A light breeze was moving his hairs and lifting up dust from the ground, Noah was tense while getting in the starting position of Dominik’s sword dance but as soon as he settled in beginning stance something chanced and he was able to perceive a stronger balance of his body.
Under the Head Instructor and some wandering soldiers gazes, Noah started to follow the first figure movements. He lifted his sword arm up high, took a step in front of him and slashed down with the weapon; it was hard to follow from there, memories of what he saw from the instructor were fuzzy, concentrating on following those figures and transitions while actually doing them was incredibly hard for Noah but he was able to get the next one right.
The second passage was a spinning transition that led the sword to draw a semi-arc from his lowered position while turning the body in order to bring it on top of his head again and then strike down as before. Dominik did this with a dancer grace, he flowed through the hair and then struck down with a mountain weight behind the slash; Noah didn’t look as graceful nor as intimidating, however the look in Dominik’s eyes was an appreciating one.
Noah then stopped because he couldn’t remember what followed after this spinning move. He was feeling both frustrated and worried since he feared not having kept Dominik expectations of him.
A voice woke him from his stupor, it was Dominik saying that for today he had to keep repeating those movements and forget about the other figures.
Noah then, trusting the head instructor, concentrated again on his stance and repeated this 2 transitions again and again; it had now passed a bit over an hour and he was feeling alienated by this continuous repetition, he couldn’t get a hold of the intent behind his motions anymore. This method of training was akin to imprint this movement in his muscles memory by continuous repetition.
Noah felt like he was memorizing a set of movement but didn’t understand yet how and when to utilize them, it was similar to knowing some ballet steps and doing it but without understanding the tempo! A mess would be the result of this unfortunate combination.
Since there were doubts, naturally the one to answer them would be the teacher and si Noah voiced his thoughts, what he got was a smirk from Dominik and a command to stop.
<<”what you figured out is right, you are just repeating this set of movements in order to commit them to memory. I can’t pretend from you to learn to use my swordsmanship style in this short training period though what you can do is memorize its passages. Later you will develop a sense for combats and only then my swordsmanship can be implemented. Since you look expended with muscle memory training, I will teach you something more active for now! “>>.
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After having said this he grabbed a sparring, smooth sword from a rack to the side of the sparring circle and then Dominik walked slowly in front of Noah, he got in a position similar to his swordsmanship starting stance but with the weapon arm placed in front of him. In this moment Noah wasn’t really sure what to expect from his master, probably they were going to spar, or so he thought.
<<” Let’s start with something simple, execute once again those 2 transitions that you practiced until now but this time aim them at me, fear not about injuring me. Even if you manage to land a hit it will be like a mosquito bite. Let’s start now.”>>
Facing Dominik was like standing in front of a mountain made of muscles, Noah didn’t doubt his master words for even a second. He even feared about breaking his sword on those iron like body.
It was time to start and apart from some hesitation about using a weapon for the first time in his life against another human being, he got in stance and started those his sequences; first was the downward slash, at which Dominick responded by taking a step back, then followed the rotating one. While he was drawing the arc to bring the sword on top of his head there was an addiction of too much momentum, resulting in his second downward slash going all the way to the ground and bouncing back from it.
What Dominik did, after having dodged again, was send a light push to the now unbalanced apprentice. Noah got sent right to the ground, he couldn’t resist this seemingly infinite strength pushing him down.
In reality what happened was just a little tap in the right place that broke the already damaged balance.
<<”I can see that you have no experience in fighting at all, at least you chained the moves correctly. Now stand up or you won’t be able to even clean the floors in the army”>>.
Noah was frustrated by his inability to land a hit or even standing up after having tried. It was like he got played around by a giant cat and he was a little running mouse with no way to escape. A burning feeling started to form inside him, it was a rather new experience; some other times he got incensed after dying at crucial points in pc games he used to play. But right now he felt it with all of his body, the will to do it again and better.
<<”Again!”>> he said to the instructor that gave only a nod as a reply.
As result the scene of before was repeating as in a loop; the scant few passing soldiers that spared just a look at the scene where now standing firm and watching the show, some even cheered. It was possible to hear even one loud voice saying: <<” Go greenhorn! Let him taste your blade!”>> followed by a laughter but it wasn’t done in a mocking tone, it really felt like a cheerful cheering.
With each passing repetition of this cycle Noah understood where and when he was messing up, he was still unable to touch Dominik but, at least, he didn’t get pushed to the ground anymore. He even realized that what pushed him wasn’t an absolute strength, it was just a light tap.
‘ I’m so stupid that I forgot the balance from the initial stance, then I got played like a ball in a soccer match. Since I don’t think it would be possible to land a hit, at least I have to avoid being pushed to the ground again . ‘