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The films amply demonstrate how easy it is to take your opponents hand off (and frankly I don't understand why such moves aren't attempted earlier in the fights - it seems like an automatic win condition)

It seems like about 90% of the Jedi order ought to be using synthetic hands, but that isn't the impression I get?

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EDIT: To clarify: I mean specifically, why they don't attempt to slide their blade down their opponents saber more often, so as to destroy the saber and take off the opponents hand.

To be sure it wouldn't always work: either your opponent might react to disengage, or to change the angle of their hold so that you weren't sliding down their blade, or to perform the same manoeuvre on YOUR hand, or indeed to attack whilst your blade is lower than it might normally be. But if you attempted it, whilst keeping your balance and able to stop/otherwise react, then it seems reasonably safe. And as I said, if it DOES succeed, then you've pretty much won.

Seems like a pretty safe gamble with a massive pay-off if it works.

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  • 4
    So to paraphrase, you're asking why Jedi don't automatically go for chopping off limbs, rather than defaulting to fancy fencing?
    – Wolfie Inu
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 9:13
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    @WolfieInu I meant specifically sliding down the saber, given that sabers have no cross guards (prior to "The Force Awakens" obviously). Have added clarification.
    – Brondahl
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 9:33
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    Not gonna post this as an answer because I can't come up with a good canon source, but lightabers tend to stick to each other where they meet. If anyone wants to hunt for canon answers, that's where to start. But basically, lightsaber users don't slide their lightsabers along the opponent's lightsaber because lightsabers can't do that, their magnetic fields interact and they stick together at that point.
    – Wolfie Inu
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 9:48
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    I don't have a source for this, but I always got the impression that when lightsabers collided, there was some sort of insurmountable friction-like force that stopped them from sliding against each other. Otherwise all lightsabers would be built with crossguards like Kylo Ren's
    – Djorge
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 11:15
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    Th eproblem with the tactic is probably that it is most often used against other jedi (grvieous being one of the only non jedi who uses lightsabers). And jedi have the ability to sense the future and could thus react and reverse the tactic
    – Thomas
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 18:18

3 Answers 3

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What you're overlooking is that there aren't all that many Sith around in the first place. Even during the Clone Wars, most Jedi probably never fought one, and most of those who did probably didn't survive the experience.

Remember that Darth Maul's attack on Qui-Gon and Obiwan was the first time in generations that any Jedi had seen a Sith. (Or at least the first time any Jedi that had seen a Sith lived to tell the tale!) That's why the Jedi Council believed the Sith were extinct.

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  • If you consider Dark jedi as sith it's been exactly one generation since previous QuiGon apprentice turned to the dark side aka the books about obiwan training
    – Ludovic Zenohate Lagouardette
    Commented Nov 21, 2015 at 7:33
  • Qui-Gon may well have been the first Jedi to fight another (Force-using) lightsaber user for centuries
    – Valorum
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 20:23
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They probably shouldn't...

Kenobi uses that exact tactic against General Grievous, he slides his lightsaber down Grievous' and chops his hand off.

I grabbed this YouTube video from the Reddit linked in the comments above.

Thanks Demarini for the comment:

It happens at roughly 2:30 in the video for those who are wondering.

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    It happens at roughly 2:30 in the video for those who are wondering.
    – Demarini
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 19:43
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    Grievous was not a Jedi, however, which may have affected his ability to avoid such a technique.
    – JAB
    Commented Jul 21, 2017 at 19:35
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First of all the opponents with lightsabers are really rare.

Then jedi are trained to sword fight cf the book series about the youngth of obiwan.

Finally the force allow them to anticipate enemy's moves and counter them.

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