Project Empress 014

 [Chapter 4 continued]

Cara didn’t notice how the time passed as she was almost in a constant flow with Walter, who at first had just moved with her and, as they went on, kept helping her find better movements, overcome situations where she thought she was stuck, adjusted her stance, grip or strikes, giving them better form and more power. 

When Walter stopped and told her that it was high time for a break, she noticed that the quality of the light had changed, instead of the LEDs it was now the sun, high in the sky that was shining down on them warming up the greenhouse and somewhere she heard the hum of electrical converters. 

“It’s time for a break”, Walter said. 

“I can still go on”, Cara said.

“I can see that, but we’ve been training for almost four hours now and we both need to eat before we continue. Also, I’d like to talk to you about what know about the arts and we can do that over lunch.”

Cara wasn’t really hungry, actually the thought of stopping the training now was a bit annoying. There were still a few things that she wanted to try again and she had some ideas of how to move in new interesting ways. However, Walter didn’t look as if he was open for any kind of discussion. Now that she had stopped moving and given her body a moment to relax she noticed that she was quite thirsty. As soon as that thought had surfaced there was another breaking news message arriving in her mind, that the idea of food might not be that bad after all.

Ten minutes later they were sitting downstairs around one of the large wooden tables of the bar. Walter had served a stew of meat, potatoes, carrots, onions and tomatoes with freshly baked bread. The stew had been simmering since early in the morning. The bread he had baked of a simple dough, it was still hot. As the bread and stew filled the room with their smell, Cara noticed that she may be a bit ravenous and could eat half a pig or another similar small snack. Walter served her a mixture of one part ice cold apple juice and sparkling mineral water that right now was close to celestial ambrosia.

When they started to eat they didn’t talk for a while. It was only during seconds that they started to talk.

“What do you know about the Ramparts and Animus?”, Walter asked her, dipping a bit of bread into his stew.

“Ramparts are the basics of all martial arts. Technique, strength, stamina, coordination”, Cara spooled off. “Animus… is… mostly superstition, I guess?” 

“Hmmm…”, Walter just nodded. He dipped his bread in his stew, took a bite. He spent some time chewing, his eyes still focused on some other place, darting around, he ate a few more spoon fulls of the stew. “Yeah, that makes sense. Your Ramparts are pretty decent.”

“They are?”, Cara asked. She couldn’t quite believe that. In the last few days she had gotten more positive feedback about her physical abilities than in her entire life before. 

“Yep”, Walter was still focused on whatever he was seeing before his mind’s eye. “Your moves are strong, very grounded. They have impact. Your grappling is unpolished but very solid. And when you finally stop thinking, your movements start aligning towards your target. You also have some very solid understanding of the flow of power that comes from your opponent, that helps you a lot”, he focused on Cara, “You never had grappling or wrestling training”, it really wasn’t a question.

“No”, Cara said, her gaze evading Walter’s.

“And yet it’s hard to get you under control when grappling. Throwing you is always more work than it should be. Also, when you fall you never stay down. You did learn that on your own.”

“Well in school, when someone weaker was bullied by one of the bigger kids, I could not just stand there. So I often…”, Cara did not quite raise her head, but her eyes met Walters asking his gaze if it was a problem, “…got involved. I didn’t win often, but then I also almost never lost.”

Walter smiled. “I bet you didn’t”, he chuckled. “Look, we don’t have much time. This morning was to look what you already know to do, to find your strengths, were you already are good.”

“I’m not good at all”, Cara said, her eyes now focused on a potato she was poking with her spoon, but gently, she would not want to hurt the potatoes feelings. 

“Bullshit. No one is ‘not good at all’. You might not know things. You might not have learned them. But everyone, everyone does some things right.”

“Easy for you to say. You are a master”, Cara said, apologetically poking the potato. “I’ve been a novice for 4 years and I have still not made it out to the lowest tier…”

“You know, one thing I learned during my life is that there are hardly any bad students, but lots and lots massively shitty teachers. We only have one day today, that isn’t much. Don’t expect any miracles. I will help you put the things you already know into a context that will help you understand the art better. I will also show you a few tricks that will make your body understand complex motion in a more direct way, after that, there will be a lot more of the things that you can do on your own, that will help you improve your style.”

Cara was now looking at Walter again, her mouth slightly agape, the potato took the opportunity to hide under a chunk of meat.

“But first”, Walter said, “we need to talk about Animus. It is not superstition. Many just don’t seem to understand it. The Ramparts are important. They are the external force, the body, literally the ramparts. The Animus is what makes it work, makes it flow, the control beneath it. The things that lie under the surface. Your breath is real, your nervous system is real, there are real ways to access them. We are certainly going to work on that. Your Animus is weak and all over the place.”

“How can breathing help me?”, Cara asked. “I have pretty good stamina. I think of all the things that I do, my breathing is fine”, she chuckled nervously while the idea that she wasn’t even able to breath right, was dawning on her like a baleful green sun. “I’m breathing wrong?”

Walter laughed. “No you are breathing fine. But I can show you how to breath better. How to synchronise your mind and body. Show you the secret pathways that will allow your mind to influence your autonomous body functions.”

Cara, leaning back a bit, her eyebrows high, said, “Now you sound like a wizard.”

