Stunt Lightsaber Combat For Beginners: The Unofficial Guide to Dueling Like a Jedi

Well written intro. Good basic read. I have over 40 years in sword play and combat time. Good introduction to basics simple sword. Red Raven 9 Gung Fu uses sword, tomahawk, spear, knife, gun stock war club with advanced fire arms and technology.

(Disclosure: While I won't go so far as to say we're 'close', I have had back and forth discussions with the book's author, Carey Martell. That said, I am confident enough in my critical facilities to not let that conflict with my take here)The Lightsaber, an iconic fixture of the Star Wars franchise. Much of what helps stories craft an air of mythology (for lack of a better term) is repetition, be it both in the story or in people's tributes to its ideas and themes. This would naturally extend to mock fighting with the iconic weapon, mostly by fans who might have little experience with swordfighting.....which is where a manual like this comes in.While officially, this is a beginner's guide to lightsaber combat, it's doing so from an in-reality standpoint, rather than in-universe. removing the lightsaber aspect, there's very little here that would easily apply to simple swordplay. If you're going into this expecting the use of the various forms seen in the stories, you'll be disappointed. It is at its core a basic no-frills introduction to swordplay. What it may lack in 'lore' it makes up for in honesty. Far too often swordsmanship manuals (especially western swordsmanship) spend too much time keeping up this air of being 'above' the reader, and as a result come off as impenetrable. This book doesn't do that, and it helps by having basic instructions and illustrations, just enough to get the point across but not enough to appear lavish.That said, its basic appearance is a double-edged sword (pun unintended). The version I have is the printed copy of what is a Kindle book....and it shows. Reading through the pages, I get a sense that this is more suited for an e-reader than a more traditional book. Also, while it's certainly a breezy read due to its approachable nature, It ends a little too quickly for my taste.Bottom line, this is a no-frills introduction to swordsmanship, much like the original films were for a generation. While I'd certainly recommend it to star wars fans, I'm more inclined to recommend it to anyone thinking of getting into LARPing in general, as it's a fine gateway for that.

I enjoy this book. Having purchased my own stunt lightsaber, it's nice to have some basic instruction so I can wield it without looking like a spastic monkey.

This book does a nice job of translating old European texts into modern English. The text provides a good foundation into basic sword fighting techniques.That said, while those techniques were the foundation of Bob Anderson's fight choreography, there is no discussion on how to digest and process that information, translating the techniques in the book into a solid fight scene. This book could have been marketed as a Primer for Sword Fighting, and left it at that, with no mention of Star Wars or Lightsabers at all.Yes, this book would certainly be helpful for a lot of the amateur fan-films out there (no comment on the number of fan-films that just bang sticks together and call it a duel). A knowledge of these basics would certainly help anyone involved in such an endeavor. (The fanfilm I was involved in had a huge cast of wannabe Jedi, and the only ones who looked good were the two that joined me in doing warm-up exercises before filming.) Thing is, you have to already know what you are doing to really understand what this book is trying to teach.Frankly, an exercise video on YouTube could do as much, if not more, than this book.

I'm hosting a lightsaber fighting seminar at a fencing studio this summer, and in putting together material, I came across this book. Oddly enough, it was another user's one star review that was the decider. He complained that the book contained legitimate swordsmanship, rather than being how to do the stunt fighting of the films, and bemoaned that the author did not present it as such. His review is accurate, except that he misunderstood the title. The weapon is called a stunt lightsaber, hence the title of the book.I come from a kendo and historical fencing background, and found the descriptions to be fine for the intended purpose of the book, and the drawings (swordsmen dressed in jedi garb was a nice, whimsical touch) and exercises certainly would be helpful to a beginner, though I would like to emphasize that if you intend to go beyond fighting with stunt lightsabers with your friends, having a background in a relevant sword art or having access to an instructor who does is necessary.The source for his material is Fiore's longsword manuals. The Medieval Longsword, by Guy Windsor, is an historical treatment of Fiore's work, so if you're interested in a more thorough treatment, I recommend it. Carey Martell's volume is a nice intro to Fiore's system. The book was well worth the money.

This book is not bad, not too expensive. My only critique is that it only deals with bouting/sparring with sabers competitively.I got the book thinking that it had more to do with choreographed stage fighting which it does not. Simple to understand the author bases his lessons loosely his understanding of 15th century Italian long sword fencing.If folks find this approach interesting, it would be nice if the author could reference the HEMA Alliance, or some other Western Martial Arts organization. That way they could expand on on the lessons from this book by learning long sword from the source material itself.

This is a great book for stunt saber beginners. If you thinking about becoming a stunt saber user, look at this book definitely

Was expecting just a little bit more but overall a very detailed and helpful book especially for covering the fighting styles used in the original trilogy. Kinda wish they did something on the style count dooku employed though.

Seems very expensive at over £20 for a mere paperback book

Very disappointed in this book, Badly printed and very basic! Something a 7 yr old would copy off for a test at school!

Good book

I bought this book to go along with a combat light-saber that I bought for my man for Christmas. I was disappointed in the length of the book for the price. It looks like something printed off the internet as a download and that should be how it is sold-as a download. He read it and says the content is pretty good. There aren't a lot of options our there for combat saber books, and this one was highly recommended which was why I bought it. It completed my gift package, but I was disappointed in the value.

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