Solo [Kendoka Sasaran] Technicality

[Jorin Ertihan]

Season of Summer, Day 50, 513 AV

Sixth Bell

Jorin wondered, as he continued with his forward thrust, when he'd actually start practicing with any new techniques. These old three certainly were basic, and practicing them two thousand times each - swing butt end of staff up - definitely drilled their basic forms into Jorin's head, but of what value were they when they only worked in specific circumstances?

Jorin found himself trying to avoid the large Akalaks roaming about the Sasaran, practicing their weapons. After the bruising experience the other day he didn't really want a repeat experience, but he knew with the large quantity of fighters here, another contact was all but guaranteed.

Although he'd learned his lesson in speed well, Jorin realized that the only way to gain that speed was to start slow. Perhaps that's why he was asked to do this two thousand times slowly. At this speed he could adjust, correct, ensure that the move is done in the right way, so that when he went full-speed he didn't have to think, because at full speed there wasn't time to think.

Jorin returned to the ready stance. He also wondered if there would be any other stances taught to him. He'd seen some other quarterstaff users use a different stance, one where they'd hold the staff with arms wide apart, left foot back, right foot forward, the length of the staff almost diagonal across the chest, sort of like the opposite of the forward stance. Maybe that one is the reverse stance?

Jorin didn't know. But Sohryn didn't tell him to practice any other stance, and Jorin knew that it was not his place to argue with his teacher. So he returned to forward stance. There wasn't anything wrong with the forward, it was just - passive. Defensive. It didn't offer many options for attacking. It was designed to ward away weapons by using the Quarterstaff's superior length, and the only really effective attack was the forward thrust. At least, that was the only one Jorin had actually practiced.

Keep it simple, stupid Jorin admonished himself, as he brought the butt end of the staff up in another half-speed horizontal buttstroke. The advice was well=heeded. A single move, well-practiced, was better than a hundred, poorly learnt. Just because a move was simple didn't mean it didn't work. The forward thrust was taught because it was simple. Yes you could block it, but there were probably hundreds of ways to transition if it missed.

Jorin had immediately noticed the glaring weakness of the forward thrust, how it left his entire right side exposed when it failed and he became dangerously overextended. Surely, if this move was taught to him, there had to be a way to avoid that? Jorin's mind continued to ponder this, even as his body began automatically going through the motions of his routine. Thrust. Buttstroke. Block. Return.

Jorin realized that, perhaps he was overcomitting to the attack. If he used the thrust more like a jab, it might be less of a liability if it missed. Sohryn had not specified under what context these moves should be used. Of course if they worked the way he practiced them, he could obviously use them in the combo they were presented, but Jorin realized that, more than likely, when he got a few more moves, it was up to him to make a tactical judgement on which moves were appropriate for which situation.

Jorin was so busy thinking about this that he bumped into someone. Whilring around, he immediately fell into the forward stance, only to blink as he saw a fairly comparable-sized human staring back at him, brown eyes searching his green ones in curiosity. This human had a round face, olive complextion, and messy black hair. He grinned at Jorin, and hefted his weapon; which happened to also be a quarterstaff.

So he was to face another quarterstaff user? Jorin allowed a grin to come to his face. Excellent! Jorin instinctively knew this would be a fantastic opportunity. Even should he lose, he could pick up new techniques this way. He just hoped, as he hefted his staff and circled his opponent cautiously, that he wouldn't have to learn them the hard way.

[Jorin Ertihan]

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Staff versus staff fighting was rather unique in several ways. For one thing, it was all about who got in the first hit, and who had superior leverage. Jorin discovered this as he went in for the initial attack. It was quickly deflected by the end of the opponent's weapon; knocked aside as he immediately followed up with a counterattack that swept low and hard and struck a painful stinging blow to his left calf before immediately retreating, swinging the staff around in a graceful arc behind his neck.

The entire exchange took less than a handful of ticks, but it felt even shorter than that. This, then, was true speed, Jorin realized as he resisted the urge to rub his sore leg. Not the sort of speed he thought he'd been gaining. Speed so great he had barely enough time to react, to say nothing of time to actually do anything.

Rapid strikes were not the only thing he noted about his opponent. He, like every student at the Kendoka, favored relentless assault as there was absolutely no time to catch his breath before the next attack came. The idea was to press Jorin into a corner and force him into making a decision regarding where he wanted to take the fight. If he stuck around and waited for an opportunity, he'd give up far too many chances to attack.

Jorin recalled something Sohryn had said before. "Good fighters have good defenses. Great fighters don't need them." The point was simple. A good fighter was reactive, but very good at it. Able to observe and counter an opponent's moves, having a technique that could either block or deflect it, and then only lashing out to strike when the time was right.

But a great fighter forgoes defense for offense. Relying on the fact that the opponent would be too busy trying to counter their moves to put up a feasible defense of their own. The strategy relied on pressure tactics. Always keep the opponent moving. Never let up the pressure, never give them a chance to breathe or rest or catch their bearing. Exploit any weakness you see to the maximum extent and always follow up.

And that was what Jorin's opponent was doing. As Jorin gripped his quarterstaff tighter, trying to figure how to make his three known moves work for him, the other fighter was already on the move, sweeping the staff low across the ground, looking to strike Jorin's legs. Not knowing what else to do, Jorin leaped backwards, almost colliding with yet another student and turning his alreadly difficult duel into an impossible-to-win two versus one.

Quickly rolling to the side to avoid such a situation Jorin tried to assess his strategy. Or at least, he attempted to do so while instinctively blocking the forward thrust of the opponents staff before twisting around for a buttstroke that was easily dodged. Jorin suspected he was telegraphing the move too much; his entire body had surged forward the instant their weapons connected and that gave his opponent the time he needed to simply duck out of the way.

