I have seen a trope where you have the hero practicing a "special technique" earlier in the movie, and then the fight resolves when they get a chance to use their secret technique and the bad guy isn't able to counter it.

Again, this is why I like samurai movies a lot. A lot of Western swordfights are just guys whacking at each other for minute after minute, but in a lot of classical samurai movies they get all their talking out of the way before the fight and the actual fight happens very quickly.

I really like This swordfight in The Deluge. The way they're fencing tells you a lot about their character, They take breaks to show reactions of the characters without interrupting the pacing of the fight, it has believable pauses and tempo. And then when it resolves it resolves very quickly.