The Ludosport Lightsaber Combat Academy is a chain (yes, there are multiple schools!) in Italy that teach willing students in the art of lightsaber combat. Or, for those who’ve never dreamed of being a Jedi, in dancing around swinging a glowing toy stick.
These guys have some serious skills. Going way beyond just hitting each other with toy lightsabers, there’s a full range of acrobatic moves on display, as well as styles borrowed from stuff like Kendo.
Which…I dunno, kind of makes it all look a bit silly, no? Call me a fake space combat purist, but the ballet moves of the prequel trilogy seemed as fake and boring as the rest of the flicks; overly-choreographed and using spins to make up for a lack of gravitas (or acting ability).
That’s in terms of being a Star Wars class, though. In terms of this being a social and fitness class – as emphasised in the trailer below – well, this is about as awesome as it gets.
Ludosport [Site, via Geekologie]
Comments
30 responses to “Real Academy Instructs Students In The Art Of Lightsabers”
aw come on, ewan mcgregor and liam neeson did a fine job in the prequel trilogy.
I’d agree with that.
Yeah, I would have to say that the fights were the only thing I enjoyed
There was some good fight choreography in the prequels, but also a lot of garbage eg. the Grievous fights where he just spun his lightsabers in a windmill. Then there are always moments where it’s clear the stuntmen are trying to strike at each others blades than bodies, or avoiding both entirely. There’s a GIF out there of Anakin vs Obi-Wan with each of them furiously swinging the lightsabers for a good second or two clearly for theatrics. Want a good sword fight? Watch Rob Roy.
You know what, this is awesome. I get to exercise and pretend i’m a Jedi while hanging out with like minded people? Sign me up! Lets get this going in Melbourne. Seriously.
Wow Jedi academy, how long before it becomes a religion?
“In Australia more than 70,000 people (0.37%) declared themselves members of the Jedi order in the 2001 census.” … it already is man…
Why do i get the feeling that most of those would be hipsters trying to be ironic?
I did it. It was for our amusement. Why (even if hipsters did it) would it be ironic though?
cause its ironic to hate on hipsters
But the Bureau of statistics said that these answers are invalid in all censuses. Thus they are not and can never be classified as a religion in Australia.
Yes i remember hearing this.
Was a big thing about making it a religion before the census and after people made a selection they said those selections were invalid.
There were even threats from the government about some kind of repercussions for putting Jedi as your religion on the census.
True story, I was in a comic store in Brisbane around the time this was going down and the clerk was on a phone conversation the whole time I was there and I could just tell what he was talking about. It sounded something like this
” … but really, how are they gonna chase every single person up? … well, some people are so enthusiastic about it that it approaches an almost religious fervor … just do it man, you’re not gonna get in trouble … of course I will”
I put down Satanist for kicks
Hell no.
They were basically the only good parts after all.
Same here. The movies were woeful in almost every way, the lightsaber duels were the only enjoyable thing for me (though not enough to actually redeem the film or excuse their plethora of failings).
You know something is bad when not even Lightsaber duels and John Williams can fix it….The existence of Jar-Jar didn’t help either.
There were problems with the prequel trilogy’s fights though. There were a lot of attacks that had no chance of hitting the opponent’s body: where if the opponent had not tried to block, the attack wouldn’t have hit anything at all.
I can understand them wanting the fights to look dramatic and exciting, but they went so far that some stopped looking like fights.
Consider that they use the force to “sense” each others next move, trying to hit them where they are probably wouldn’t work.
That might explain the attacks against empty space, but it doesn’t explain why the opponent would bother blocking an attack that clearly won’t hit them. Wouldn’t they be better served by ignoring it and use the opening to make their own attack?
I’ve gotta go with Luke on this one, when martial arts are TOO “acrobatic” and the like in movies it breaks my suspension of disbelief and I think “why doesn’t he just bloody punch him already?”. I know “real” fighting isn’t as flashy as hollywood style, but there can be such a thing as too over the top…
You’ve got to also consider this from an ‘in-universe’ perspective. Jedi (and Sith) commonly use the Force to augment their acrobatic abilities, particularly when fighting. When you think about it, it actually makes sense for them to take advantage of this to assist them as much as possible and to outdo their opponent. Afterall, would you really want to see the same slow fighting pace we saw between Kenobi and Vader throughout the prequels?
Yes. Yes I would.
My personal ‘in universe’ explanation for the slow moving fights in the original trilogy was the fact that the combatants were using The Force to test each other and that was the ‘real’ fight. What we saw was the physical manifestation of a much more complex battle taking place on another plane.
To aid your suspension of disbelief, consider what a fight might look like if you could “sense” the future moves of your opponent who can also “sense” yours. You gotta believe man…
It becomes even more clear how crap it is when you can watch an animated gif of 2 guys ignoring easy attacks to someones back over and over again.
I hope they teach all the different forms of the light sabre stances, that would be so cool.
If I’d known about this when I was 8 I’d be a fucking Jedi by now.
The first rule of Jedi school is don’t touch the glowy bit.
What no double bladed or twin sabre guys?
1 – Kendo
2 – make sticks glow like lightsabers
3 – …………….
4 – PROFIT$$$$$$