“Like Dumbledore?”, Walter laughed, his hand stroking his long imaginary beard.

“Who?”

“Kids these days…” Walter sighed. “Come, eat your stew the day is short and our training plan long.”

Twenty minutes later they were up on the roof garden again. They started slow, with just the basics of Cara’s style. Walter then explained to her how she should breathe in when pulling the sword back to herself, and to breathe out when pushing it away. 

After doing that for a while they did a slow motion duel, the focus here not being so much the fight itself but to help Cara move in a dynamic combat situation while having her breath under control.

When it became harder for her to keep up with Walter, he stopped the duel and told her to return to the basics while he made them tea.

Over the cup of tea, he showed her some of his basic breathing exercises, showing her how to slow the beat of her heart. 

“We will repeat this a couple of times today. We will fight, I will put on a bit of pressure and you will use the technique to calm your heart. Train this. Train this every day. With time this will become second nature and you will find balance between your mind and body.”

Cara was furiously trying to relax, when she heard Walter curse. She opened one eye and looked into his direction. Walter was looking at the sky, his jaw tense.

“What’s the problem?”, Cara asked.

“Time. It’s running away.”, he cursed under his breath, “There is still a lot left… but maybe this is for the best. Nat is your master not I. Still. There is one more thing that I need to teach you.”

“I’m ready”, said Cara, rising. She noticed that despite having been training for more hours in a single day than ever before, she still felt full of energy. 

“This one will help you to train yourself. Show me your strike from above.”

Cara did as she was told. 

“OK, now I want you to keep your upper arms, pressed to you torso and do it again.”

“What?”

“Your upper arms.”, Walter said, he pressed his own arms to his torso and moved around his own sword by mostly moving his hands up and down and moving his body. Cara chuckled. “Go on. Try it”, Walter said.

Cara felt a bit silly but did as she was told. A few moves in she heard Walter shout, “Oy! Don’t cheat. Keep those arms glued to your torso!” She did her best and it somehow worked. But most of those moves felt either horrible or when they started to feel at least a bit better, Walter complained that she was shifting out of the form.

“OK that’s enough”, Walter said after a while. “How did that feel?”

“Horrible”, Cara said. 

“Very good”, Walter said grinning. “Now we will do the opposite. Be careful with this one, you will throw your sword, not literally, keep it in your hands, but you will throw it with your arms stretched wide and you will then follow whereever its force takes you. Don’t stop the sword mid motion. You might hurt your joints if you do that. Just go with the flow and have fun. Here, I’ll show you.”

Walter raised his sword high over his right shoulder and threw it in a big arcing slash forward, it made swooshing sound as he did so. The sword was so fast and moved with such force that Walter had to swing it around him, while doing a surprisingly elegant pirouette. 

“Now you!”

Cara did the same thing as Walter and soon was turning round and round, flinging her sword into wide orbits around her body. She imagined a host of enemies around her, being cut horizontally and falling all around her. She laughed. 

“Well done”, Walter said. “Now what would you say about those two moves.”

“They are fun.” Cara beamed. 

“Would you use them in combat?”

“No”, Cara’s eyes grew wide with the mere suggestion.

“Why?”

“Because the first one is cramped and short. There is no range and its really slow. The other one is fast and has a lot of range but is almost impossible to control and weak.”

“You are absolutely right. The first one, the Closed Fist, has great power and great control but as you said, its slow, uncomfortable and has virtually no range. The Open Wing on the other hand, has incredible range, is extremely fast, but you keep falling after your sword and once committed there is no controlled way to stop it. However”, and here Walter started to look smug in that wizardly way again Cara thought, “Your strike from above moves between these two extremes. Between the Closed Fist and the Wide Open Wing is a sweet spot for your move. Try it.”

She did. 

“You really are Bumbledore!”, Cara said.

“Dumbledore…”, Walter sighed. 

“It feels completely different…”

“No, you just gave your body the context it needed to understand the motion you are doing. First try to find the centre between the Fist and the Wing.”

Cara tried it. It was not quite right. She tried again. Still off, a bit too much of the Closed Fist. Another try.

“Cara?”, Walter said, this time a bit louder.

“Yes?”

“I’m glad that the method is working but we need to press on.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been trying that strike for a couple of minutes now and we have to go on.”

“I have?”

“Yes,” Walter said smiling. “Don’t worry that’s normal. And that’s what I want you to learn. But first you will try a few variations, do your strike but try to get it as close to the Wide Open Wing as possible while still maintaining control. Then you do the same trying to get to the Closeed Fist as close as possible.”

And that is what Cara did. First cautiously, then with more and more freedom in her movements. After a while shifting between long wide winged attacks and closed fisted counters. 

“Very good”, Walter said. “Now the last part of the Fist and Wing Method is to combine both approaches into one move. What happens if you start in the Closed Fist and expand into the Wing? Or the other way round?”

“It won’t work for all moves, but for many. Find the points were it is obvious for your body that it doesn’t work anymore. Find the extremes of the movement. Savour them. Then find the basic move in the middle and from then expand back out. If you learn one thing today, learn this and everything I told you about the Animus. Now, go wild and explore your moves.”

As the stars in the skies above started to come out one by one, so did the variations of Cara’s most basic move multiply. Cara was in heaven.