I stepped into the world of Star Wars last Sunday. There weren’t any wookies, ewoks or galactic threats from the Empire, but there were light saber battles of student proportions. Yoda’s ghost wasn’t on hand to guide the young padawans and future dark-side sympathizers, but they did have Nick Gillard, the stunt double for Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. He was also the stunt coordinator for the Star Wars prequels and ex-circus stunt man (really).

It was me, John, and Steve Ahmad. We were looking on as various padawans, aged 10-16, were learning to become Jedi. I don’t have any pictures of them, because I didn’t want to have to explain to their parents that we weren’t taking pictures to feed our pedophilic hunger (“It’s just a nerd site, I swear!“).

If this were a real fight, John would be in trouble. Nick is a Jedi, and you do NOT mess with Jedi.

At some point though, John was learning the moves by watching and decided to demonstrate them to Steve. I found them in the back performing the fight choreography of Anakin and Obi Wan Kenobi with their fingers, because, you know, playing with your fingers is exactly like fighting with a light saber (obvious hint: it’s not). They both agreed it was easy. Though, of course, when John and I were actually on the floor trying to hammer out the different moves we were semi-familiar with, it turned out that it wasn’t the easiest thing to do. The placement of your hands will change from move to move. The way the light sabers interact with each other requires good coordination and a lot of pre-planning. In a video game-like way, you could say that it was like playing Portal 2 co-op all over again. We did pretty well considering that we only watched most of the time.

Getting back to Nick Gillard, he was a pretty cool guy. He’s very down-to-earth, and he made it clear that he doesn’t like it when people put up a facade. I hope he wasn’t mentioning that because of us, because we’re always friendly with people (unless you happen to be a Gungan, or other creature of equivalent irritating quality). I can only hope that my half-decent British accent didn’t piss him off too much. I’m fairly certain British people don’t find it quite as amusing as we Americans might. Nick was probably using every ounce of Jedi patience to not slice me in half, Darth Maul-style. Nick Gillard, you are an awesome guy. If you’re ever in the vicinity of America again, and more specifically California, drop a line and we’ll go drinkin’. May the force be with you.

This little chapter in the book that is Nerd Reactor took place at Tim Weske’s Swordplay, a dojo that specializes in weapons training for use in movies. As per my observations, Tim and his assistants are very attentive, caring and helpful. Tim has two dojos: one in Granada Hills and another in Burbank (the one we went to). You can visit Tim Weske’s site if you’re interested in becoming a sword-dueling specialist, or you’re just trying to impress nerds of the sex of your preference.