Training

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16+ chapter ahead. --------------------------------------------------

Two months have passed since the day I saw Plo Koon. My hopes that I was wrong were dashed by one of my mentors, who answered my simple question-who's the chancellor now? Turns out it's been a year since Palpatine. Yikes. These are troubled times for me. You have to tear the claws out of the Order, whether you like it or not. I'm lucky, I'd be so fucked if I got caught in the middle of it.... I even have time to finish my training in the Temple, and then I'll fuck off and go home. But I realize that now, and then, two months ago, I was a little bit too much. But even now, when I go to the gym, and in general, as soon as I meet a girl's group, I automatically look for a little toga. I do not know why. The interesting thing is that I find one. The problem is that I can't tell them apart, and there's an awful lot of toggrut girls, unlike guys. I haven't seen a single Togrut male except for Palatte Ghani.

All in all, after thinking it over, I decided not to make a fuss and to gain knowledge, because it never hurts. And, of course, training with the Force. I could only meditate, but even that had proven to be quite helpful. At any rate, I can see why Jedi do it whenever they have a spare moment.

To begin with, I was finally able to slow the force down to the point where I could control it. So the first thing I started to do was to infuse my body with it. Just because I had read tons of sci-fi and fantasy and fanfiction where it was a way to strengthen the body. The stereotype played out, you could say. Whether this is true or not, I can't find out for sure. It's kind of like I started to produce better results in the gym, but that could be due to quite normal progress. Though the only one who can keep up with me now is Rama Olantu, the Tisspian with the body of a snake. I am incorrect, however - it was I who began to catch up with him on his runs. But, as he once proved, no one can still compete with him in a straight line. It's a good thing Rama's agility, like all Tispians, isn't good. Otherwise it would have been a real shame. And yes, we were being taught about race, so the information about the beasts around me was pouring in. But it was the first lecture that impressed me the most. The very beginning of it. To be more precise, my mentor told me that there were twenty million races in the galaxy. I can't even comprehend that number. Twenty million people, even if it's hard. But races!

Apart from enhancing my body, if that was what it was, I began to run the Force through my crystals and then cram it in there. It was only with the Force that I took directly from my body. And, as a continuation of the work with the crystals, I began to try to control the Force around me. But that was not good at all. It was moving too fast for me. I can feel it... I feel it, but I can only control what "sticks" to my body, of course, only after I slow it down. However, I am happy about that, too, I mean, that I can feel the Force, because before I could only "see" it. By the way, the measurements "by eye" showed that the Force outside my body moves at the same speed, and if there is a difference, I do not see it.

Learning hand-to-hand combat is getting more and more interesting every day. In terms of training. For example we started sparring. With four-year-old children, it's funny in itself, and if you also take into account that behavior during sparring from child to child varies ..... Palatte, for example, showed a new side of himself. He is quite a peaceful and outgoing child, but in a fight he transformed into a little predator, who, until the instructor stops him, continues to terrorize his victim. He's very fond of going behind his back. I'm not sure what I'm doing, but Jiro, the ogre with a jaw instead of a nose, has been quite peaceful in the fight. And, despite his generally clumsy appearance, quite agile. Rama, the Tispian, was something else. They didn't even bet against him at first. As his instructor had said, when they were all grown up the difference in physical shape would be evened out, but for now he would just have to practice his tricks. He, the mentor, stated that Shi-cho's hand-to-hand combat was not suitable for Tispians, but that he had to study it in order to know what his opponent was capable of in the future. Fencing, yes, fits, hand-to-hand combat, no. But that's not the fun, the fun was when Palatte, looking at the sad look of Rama's parents rewarding him with the name, offered to spar with him. And the mentor suddenly agreed. In the end, I witnessed the tagruti first on the ground, then, when he got used to his opponent's throws, chased him around the ring, then how he jumped on the snake, and in the end, how he hung on his back and almost growled. Don't think it all looked the least bit professional, no. All the same baby pile-up was small, but the shifts in Pala's tactics were pretty clear.

