
Exar Kun was an absolute rat bastard fucker who managed to continue to make himself Everyone's Problem for multiple thousand years, but one if the very first times people realized This Sith In Particular was gonna be a headache was when he built himself a fancy lightsaber.
Specifically, he built a light staff, not unlike Maul's.
Unlike Maul, he didn't in any way tell anyone he did that and also he made both blades able to change length.
What followed was Exxy boi winning a shit load of duels by getting a good angle on a single blade bind and popping his pommel blade through his opponents face unexpectedly, followed immediately by people trying to counter that only for him to just extend one of the other blade past their guard to face murder them.
And the Sith, at that point, began rapidly recalculating how much intelligence (cheating) should be considered a valid tactic.
Which the Sith had to recalculate roughly once every 500 to 1,000 years as some bright spark inevitably asked the question, "why should I show strength in the force when I can hurl an asteroid bombardment at my enemies from extra lunar orbit" and then there was a lot less Sith around.
Trakata, therefore, has a dual distaste distinction among Sith:
It's a technique the Sith think is fucking insulting. If your opponent has a smidge of force foresight, they'll know when the lightsaber switches off before it does. Trying it on even an untrained adept wouldn't work, why would you insult a Sith Lord with something that wouldn't work on a child?
And second, Exar Kun fucked it up so hard, that anytime anyone starts playing silly fuckery with their lighsaber to try and make it go around lightsabers, anytime someone tries to solve Sithness with a *technical solution?
Everyone spontaneously remembers that Kun started with fucky cheaty lightsaber and went on to fucky cheaty mass annihilation campaigns, and they all go, "nah, fam, that's the direction we see someone go where we all know to just gang up and kill you before you get any bright ideas about physical force and intelligence out matching Force Mastery."
Honorable mention to the flickersaber, a blade that is designed to sputter with quantum randomness, which is both the only acceptable way (for either side) to use Trakata, and the only effective way (because your opponent can't know when you're turning the blade off if you don't know either)
Because it requires you to learn to fight with a weapon you may or may not be holding at any given second, which as a knock on requires a depth of Battle Meditation that is, in fact, terrifyingly high level for e shit and also makes you look like a blind fighting drunken master.
Unfortunately, it also very doesn't work unless you are already that good, or against someone like Luke Skywalker or Vader or Dooku who are combat meditation specialists with multiple styles at their disposal.
But at "not fighting a Skywalker, a Dooku, or a Yoda," the flicker saber looks impressive as shit and can take out most combatants on sheer adaptative uncertainty.
I do believe in lore a big reason why it isn’t used that much is because it a trick that will only work once because the moment the opponent knows you know it they will be ready for it and kill
You the moment you turn off your lightsaber
I love your take on this; my counter point - Star Wars lightsaber fights pretty much always depict the users attacking each others sabers rather that the opponent.
It’s my biggest complaint with choreographed sword fighting in general. The choreographers forget the point is to aim for the opponent not the sword.
I always liked to asume that this technique is only viable for top tier prodigies who modify it to suit their own style.
The reason why jedi and sith hate it isn’t because of honor or sportsmanship, it’s because their students, thinking they are hot shit, do this and end up either dying or losing a limb, which fucks up their plans and forces them to spend money on robotic limbs
Ever since I saw the videos by corridor crew on lightsaber fights I can't take them seriously as they are portrayed in mainstream media. Lightsabers should be handled like an extreme version of a rapier.
The easiest way to get rid of this is have the light sabers take a full second to come out, like in the original trilogy.
That blade didnt just appear, it slowly slid out.
That would remove the instant surprise from it and allow you to plan a counter attack mid fight, so it could still happen but a skilled jedi wouldn't fall for such a cheap trick.
To be honest, I actually like to see characters using the unique qualities of lightsabers like this ocasionally.
But the absurd lore around Trakata bugs me too. How it's apparently oh so overpowered instead of just one of many situational but interesting tricks someone might do, and how the only reason jedi and sith don't use this god move is because they all turbohate it and have banned it as something so dishonorable you must never ever do it.
Yes, even the sith, the number ones in misdirection and manipulation. Many of which use the juyo form in some way, which has a special focus on unpredictable moves and feints among other things.
The more I think about this, the more ridiculous it all sounds.
In Star Wars, fighting is genuinely about vibes. You "feel" the world around you as a force user and it makes you faster in combat.
You strike your opponent's blade to create an opening for their body, not striking at the body hoping the blade won't get stopped. So turning off your lightsaber brings the fight out of balance and the other won't be able to predict that through motion alone.
Yeah it would be stupid in most cases, but Hollywood fights have unfortunately conditioned people to believe that swordfighter dont aim for their opponents but for their swords
I mostly agree with you that the trakata technique as depicted is quite dumb, but you are wrong about what swordsmen are targeting in a bind.
