ok...i know this is a bad analogy...if a trained martial artist was fighting another, and he was using aikido, and his opponent used a style that countered aikido well, then he would have to switch styles.....this could be done in the blink of an eye...its not like obi would have to say "ok...time out...im gonna switch styles now." he could switch without dooku realizing it until obi attacked using the new style...very simple.
Jedi's fighting with "different" styles sounds a lot like EU stuff to me.
Never saw any mention to fighting styles in the movies. Just like someone saying some time ago that some styles are closer to the dark side and therefore only allowed to masters. That is something wich, even making perfect sense to me, has never appeared in the movies.
Obi-wan lost his fight with Dooku because he made mistakes. He was probably tired, confused and shaken from the fight in the arena and the batlle outside. Also the dark side was having a field day with all those Jedi's geting killed. That might have add to his rather disapointing performance. Even Anakin fought better than him...
Look, that just isn't how it works. Swordfighters do not change their entire system of swordplay midway through a duel unless they are fighting- for no reason- with a style that is not the one they like. There is no 'superior' style that Obi-Wan could have shifted to. It isn't scissors/paper/stone. There is simply the style that you chose to fight in, presumably based on your own talent that you are good at. There isn;t style A that beats B that beats C. There are just things like the classical, simple style that Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Dooku used, or the flashy style Maul used, or the power style Windu uses, or the continuous movement style of Yoda, and so on. They are not better or worse than each other nor are some better at fighting others. Yoda doesn;t fight like he does because it is better or because he thought it was the best way to fight Dooku. He fought that way because it is the way that he fights. As do all of them, fighting in the way that suits them.
The important factor is skill and you fight in the style that will maximise your skill. Obi-Wan was doing his best- he is at his best fighting like that, worse any other way. There is no magic style he could have 'switched' to to do better. There was no advantage to be gained by switching to another style which a. he would be worse at because it is not HIS style and b. would have caused no more trouble for Dooku (because it does not work like that). Dooku was just better, and because they were using the same style Obi-Wan never looked like he was doing much. If he was a person who fought like Maul (which he is not) and had fought Maul style, he still would have lost just as bad- due to inferior skill- but he would have just looked more active whilst doing so because that style looks more active.
So no. There was no 'style switching' he could have done- and if he could have done, he would. And do remember that Nick knows what he is doing. And Obi-Wan WAS talioring his fighting, as Finti says, to how Dooku was attacking- in that he was engaging in pure swordplay, the only way for a classical fighter to fight against another classical fighter. He lost. That is how it goes. Do not be fooled by his defeat into thinking he was fighting poorly. He was fighting well, he was just outdone by a better opponent on the day.
Then when Dooku, a classicist, fought Anakin, an aggressive movement man, Dooku fought the way his style fights that style- giving ground and waiting for the one opportunity you need, and that worked fine. Which is also how Obi-Wan would (and, I suspect, will) fight Anakin, unless Anakin changes his favoured style by then (just as Obi-Wan has changed since he was a padawan)
They all adapt their style to their opponents. But they don't 'change styles'- that's just not practical or useful. To carry Finti's analogy further, a boxer might start changing his normal method of fighting depending on his opponent. But no matter what he does, he would still be a BOXER. He would be no good trying to, say, throw his opponent- that's just not what he is good at.
so even if two guys are fighting (swords or hand to hand) and one of them is cross trained in several types of martial arts, he cant switch styles during a fight? thats ludicrous......thats the whole point of learning more than one style, to be able to use more than one if the situation presents itself that you might need to switch. if a jedi is trained from infancy, its a good chance they know more than just one style. if i were a jedi, i would make it a point to learn as many styles as i can.....