In sparring, I didn't even think about putting into practice what we were taught. All those straight punches, side kicks, overhead kicks. I knew all too clearly that to use all of that, you had to work up a punch first. Otherwise it was all just a bunch of malarkey. In fact, it was way too fucking early in my opinion to put us against each other. So I was just dodging and pushing. Well... sometimes hit. If a good opportunity came up. And surprisingly, I ended up being considered the best fighter in the group. Even though I didn't fight much. All right, I fought. Once. When my mentor put me up against Rama's snake-man. Racially speaking, a snake-man. I didn't even win, and he couldn't gut me either. His snake throws were too straightforward. After that duel, my mentor remarked that I should learn Soresu, not Shi-cho, and, seeing my confusion, explained that this was the third form of lightsaber combat, or as it was called, the Mynok Way and the Elasticity Form. But I still have to start with Shii Cho simply because it's easier to learn, and all the other forms include elements from it.

- When can I start doing Soresu? - I asked then.

- Not until I was seven," he answered. - Not if you're good at Shii Cho. Before that, you're just physically... Mmm... you'll be too young to learn anything serious. And as it is, the standard is that younglings are given the choice from the age of nine.

I was only four and a half at the time of that dialogue, which meant I had another two and a half years of intensive training ahead of me. And we kids didn't even have any free time, so I couldn't push myself.

The inevitable, albeit slow, approach of the Clone Wars and what would follow left me with a sense of a race. I knew that I would have no training after the reorganization of the Republic. Or rather, there would be, but only self-development, and that, to be sure, was nothing like the systematic, millennia-old education of the Order. What to say about the knowledge accumulated within these walls. After the cleansing of the Temple, it would, at best, fall into the hands of the Empire, and at any rate would be lost to me. So I absorbed every crumb of knowledge that was given to us here.

The "push your neighbor" games in the ring were over. I was still mostly dodging, but I was trying to hit more often now. Dodge - punch. Step in from the side - hit. The real thing. Pushes turned into throws, sidesteps into deflections or soft blocks. I listened to what my mentor said, memorized it, practiced it... and used that knowledge against my opponents. After another six months I could already admit to myself that, yes, I was the best fighter in the group. Even Rama, despite his mass, speed, and claws, would end up on the floor when he met me in the ring. A little beaten and strangled. It got to the point where my mentor himself, without me asking, began to give me tricks from other Forms. It is true, as I suspect, that if I began to fail at learning, he would stop such practices. And shortly before my fifth birthday he declared that Soresu would not suit me either. The form, sharpened for deaf defense, is clearly not for me, but Form Five, aka the Form of Persistence, is almost perfectly suited to what he sees in me now.

Form Five, aka Path of the Edge-Dragon or Form of Persistence, was created by the masters of Soresu, who did not like that the third form has rather meager attacking potential. The smallest of all the seven Forms. But they didn't want to lose the immense protection Soresu offered, either. That's why their hesitation resulted in the fifth Form. In fact, there were two versions: Shien and Jem So. The first was more suited to deflecting blaster charges, and the second to fighting. At this point in the story, my mentor noticed the many curious faces that surrounded us and listened respectfully. And then he decided to balk at the idea. As it turned out, Sheehan, though the successor to Sores, had lost a lot, and could only barely compare to him in defense. Sheehan was best suited to attacking a lot of ordinary people armed with firearms. He was able to fend off the few less powerful wizards armed with lightsabers quite well, though. And win. Jem So, on the other hand, went even further away from Soresu and focused on the fight against the light saber. And he demanded a lot of physical strength from the fighter, and his mobility was lame. In general, with this little lecture the mentor was trying to explain to everyone that there is no ideal, and even styles developed purely for themselves will have some disadvant.

I made even more progress in meditation. True, I had to steal two or three hours away from sleep, but that's such a small thing, really. Compared to what's coming to Galactica.... By the way, I wasn't the only one meditating. Rama and Palatte were getting on my nerves with their whining, backbiting fucking kids, so I took it upon myself to teach them. At first I didn't believe they'd learn anything... I didn't believe I could teach them anything, but as it turned out, the kids were stubborn, so even with my inarticulate explanations they were able to learn to meditate. Yeah, those were the days. If only the little ones hadn't been pestering me with their questions all the time.... Eh.