Obviously as filmed the lightsaber battles in the original trilogy are slower and less acrobatic than those in the prequel trilogy. Is this canon? There's a popular question that basically asks why this is and most of the answers are out of universe explanations about lightsabers originally being meant to be heavy, improvements in CG, and that the choreographer in the original trilogy was an Olympic fencer while the choreographers in the prequel trilogy were stuntmen. This implies that the lightsaber battles as shown are not meant to be taken literally.
On the other hand, the lightsaber battles tend to be taken more literally in questions comparing the lightsaber skills of Anakin and Darth Vader and various explanations are given for why Darth Vader doesn't do flips.
I've always figured that when a lightsaber battle happens it should just be understood that <epic battle takes place
> and the exact movements are unimportant. If that weren't the case, it would be sensible to ask silly questions like "Why are Qui Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan playing around in the battle with Darth Maul at the end of Episode I? Why are they flipping around instead of trying to kill each other? Who are they trying to impress?"