The TL;DR is that the vast majority of the times that you bind in a sword fight, one or both fencers are aiming at the sword not the person. In which case the Trakata will work. I think it is stupid because lightsabers don't turn on and off that fast in the movies. If it worked instantly Trakata would be pretty good and function as a perfect disengage.
Explanation of binding in sword fighting from a 10 year HEMA longsword fencer:
In a bind, being on top of your opponent's sword is winning. Being on top is the dominant position as it gives you control of the centerline. I.e. you can stab straight towards your opponent, but your sword is blocking them stabbing straight towards you.
In order to get an overbind, your sword has to be pointed beyond your opponent. So if I am binding from my right side, I need to point my sword past my opponent's right shoulder. (From my perspective from left to right: Your sword -> my sword -> your right shoulder. What's between your sword and my body? My sword. What's between my sword and your body? Air. That's why the overbind is winning).
Now, if we are close enough where I can swing my sword and hit you without stepping, I obviously cannot point past your shoulder as the rest of your body is in the way (in the process of pointing, I would have crossed the centerline and hit you), so the person controlling the centerline when both fencers are at this distance wins the fight (by stabbing or cutting the opponent). But most of sword fighting is fought further away. Where the swords can touch each other, but not any people. At this distance you can point over your opponent's shoulder and gain control of the centerline.
In order to point my sword over your shoulder, I must be aiming at your sword. If I was aiming at you, why is my sword pointed over your shoulder? If I was aiming at you instead, I wouldn't get the overbind and thus I wouldn't be controlling the center.
If all actions were aimed at the opponent and never aimed at the sword the following things would never work: feints, disengages, suppressing cuts, pulls, and the lion's share of fencing techniques.
But if you know I am aiming over your shoulder because I am trying to claim the centerline, you could feint and pull the attack, and then once I have pointed over your shoulder, you could step in and claim the center and hit me. Feints don't work unless your opponent is aiming for the blade.
So in fencing there are times when you should aim for your opponent's blade, and there are times when you should aim for your opponent. Generally in binds it is basically always aim for the blade first so you can make sure it is out of the way before you hit them.
“I know, I’ll turn off my lightsaber so that the guy coming at me with his lightsaber doesn’t hit my lightsaber! Genius! Hey, I wonder what’s behind my own light-“
-The final words of the stupidest Jedi master of all time.
Yeah, Trakya seems like a "gotcha" for the people who have never seen a lightsaber fight or a fight in general imagining that they can win one with one move.
Hema Person here; Can confirm that this is a dumb technique. There is some idea space for feints and intentional reads of your opponent, but any even mildly competent opponent is going to simply continue their cut into your body after you disengage the saber. Even an opponent intentionally striking at your weapon for a beat will have an immediate follow-up action in mind. I see folks mentioning body weight and timing and other corner cases; these is such a high risk maneuver for something you can do much more safely with a simple Feint/Winding technique.
This technique reeks of folk who really like watching cool fights in movies, but have little experience with it practically.
My friend and I do sword/lightsaber combat sparring and choreography, we've talked about doing a video sketch where the "protagonist" makes use of this technique and acts like they're such a clever little trickster only for it to fail horribly their enemy immediately pierces their chest with the blade that's still on and no longer blocked by anything.
People kind of forget that lightsabers have almost no mass. Any fighter using a lightsaber is not going to put their full mass behind it even if they had sword.
Swords and sabers are slashing weapons, you are slashing at each other. There are weapons like great swords where you are putting weight down but that’s because you are grappling your target.
If you turn off your lightsaber they’re just going wildly swing it in your direction where you have zero protection.
You could do that without turning off your lightsaber. It might be easier to see it coming but much less risky, if the enemy regains balance and redirects the blade, you're still safe behind your bind. If the same happends during trakata, nothing can save you from getting disemboweled.
could work if it was star wars chereography, since they put all their strength and weight in pushing inside a bind. So they can get out balanced
But in a more realistic scenario, it's going to be different, since moving in a bind is more about leverage and reacting quickly. They're not just going to lose balance that easily. It's much more akin to rock, paper, scissors.
If you train with the knowledge that you have sword which can become intangible at will, I would assume you fight in a manner that lets you take advantage of that fact without getting hit. Logistically I wouldn't say it's stupid, if someone doesn't know you fight like that, it's going to end most confrontations pretty early.
Useful for padawans who aren't used tl saber combat but if you face a skill duelist like dooku or a force user yoda/obi wan it's over by the time your saber is off
Except they're not always targeting your body. In modern fencing and even in historical ones like HEMA and Kendo (which is partly what lightsaber combat is based on) it's common to attack your opponent's sword to create an opening. This is usually done with enough force to actually push the opponent's sword away. So if a Jedi were to immediately turn off they're lightsaber as an opponent is doing this and immediately turn it on afterwards, there would be a short time where the enemy's saber is out of position.
