Martial Arts Progress

Looking at Hubr while eating breakfast and feeding Hegla, Blink kept thinking that his nephew had made good progress since he arrived. However, with less than a month before he had to leave Kasgar for his mission to become a wizard, Blink felt he needed to speed along the process of Hubr's development.

Teaching him the palm technique turned out to be a wise decision on his part. With his palm attacks, Hubr held a frightening advantage for as long as he could get close to his opponent. It also helped that none of the other trainees had ever seen someone fight with his palms instead of his fists.

In fact, with the exception of Master Tszarek, no one in Ragha had ever seen a palm strike before.

More importantly, with the palm technique, Hubr's hands that looked somewhat damaged before were slowly recovering.

Blink decided to teach Hubr that day how to use his hands like a hammer. He had analysed that when the hand was clenched into a fist, the fleshy part below the little finger could cause a jarring effect when struck upon the face or chest. Like the palm technique, it would also avoid injuries to Hubr's hands.

Teaching Hubr another way to fight would not actually speed up his development. It would just provide the boy with an alternative during a fight and nothing more.

Blink was, of course, very much aware of this.

What Blink was thinking was somewhere along the way he had progressed in martial arts combat.

When Blink entered the academy six and a half years ago in 1485, he didn't know anybody on the first day. Thus, during their break he went to a spot where he thought no other disciple was headed to. As he was about to take a spot, another boy was also about to take that spot.

That other boy was Flip. It was a very awkward moment for both of them. However, Flip was not about to go back and join the rest. Thus, a friendship was born.

Blink learned later on, that Flip seemed to suffer from a very low self-esteem. Aside from losing almost every single time during sparring before Blink came along, he also lived a very sad life.

Flip lost both his parents within the same year when he was only five years old. His mother died due to an accident while his father, in his insurmountable grief, killed himself just two months later. Flip was taken in by an aunt who treated him worse than a servant and made him feel like he was such a grave burden to her. In fact, Flip was almost sold as a slave by this very aunt.

If Flip had not taken the chance to sneak off and try his luck during the recruitment conducted by one of the senior disciples in their town, Flip would have really ended up as a slave.

Blink and Flip helped each other out during the former's first few months at the academy. Later on, with Blink's unprecedented growth in martial arts training, the helping relationship became a one-way traffic, with Flip always needing Blink's help.

However, Blink did not begrudge him any of that. Blink was very much aware that without Flip, he would not have made the kind of progress he was able to achieve. In Flip he had a game and willing sparring partner who practiced with him daily, thus speeding up his progress. Flip made some progress too, but not as much as Blink did.

Recalling all that, Blink came to a decision to take in another student who could serve as Hubr's sparring partner. And as it happens, he had just one particular student in mind.

For that day, Blink decided to help Senior Brother Gart with the training of the trainees in the morning.

Blink had two objectives at the time. First, he wanted to test if his assessment of the boy was on point. He would pair the boy up with a ten-year old during sparring to prove this. Secondly, after proving his assessment to be right, he would speak to the boy's father and make subtle hints of his plans for the latter's son.

The boy's name was Zugr. He was a skinny eight-year old who impressed Blink with his subtlety and even more so by his ability to adapt to a developing situation. Those were stuff that could not be taught. More so, it was already a shocking thing in itself that an eight-year old possessed such qualities.

When the morning session had ended, Blink approached Zugr's father and casually told him to see him after the next day's training.

"I have a lot of interest in your son's progress," was all Blink told him.

That afternoon Blink told Hubr that they were not doing any training and would go out for a stroll instead.

Naturally, Hubr was very disappointed. To him, anything not related to martial arts training was just a waste of his time. He was getting better and better each day under his Nangku Kraszad's guidance and wanted to take advantage of every single day while he had yet to set out on his mission.

Seeing the hesitant look on his nephew's face, Blink encouraged him to speak his mind.

After some hesitation, and a few more encouragement from Blink, Hubr finally expressed his thoughts.

"It's not that I don't want to accompany you for a stroll, Nangku," he said in earnest. "I just think that the time spent on going on a stroll would be better spent practicing instead."

Blink smiled at the boy's persistence. He was just like him. When he began his martial arts training, he also didn't want to do anything besides practice, practice and practice some more.

