Using LED Lucasian swords, the Golden Gate Knights teach lightsaber courses each week in San Francisco. Headed by a former choreographer for George Lucas' Star Wars films, the classes (for kids-at-heart 17 and older) teach saber choreography that will help budding jedis become experts at "spins, flourishes and a whole lot more." The classes are broken up into four parts:
- Stretching & Warmup: "We begin each class with a simple warm-up, stretching, and calisthenic exercises to get ourselves limber and prevent any injuries."
- Flourishes: "You will be taught how to do fancy lightsaber flourishes and spins. This includes forward and reverse spins, inverted grips, figure eights and a whole lot more!"
- Choreography: "The heart of the class. You will be taught Novastar's stage choreography system. We will start with basic moves which can be linked together to form dazzling sequences. We will also be teaching film and stage techniques so that your sequences will look great in either medium."
- Meditation: "Our training is internal as well as external. To get us all in the best mental state, we perform a 5 minute meditation right before class ends."
Sabers will be provided for free for the first month, then they'll charge you $5 per session. However, feel free to bring you own saber, but beware: "Saber blades have different strengths so pairing up your blades against ours might not be good. If your blades use a LED strip such as those found in Force FX sabers, it is not wise to use them for practice. The LEDs in strips have a tendency to get knocked out over a period of time thereby producing dead spots in the blade."
You can also come dressed in costume (e.g., Princess Lea, Han Solo, Padmé Amidala) or in comfy sports gear. Just make sure you can workout in your attire.
Classes are every Sunday (except this coming Sunday, February 19th) at Studio Garcia, home of LevyDance, at 19 Heron Street. (It's near the Civic Center BART Station.) For more details, visit the Golden Knights' site.
