Form II/Legends

"He is a fencer. Leverage, position, advantage&mdash;they are as natural to him as breathing."

- Qui-Gon Jinn's spirit to Yoda on Count Dooku

Form II: Makashi or The Contention Form was the second form of the seven forms of lightsaber combat.

Description
After Form I's proliferation as a lightsaber combat technique, Form II, or Way of the Ysalamiri, came about as a means of lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat. It was described as being very elegant, powerful, and requiring extreme precision, allowing the user to attack and defend with minimal effort, while his opponent tires himself out, often wielding the blade one-handed for greater range of movement and fluidity. The form relied on parries, thrusts, and small, precise cuts&mdash;as opposed to the blocking and slashing of the other forms. Form II countered sun djem, the goal of early Form I masters, by being well trained in prevention of disarming and weapon destruction.



The opening stance for Makashi was a single-handed low guard, with the blade angled downward at the practitioner's side. The formal salute that Dooku offered Yoda on Geonosis was a "Makashi salute", while a Makashi flourish consisted of drawing a rapid X in the air with the blade.

Form II emphasized fluid motion and anticipation of a weapon being swung at its target, and so required very fluid movements of both the blade and the body.



Feints would also be commonly used to confuse or set-up their opponents for a trap, a tactic that Count Dooku commonly used in his duels during the Clone Wars. Precise footwork and movements were required for maintaining proper distance from the opponent during defense and/or when moving in for an attack. The blade manipulation required for this form was very refined and required intense focus. Timing, accuracy, and skill, rather than strength, were relied on to defeat one's opponent, and with a skilled practitioner, the results were extremely potent.

The footwork of Makashi practitioners followed a single line, front and back, shifting the feet to keep in perfect balance as the practitioner attacked and retreated. Makashi was a style based on balance, on back-and-forth charges, thrusts, and sudden retreats. Elegance, gallantry, enchantment, finesse, artfulness, and economy were the core of Makashi. Makashi duelists trained themselves to avoid enslavement to form, as such enslavement opened the practitioner to be defeated by predictability and the unforeseen.

Makashi users were elegant, precise, calm, confident to the point of arrogance (as befit Dooku's personality). Form II users were supremely confident in their chances for victory, and often looked so relaxed when they were fighting they even appeared to be dancing.

Faults


Despite its effectiveness, Makashi was not without its weaknesses. Among the first of these was the fact that it was somewhat harder to block against blaster fire with this style. Makashi was developed before blasters had become common place in the galaxy, and Form II training taught its practitioners to defend solely against blades. Skilled users could overcome this obstacle with minimal effort, however.

Another drawback was that Makashi was most potent when used against a single opponent, and therefore was reduced in strength when fighting groups of adversaries. Exceptionally skilled users could still fare very well against multiple foes, however. Dooku, for example, could fight up to four adversaries at once with little difficulty.

But the greatest flaw with this system of combat was that it could not withstand strikes from later styles which emphasized more powerful strokes over Makashi's elegance and precision. As shown during Dooku's fatal duel with Anakin that Makashi simply did not generate the necessary kinetic energy to meet Djem So (Skywalker's preferred style) on an even footing. The sheer raw power of Form V wore down Dooku's defenses, physically exhausting him and draining his reserves of Force power.

Opening stance
The opening stance was a single handed low guard. The saber would be held in the strong hand of the user, and held at his side, the blade pointed down, and the feet would be shoulder width apart. Some faced their opponent side on, so the blade was pointed in their direction. Dooku often used this stance when he prepared to fight. The lightsaber hilt would be held with the thumb pointing down the length of the blade to allow for smaller, tighter, more accurate movements of the saber. The rest of the fingers wrap around the hilt holding it tightly, but not so tight as too limit the fluidity of the movements.

Makashi salute
The Makashi salute was not an attack or maneuver but a challenge to an opponent. The saber was held in one hand, brought up vertical directly in front of the practitioner's face, then swung down and made a rapid X in the air. One of the best examples of this ancient tradition was when Count Dooku was fighting his former master Yoda at the Battle of Geonosis.

Lightsaber design variations
Due to Form II's emphasis on blade manipulation, and its many fluid one-handed moves, Makashi practitioners sometimes wielded lightsabers with curved hilts. They also occasionally included blade-guards, as shown with Dooku's lightsaber.

Practitioners
Dooku was a master of Form II to the highest degree, fighting with the precision built into the ancient technique. When Dooku wielded this form, it devastated the Jedi; the system of Jedi training immediately before and during the Clone Wars did not prepare many of them for the finesse and precise movements of a form bred for lightsaber dueling.

It was also one of the forms taught to General Grievous by Dooku himself, and the cyborg General in turn taught Makashi to his IG-100 MagnaGuards. Jedi Master Cin Drallig, the legendary lightsaber instructor, was another practitioner of Makashi. During the New Sith Wars, the Sith apprentice Fohargh practiced Makashi besides Soresu during his training, having been trained by the Sith Blademaster Kas'im.

Behind the scenes

 * The former Separatist general and Dark Jedi Sev'rance Tann was possibly a practitioner of Form II, as she was trained by Count Dooku.
 * Darth Malak and Darth Nihilus fought with an aggressive one-handed style, leading some to believe they practice Form II, but there is no canonical information on either of them.
 * Darth Vader is also thought to utilize Form II in his personal Form V varient, based on his bladework in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, which appears to be a combination of fencing and Kendo. This is both infered and contradicted by comments in the novel Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader.
 * In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, it is said that Soresu "lacks the grace of a Shaak Ti or a Count Dooku," leading to some speculation that she is a Makashi user as well. This argument is somewhat countered by many fans who speculate that since Makashi is weak against blaster opponents and Shaak Ti survived the Battle of Geonosis, it is less likely that she practiced it.
 * Master Tyvokka carried a curved lightsaber during the Stark Hyperspace War, and may have been a practitioner of Form II. Notably, he is killed by blaster bolts.
 * Likewise, the Dark Jedi Lycan in the story Nomad who carried a curved hilt lightsaber was another possible Makashi candidate.
 * In Republic: Trackdown, Count Dooku commented that Master Tholme was keeping up the dueling instead of blast-deflecting skills, respecting and followed the old ways, both suggesting Tholme may have been another Makashi practitioner. This argument is weakened by the fact that Tholme is seen using Force enhanced acrobatics throughout most of his duels.
 * Asajj Ventress may also have engaged in a Jar'Kai variant of this form due to the fact that she frequently engaged in lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat, and utilized twin curve-hilted lightsabers.
 * Exar Kun is commonly believed to practice Form II lightsaber combat, based on an entry on this site: []. However, he has not been referenced as doing so in any canon sources.
 * The Dark Jedi Jerec is also thought to use Form II, based on his use of the styles opening stance.
 * Another likely practitioner of Makashi is Sora Bulq, based on statements in the official Databank.
 * While Darth Sidious is believed to be a Form IV and VII user, no source has confirmed his lightsaber form. Due to comments from Nick Gillard that Sidious has been shown to use several different forms proficiently, it is possible that he has mastered most of them, including Form II.
 * Makashi, along with the other lightsaber forms, appears in Star Wars: Galaxies as part of moves and techniques employable by Jedi characters. This has not definitively been clarified to be canonical.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novelization
 * ''Star Wars: Clone Wars