"There is much to learn from everything around us that you could not possibly learn by isolating yourself for training," Blink explained.

"Maybe, but they have nothing to do with martial arts," Hubr retorted.

"Martial arts is in everything around us," Blink corrected him. "It's in the motion of the wind, the flow of water in a river, or the simple act of hoisting and carrying a sack of rice over your head."

Blink looked at his nephew who now looked rather cute with his brows furrowed in puzzlement.

"I don't understand what you meant just now, Nangku," he said.

"You don't understand yet," Blink said emphasizing the last word.

"I'm sure I would understand those things by practicing my martial arts techniques," Hubr concluded.

Blink had to smile at his nephew's insistence.

"Your understanding of martial arts right now is very narrow," Blink stated gently. "And if you keep on like this, your martial arts will turn out to be well-honed but very shallow."

Once again Hubr looked like his uncle was talking in riddles.

Blink tried his best to explain an important principle he had gained along his martial arts journey.

"In your lonely journey towards martial arts excellence, you'll need a thousand and one enlightenments. Practice is not always the best method to gain enlightenment even though it is the best way to hone the products of your enlightenment."

Obviously, with such a profound explanation, Hubr could only scratch his head.

Blink was stomped. He wanted to convince his nephew that there are a lot of other ways to understand martial arts, but he realized that Hubr was simply too young to even understand his words.

In the end, he simply said: "All right, no more talk. Let's just go on a stroll right now!"

Hubr obediently followed his uncle and didn't utter a single word in complaint.

As they were walking back a strong wind blew and shook the leaves of a tree in front of them.

"Look at that tree," Blink pointed out to Hubr. "Look at how its leaves sway along with the wind instead of stubbornly resisting."

"Is this related to martial arts, Nangku," Hubr said.

"It could be."

Hubr had an uncomprehending look on his face.

"The wind is like a force that is impossible to resist and the leaves could be a martial artist whose power is inferior to resist such a force with his own force."

"I'm sorry, Nangku, but I can't understand."

"You can't understand yet. You must always think on those terms. Just because you cannot understand something today does not mean that you won't be able to understand it tomorrow."

Looking at his nephew's blank expression, Blink sighed and shook his head. He had just realized that he was talking to a seven-year old child of things that maybe even a young man his age might not necessarily understand.

"All right, let's go home," he declared.

Hubr was only too happy to oblige.

In the large common room of their house, which served as the practice area for Hubr, Blink made his nephew demonstrate the two movements of the palm technique he had taught Hubr. He noted a number of minor mistakes that he asked Hubr to correct anyway.

After three rounds of demonstration, Blink asked his nephew to block his punch with an open palm. Blink controlled the punch, but the boy was still pushed backward by several steps.

"That is called resisting force with force. It doesn't work, right?"

Next, he asked Hubr to block the punch by slapping his hand sideways. Blink's arm got redirected and did not connect to its target.

"That is called redirecting the force. It works, right?"

Hubr nodded his head.

"Think about it. I am the stronger force. When you tried to directly resist my force with your own force, you got pushed back. In a real fight, that would have sent you in a lot of trouble. But when you redirected my force with a slapping palm block, you were able to create an opening. Utilizing the moves from the second movement of the palm technique, you could easily have struck me right after the block."

With that, Blink went over the practical application of the second movement of the palm technique in a real fight.

Somehow Blink realized that he needed to give a name to the first and second movement of his palm technique. In fact, even the palm technique should also have a name.

Although it was Blink's plan to teach Hubr the Hammer Fist technique, he realized that he actually had just created it in his mind that very morning. As such he needed to give it form and formulate a set of movements to help Hubr to absorb the technique.

After training Hubr, Blink walked towards the training center for his sparring sessions with Senior Brother Gart.

While they sparred, he asked the Kasgar martial arts instructor if he would not mind should he take in another student besides his nephew. Blink was sure Senior Brother Gart would not take issue with him training Hubr as he was his nephew, but he might take exception if he were to accept Zugr as his student when he was training under Senior Brother Gart.

The senior disciple assured Blink that he could take as many students as he wanted for as long as they would still report to him at the training center.

With the matter settled, the two disciples from the first two classes of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy happily sparred to their heart's content until they were too tired to go on.