Saber Forum

Someone was asking me why a lightsaber couldn't just cut the opponent's fingers off by sliding down the blade during lock up.

I get that striking further out toward the opponent's blade tip will allow me to control angles, as it would require the opponent to have massive strength to resist. I get that striking closer will give the opponent more control of angles.

During lock up, is there some weakness to the tactic of sliding my blade toward my opponent's hand to cut their finger? Real swords have hilt guards. Sabers usually do not.

Is their anything stated in the stories that suggest the sabers push away from the hilt? We know light won't stop laser swords from crossing, so it must be some other quality that gives the lightsabers the physical forces that prevent passing through one another. Does this physical force also push toward the tip away from the hilt?

Lock up is about attempting to control angles and the opponent's saber, right? If there's nothing to prevent it, then why not simply race to push your saber to their hand before they push to yours?

Real!light sabers use a magnetic field to contain the plasma that makes the blade hot. These fields create resistance and do not slide against each other.
Our plastic blades slide easily so you can use you angle to control how your opponent can slide or not. I often block to the outside near the hilt then rotate the tip of my saber back into the opponent's head or neck. Pushing out as I do generally causes his blade to slide up mine instead of down toward my fingers.

I never thought of that (or did the research). It makes a lot more sense for there to be a significant amount of friction between the blades, given how the movie battles work.

in the movies the blades are said to be "sticky", and also the area around the hilt has a powerful magnetic field that effects opponents blades. sliding or high angle attacks to the hands generally are shunted aside by this field. only direct purposeful strikes coming in perpendicularly to the hilt can easily penetrate it.
That's in the canons, real life is different.
It really kind of depends on the rule set you are using for your group.
Saber Authority out of the south pacific is very popular, and they target only the hands.
Bendu Lightsaber Combat targets the hands but not with glancing blows, there must be intention. We also use a weighted targeting system, where the head is the priority target, the sword arm secondary, and anything else is tertiary.
Im not sure about TPLA and the Saber Legion.

Another problem with going for the hands is that it generally leaves your face open. Your opponent may loose one hand but finish the strike with the other.

At the Grey order we don't count hits from the elbow down currently(the rules will change as our technique improves)

The Saber Legion does count strikes to the back of the hands but not to the fingers. That's why we wear the heavily padded gloves as a requirement.

With polycarbonate you simply cannot avoid sliding and grazing finger-hits. For the sake of longer exchanges, SaberAcademy Vienna has decided to ignore those touches and only count clean hits above the wrist as hits.