To survive in Lightspeed saber, you need to know how to deflect attacks. Even offensive players deflect an attack sometimes (though often out of pure instinct rather than any conditioned response).

Lightspeed Saber defense is divided into two halves: the passive system— made up of shields— and the active system— made up of deflectors. Shields protect more areas than deflectors do, and are generally easy to master, if slightly less intuitive. Deflectors protect comparatively fewer areas compared to shields, but they protect a key area that shields can never protect: your hands and hilt.

While you can learn the exact way that a shield works successfully, deflectors are a different beast. Instead, every element you get right in the execution of a deflector increases your probability of success, as one can never do it perfectly each time, nor read perfectly the speed, angle, and range of an attack in order to properly adjust the deflector.

The most fundamental aspect that determines the success of a deflector is power— generating enough force in order to offset an attacking blade from its trajectory. That power is generated in a few ways:

• Perpendicularity— the deflector must intercept the attack at a 90 degree angle.

• Accuracy— the defending blade should intercept the attacking blade at an equivalent section of each blade, known as the blade-for-blade principle.

• Structure— the wrist and forearm must work as a single unit so as to not “leak” power during execution.

Further, since deflectors are essentially “designed” to achieve very fast returns, their success is also governed by concision: despite the power required, they must be executed within the smallest amount of physical space possible. This is probably the biggest mistake people make while using deflectors. Any deflector that isn’t followed with a return attempt is a free attack granted to your opponent.

You won’t master deflectors right away, nor we can cover every aspect in a single video. But this is a good place to start, using the very basic Deflectors 3 and 4— somewhat equivalent to Shield 3 and 4— to protect your center guard from attack. We’ll explore more in the future.