Moving With Grace

Emily moved toward Jien with the same graceful steps that she had since she had met them on the field. "I hope that this short demonstration helps you understand, at least to a small degree, the potential of your chosen weapon." Ton smiled a more genuine smile and nodded. "It definitely has, and I will work my hardest to be able to meet your expectations with the rapier moving forward." Emily nodded firmly with a smile, taking a liking to the determination in Jien's voice.

"Good, then we will start your first lesson now." she stated as her smile became a bit cold. "The first lesson will be regarding movement, movement with your legs, movement with your blade. Each action for a warrior starts and ends with a single movement, whether that movement be a simple flick of the wrist or a shift in posture that shifts the entire body, you should not see movements as individual parts but as a whole created by a base action. If I am lifting my foot to take a step forward, the lifting of the foot is the beginning of the movement, the shift in gravity, the shift in the hips and the continued shift in momentum until the foot touches the ground, this is a single movement."

"Each piece of the movement could potentially be refined but this approach will lead to a stiffer result. You must take a holistic approach to refining movement to allow for a swift response to any input, internal or external." With that said Emily took a light step forward while pivoting her weight on the freshly placed front foot and pivoted to now be behind Jien. She had done this slowly but there was no interruption in the movement at all. She her movement was so smooth that it felt like she had almost always been behind him. "If I had taken that movement as pieces, it would have been lifting the foot, pivoting the hips, placing the foot, pivoting on the foot, placing my back foot, to keep things simple. If I had attempted to perfect each of these movements as I performed them it would have added more time to the movement and could have left to less stability. Part of fluid movement is committing to your movement. That being said, just because you have committed to a movement does not mean that you can't change its course."

After This explanation she stepped to appear in front of Jien and though she seemed to be committing to the same type of movement to appear in front of Jien, midway through her pivot she gracefully pushed off from her still pivoting foot, ending up several degrees off from where Jien had predicted she would end, as well as a step or two back. "A large part of such clean movement is perception of your surroundings and the ability to react. The first step in your training will be learning this skill in its most basic form, to dodge." Stepping forward again Emily used her training rapier to draw a three-foot-by-three-foot square around Jien. She then pointed at the square drawn in the dirt. "The exercise is simple. You will dodge the attacks that Mark and I create without stepping out of this square. This is both a test of your current awareness of your surroundings and a way to ensure that you are able to hone it."

After that Emily stood at a proper distance, took a battle stance in front of Jien and pointed her training rapier at him. Mark could only sigh, he had been brought into this training without even being asked, not that he particularly had an issue with it. He wanted to ensure that Jien was as ready as he could be and was willing to put in the work to make sure of it. He took up a loose fighting stance behind Jien with his dull training long sword in his hands. A few long, tense moments later Emily moved, her movement was slow but still showed the commitment to attack that she had spoken of and held her usual grace. Her blade however, rather than aiming for a vital point was aiming for his right hand, which was holding his training rapier.

Though Jien saw the attack coming, and it was appeared to be even slower than when she had first spoke of her philosophy on movement, she couldn't seem to move his hand out of the way of the graceful strike. It was like her blade was pulled to his hand by an irresistible force that he couldn't comprehend. The tip of the rapier hit his hand, though the strike was light, avoiding any serious damage it was enough to cause his grip on his rapier to loosen. Emily took swift advantage of this fact and with a flick of her wrist at the end of her attack, scooped up is rapier from his grip and flung it to the side of the drawn box. "You won't be working on parrying until your awareness and ability to react is improved." Emily stated firmly as she nodded at Mark, signaling him that it was his turn.

Silently Mark asked Jien's forgiveness in his heart as a shifted his stance slightly, lowering his blade before arcing it in an uppercut aimed towards Jien's side. He of course didn't hardly put any strength into it. He was more than ready to stop the attack if he needed to. Luckily for him Jien noticed the strike in his peripheral vision and with a twist of his torso, and leaning back he was able to doge the strike. Unfortunately, he had put too much into leaning back without a stance to counterbalance. He was barely upright before a training rapier tapped his leg with just enough force to knock him off balance. 

With that Jien fell on his butt and looked at Emily with a slightly solemn expression. He hadn't suspected that he would do well in this exercise right off the bat, given that he disliked physical activities. However, he had never thought that Ms. Bujrim would strike out at him when she knew he was unable to dodge. To this Emily smiled but her response was stern. "Don't ever think that an opponent on a battlefield will lose and opportunity to strike if you give it to them. It is your responsibility to find a way to commit to a movement that will either not leave openings or will leave flexibility enough to adjust."

With that Emily and Mark took up their positions once more. "Again. We will continue this until I am either satisfied for the day or we run out of time." This was Emily's statement as Jien stood to his feet and took his position in the center of the square once more. Like this the day's training continued until the allotted time for passed. Jien was able to improve a small margin, doing his best to keep both opponents in his peripheral vision at all times. However, he often failed in this as Emily and Mark were not stationary as they threw their light blows.

By the end of the training Mark helped a slightly battered Jien up from the ground. He had a few small bruises and was sweating profusely despite the autumn chill in the air, but was overall well. Emily and Mark of course controlled their strikes, however they made sure that he could at least feel that he had been hit and missed his dodge. For Mark this would be a light tap, for Emily she had tapped him with her dull blade enough to leave a few small bruises, stating that if they were in a proper duel he would have far worse. Though her training method was a bit harsh, after the training was done, she used some healing salve she had to tend to the bruises and alleviate some of the pain.