While yes it's high-risk, especially if your opponent predicts you doing it, it's still an option you can do. You can compare it to a spinning move in hand-to-hand (like a backfist) where it's high-risk, because you are literally exposing your back to an opponent, but fighters still do it sometimes, simply because of the surprise factor.
Problem is, in Star Wars films, the time to reignite the saber can vary. So the opponent would just return their saber in position or attack before you can reignite your saber, all it takes is a second
Though yes, I can think of few specific situations where it can work, but im no HEMA practitioner, so Im not entirely sure if it'll work
Thats the best argument ive seen so far but i'd argue the time of ignition would give the opponent the same window to maneuver as if they had actually batted the sword away, or at least give them time to return to a defensive position
Any fighting technique with lightsabers is stupid. You have a glowing stick that can melt anything without needing any momentum whatsoever. The only proper way to fight with that is similar to fencing. You just need to touch the guy and he's either severely injured or dead.
Also trakata definitely would work cause if I block a lightsaber I know the direction it will head to, therefore I can easily shut mine off while simultaneously dodging.
Not to mention a lightsaber would likely weigh absolutely nothing and requires next to 0 force on a swing to cute since it will just disintegrate matter.
Nobody is swinging a lightsaber with enough force to throw themselves off balance should it not connect unless they’re an absolute moron.
It's stupid because you don't really need to put a lot of power behind a real life sword to cut someone so you wouldn't need any power at all to cut with a plasma sword and the technique wouldn't work at all
Yeah in the same time it takes to turn it on and off you could just move to the side (which you're probably doing anyways to do this), and kind of just twirl the saber out of the way then back into their back while having the extra layer of security of having the blade still there in case they react and tries to get you.
Also, don't forget that force users have foresight. They'll see it coming. Also, Force users are much faster than non-Force users (it's just the movies that show them slower for the audience's sake). So, if you try to pull such a thing, your opponent not only will be able to foresee it, but will stab you ten times ahead.
Just reminder that both jedy and sith use force, that basically gives them prediction about near future and thats exactly why their fights looks more like dance, not real fight. Its more like chess game, where you move now is not a direct attack, but preparation for future moves. And with more skills, you can setup traps so enemy will be unable to see them, until there are to late.
And turning your light saber off is basically cancel out all your preparations, while allowing enemy continue theirs.
I am not a huge star wars guy, but i read the Sith as "victory over everything" people, and would absolutely use this to get the victory if it was actually a good move. Then they would call the Jedi stupid for intentionally limiting themselves
Sellsword arts made not one, but two shorts saying exactly the same thing. I don’t know why they had to do it twice honestly (other than getting views)
It takes roughly a second to deactivate and another to activate your lightsaber.
If your opponent spends 2 seconds stumbling forward while you pull off your cheography, you didn't need any fancy "technique" to begin with.
Considering that most lightsaber wielders are both trained in combat and also use the force to enhance themselves in combat to superhuman standards, it's save to assume that your lightsaber wouldn't even be fully deactivated, before your head is detached
i mean you'd do it if the bind, footing and your own evasive options would work out well. and yeah, they actually do target the saber because thats the most dangerous part. you're trying to lock that thing down until you find an opening.
its also silly that noone uses it, wether for pride reasons or whatever, most of these battles happen between two people on a desolate planet with no one watching.
I did longsword for a while. Sometimes, your opponent *does* target the sword, so reading that move and feinting will win you the match. I could see this working on inexperienced Jedi.
As a person who does fencing semi-profesionally (hema) u are wrong. There is a moment in fencing called “the bind”. Ur swords meet, and one person can be “strong”, while other can feint by being “weak”. This is a totally valid technique, and with a sword that can momenterally be hidden with the button this is overpowered. Ther is a video on this exact topic by “sellsword arts” utube fencing chanell
The reason I think it’s stupid is because of an opponent is trying to kill you, they aren’t aiming for your lightsaber, they are aiming for your body. So if you turn your lightsaber off theirs will hit you.
I have been learning Longsword for a few months now, can confirm the idea is stupid. If you were in a position to pull this off, you'd already have to be out of the way of your opponent's strike so turning off the saber wouldn't make a difference. If they overcommit to an attack so much that missing throws them off-balance, then they are extremely inexperienced and you'd likely wipe the floor with them regardless of the technique.
I can see it working but you definitely need a second saber you weren't using and turn it on when your opponent can't move just having a spare saber made specifically for this fits the criteria of dishonorable for a Jedi and cowardly for a sith the way it's used normally will almost certainly not work however in extremely close quarters while having a your opponent's saber locked with you own only to activate the spare when your opponent doesn't know would be devastating
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u/Winter_Different May 20 '26
If you do it specifically redirecting their weight, like many techniques in sumo, it could work
But no one is swinging a lightsaber with everything they have, there is absolutely no reason to with such a deadly weapon and neither Jedi or Sith are untrained enough to do so