The Imperial Society for the Martial Arts' Guide to: The Whip {|}

Types of Whip

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• Electro-whips: also called a 'Zygerrian slaver whip', consists of a metal grip and an electrified wire that glows when powered up. The wire can be retracted into the grip when powered down. While incredibly painful, the Electro-whip is typically not physically damaging. Designed as a tool for slave owners, the whip is made to subdue but not damage the owner's valuable merchandise. Electro-whips can be used against lightsabers.

• Shock Whips: are made of a metal grip from which extended metal wires roughly four meters in length, thickly woven into a single strand. When activated via controls on the handgrip, the internal power cell sends an intense electrical charge through the whip. Wielders commonly wrap their foes in the metal wire before activating the electric charge. Shock whips could be used to wrap around opponents' legs or limbs to grab or trip them. The charge was strong enough to kill a being with but the slightest touch. Some models of shock whips featured retractable cords that would spool themselves into the whip's handle for easier carrying and use.

• Lightwhips: generally function on the same principles and mechanics as lightsabers, emitting a coherent beam of energy that is used as a weapon. However, rather than a straight, meter-long blade emitted by standard lightsabers, lightwhips featured long, flexible blades that often exceeded several meters in length. Instead of one large crystal, they contained multiple small crystals, and the plasma in the blade has no cell barriers to keep it straight.

• Neuronic Whips: are a long, flexible cable, connected to a power pack in a handle that delivered a stunning jolt on contact. Unlike a typical electro-whip, the heavy cable could crack bones and break flesh, although death was an extremely unlikely outcome.

• Classical Whips: is a term used for whips that are typically used for commercial, agricultural or recreational reasons. These whips are typically made from leather and are not designed for military or offensive purposes. These whips come in a variety of different varieties, designs, shapes and sizes depending on their intended purpose.

The length of a whip is just at important as its design. The longer the whip, the longer its reach but it comes at a cost. Longer whips are slower to crack, giving an opponent a gap of which to gain ground on you. As well as this, longer whips require more strength to throw about, limiting those that can use them. Smaller whips have less range but are very quick and flexible, keeping an enemy on constant edge. 

Basic Whip Cracks

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• Overhead Flick: is a crack done by bringing the whip up behind your left shoulder so it is parallel to the ground, and then throwing it forward over your shoulder towards the opponent.

• Reverse Overhead/Cattlemans Crack: is a crack done by bringing the whip up behind your right shoulder, the side of which the whip is held, instead of to the left shoulder and then throwing the whip forwards towards an opponent.

• Back Crack/Reverse Cattlemans Crack: is a crack done by bringing the whip up behind your right shoulder again but this time directing the crack behind you instead of in front.

• Sidearm Flick: is a crack done by lifting the whip up horizontally behind you and throwing it forward.

• Underhand Flick: is a crack done by having the whip lying on the ground behind you, and throwing it forward and up.

Attack Patterns and Combinations

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The key to fighting a combatant using only a whip is fluidity, always keeping the whip moving and always striking at the opponent. A whip has no defensive capabilities. The only defence for a whip is to go on the offence. 
The way to do this is by combining different whip cracks where the momentum of the whip flows into one another nicely to keep up a consistent barrage of attacks.  For example:

• Reverse Overhead Flick into an Overhead Flick
• Overhead Flick into an Underhand Flick

or more complex attack pattern would be:

• Reverse Overhead Flick into a Back Crack, into an Underhand Flick, into a Reverse Overhead Flick. 

Because of the whip's limitations, it is frequently used in the galaxy in tandem with other weapons. Most commonly the whip is combined with the use of a blaster pistol or by Force Sensitives with the force. The whip in these cases serves as a tool to keep an approaching melee enemy at a distance to be picked off by a ranged attack. 
The Reverse Grip

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Like blade weapons, the whip can be held in a reverse grip. The whip cracks and flicks are all the same however the difference lies in where the whip will land. In a normal grip, the whip will typically strike the upper part of the opponent's body. In a reverse grip, however, the whip typically lands lower because the whip is not allowed to point directly up and thus cannot travel as high as in a normal grip.