“The road is long, but it is worth the journey, for a true master of Form Three is invincible." These are the words of the famed Jedi master Luminara Unduli, who was truly one of the Order’s greatest.
Soresu, also known as the Way of the Mynock, was the third of the seven classical forms of lightsaber combat. Fittingly to its defensive style, Soresu was also referred to as the Resilience Form, and was developed to combat the rising prominence of blaster technology, against which both Makashi and Shii Cho were of little use.
Soresu focused on defending the user from multiple attacks, both bladed and ranged. Much like Makashi, it relied on an economy of motion, both in terms of efficient bladework and minimal energy expenditure. Form 3 utilized momentum and a constant movement of the blade to deflect and redirect attacks, but in turn offered only a limited set of offensive maneuvers, a weakness for which it received heavy criticism from lightsaber wielders of the time. As an answer to this weakness, the offense-heavy forms of Ataru and Djem-So would be developed.
The ultimate goal of Soresu was, essentially, to outlast the opponent. For this reason, Jedi and Sith who placed a high emphasis on Soresu were often of small stature, lacking the strength and brute force required for some of the more offensively focused lightsaber forms. One such individual would be Darth Zannah, the second of Darth Bane’s Sith lineage. Upon taking Zannah as his apprentice, Darth Bane told her the following: “You lack the physical strength required for the powerful attacking strikes of Djem So or the other aggressive forms. You must rely on quickness, cunning, and, most of all, patience to best your enemies. In this way, Bane’s interpretation of Form 3 paralleled the principles he had remade as Dark Lord of the Sith.
Over the years, Darth Zannah became a proficient lightsaber duelist, capable of creating near-impenetrable defensive barriers through the use of her double bladed lightsaber. By utilizing this style of combat, Zannah was able to hold her own against multiple opponents – even against those of far greater size: as evidenced during the Battle of Tython, when she took on the Jedi Knights Sarro Xaj and Johun Othone singlehandedly, and managed to come out of the encounter victorious.
However, her explicit focus on the defensive style of Soresu would serve Zannah poorly in situations that saw her as the primary aggressor. Because of this limitation, Zannah would fail to kill her master Bane in several occasions. During their final battle, Zannah would once again become overwhelmed by her master’s powerful attacks, and eventually resort to Sith sorcery, amplified in effect by Ambria’s force nexus, to defeat Bane. But despite Zannah’s incredible proficiency in Form 3, others would rise to surpass her in the eons to come. One such Jedi would be the Great Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi: one of the greatest lightsaber duelists of his time. As much as Dooku was the reincarnation of Makashi, Obi-Wan was as such for Soresu. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is THE master of Soresu: the one Jedi in all the Order’s venerated history to completely encompass all Form 3 has to offer. In fact, at one point just before the conclusion of the Clone Wars, Mace Windu acknowledged Obi-Wan Kenobi as such.
After Qui-Gon Jinn’s death at the hands of the Sith Assassin Darth Maul, Obi-Wan would temporarily abandon the studies of Ataru, the fourth form of lightsaber combat, and begin studying the defensive Soresu. Eventually, his preferred combat style would become a hybrid of both forms: utilizing form 3 sequences to compensate for form 4’s lack of defensive maneuver: a weakness that had led to the death of his master. At his peak, Obi-Wan’s blast deflection skills were said to be so finely honed to the point where Kenobi could, quote, “literally walk unscathed through what were described as hornet-swarms of blasterfire, single-handedly deflecting blasts from all directions simultaneously. His blade to blade combat was also a sight to behold, as Kenobi often molded his form to fit the weaknesses of his opponents. Against Grevious in particular, Kenobi would demonstrate what can only be described as a perfection of Form 3, utilizing an intricate pattern of blocks and parries, as well as his own lightning fast reflexes to counter Grevious’ mechanically powered attacks, which had been the downfall of many great Jedi in the past.
As a practitioner of Form 3, Kenobi also subscribed to the idea of placing himself “within the eye of the storm:” maintaining, quote, a calm center, undistracted and undisturbed by the conflict around them. This mentality eventually led to Kenobi’s victory over the newly dubbed Darth Vader on the volcanic planet of Mustafar. Using the Jedi-turned-Sith Lord’s frustration and overconfidence against him, Kenobi managed to not only defeat, but dismember Vader, who had in the past been described as the more powerful duelist.
When Kenobi once against faced Vader on the Death Star, seventeen years into Palpatine’s reign, his skills had, understandably, fallen off somewhat. Even so, he managed to hold his own against Vader’s powerful Form V for a short time. Rather than continue a losing fight, Kenobi opted to sacrifice himself and become one with the Force.
Other notable practitioners of Form 3 were Luminara Unduli, Barris Offee, Luke Skywalker, and the newly introduced Jedi Knight: Kanan Jarrus. Characterized by patience, quickness, subtlety, and a masterful use of bladework, practitioners of Soresu were, in essence, an impenetrable wall of defense, and were only limited by the boundaries of their own potential. And that is the way of Form 3.