It was likely why he was asked to practice so many times, every single day. So that he would have time during a fight to actually think about strategy. At least his opponent was not an Akalak several times his strength, speed, and size this time. He was fairly evenly matched as far as physical conditioning went, but when it came to skill with the weapon the other man was clearly superior.

He was knocking away every blow Jorin attempted. If the man had been say, a scythe user, Jorin was quite sure he'd be 'dead' by now. Thankfully, as a fellow staff user, killing blows were extremely difficult to pull off against a prepared opponent. And at the least Jorin knew what sort of blows were considered 'lethal' for the staff.

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[Jorin Ertihan]

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One such blow had been attempted a few ticks ago, when the man tried to shove a forward thrust into Jorin's face. An obvious ploy to then jab the end of the staff into Jorin's gut when he instinctively brought the end of his own weapon up to block. Even Jorin could see that coming, and it made the attack easier to block, until he realized that was precisely what the other man wanted him to do. Once again he'd fallen into that trap.

The problem with defensive reactive fighting was that you were always responding to what the other person was doing. The victor in the fight was always the man (or woman) who could set the tone of the fight. Who could engage on their terms, with their rules, on ground that they were familiar with.

All things were important for victory, not just physical conditioning. There was mental conditioning. Jorin was slowly starting to see the beginnings of it in himself. As he stepped to the side to attempt to avoid an overhead swing of the enemy's staff his elbow shot out with the end of his own weapon, catching the other man in the shoulder and sending him stumbling back.

Jorin followed up immediately with a series of sharp thrusts with the end of the staff, which were quickly parried in succession by a rapid parries. The man was good, Jorin would give him that, as he watched each and every one of his thrusts hit nothing but air. Recovery time was another factor that determined a fight. How quickly one could recover from a dazing blow.

And of course there were tactics. Jorin himself knew that, in a one-on-one fight, tactics generally boiled down to what sort of moves countered what sort of other moves. It wasn't a one-to-one comparison necessarily either - oftentimes one had options to choose from when presented by a problem. For example, the opponent was charging forward now, looking to do another low sweep at Jorin's legs.

If he'd had, say, twenty chimes to analyze that very moment in his fight, he'd realize that there were only a few moves that were appropriate at that stage. First, he could simply leap back. But that was not a sustainable strategy. He'd eventually run out of room. And besides one of the most crucial rules in fighting was that between passive defense and active defense, one should always choose active defense.

Active defense meant defending oneself from the attack with an attack of one's own. It shouldn't be a random strike, of course. The counterattack needed to have purpose. It needed to be threatening enough that opponent would by necessity halt their own attack to deal with yours, forcing them on the defensive and thus handing the tempo of the fight to oneself.

But Jorin did not do this. Rather, he continued his passive defense by deflecting the blow with the end of his staff, and this time he even failed to follow up, giving the opponent the chance to spring back, out of attack range and out of any sort of position that would offer Jorin any counterplay. It was a clearly the dominant strategy here; something Jorin knew was going to win his opponent the fight but he just couldn't seem to grab tempo from him. He was just too far behind.

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[Jorin Ertihan]

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Once again the man came in with the low sweep across the legs, but this time he transitioned from this into a series of spinning strikes that seemed to come from every angle. It was certainly fancy-looking. In fact it was likely the fanciest set of moves he'd ever seen with a weapon as simple as a staff. His opponent essentially spun around, bringing the butt end of the staff whirling toward Jorin's sternum.

When Jorin raised his staff to block with the center block that prompted a spin in the other direction with the staff raised above the man's head and the momentum of the spin brought it down hard across Jorin's shoulderblade, sending jolts of pain throughout Jorin's body. Even as the now-familiar sensation rocketed through his nerves, Jorin had the presence of mind to be mildly amused as he groaned and stumbled back. This was quickly becoming something of a common thing for Jorin, it seemed.

As expected the third strike in the set followed immediately after. The man followed through with the spin, whirling the other direction and bringing his weapon swinging across at chest-level, clearly intending to break a rib or two and putting an end to the fight. At least this time Jorin was somewhat prepared, bringing his own staff forward a bit and somewhat diagonal and catching the other man's attack near the edge, deflecting it harmlessly away.

There wasn't even room to blink before Jorin's opponent had crouched and used that low sweep again, this time finally catching Jorin's ankle with it. Pain blossomed from the contact and as he automatically lifted his foot the man sprang forward, almost as though he was planning to vault with the staff until the staff was at a certain angle between Jorin's legs. Then with a savage twist of the staff to his left, the man hooked the weapon behind Jorin's knee and caused him to lose balance.

This loss of balance proved nearly catastrophic. Jorin was in a very compromised position; balanced precariously and about to fall, his staff was not in any way shape or form capable of defending against this or so he thought. One of the things that Jorin had slowly begun to train his mind to do; that was, think clearly even during a full-on fight, was starting to slip away.

Panic was beginning to eat away at the calm center of his mind, still trying to analyze the situation and come to snap decisions on what to do. Battle, as Jorin was beginning to learn, happened in a flash. One did not have time to sit there and plan out one's moves. That only happened in plays and stories, where the action happens as neat, choreographed events where every move and countermove had been set long before anyone picked up a weapon.

But in an actual fight, it was quick, chaotic, and messy. There wasn't any time for brilliant strategies or clever tactics. It was brute cunning that was the sort of intelligence that won; the ability to trick the opponent into dropping their guard even for a tick, adn then ruthlessly exploiting that mistake for as long as was possible until it no longer became possible.

Sadly, it had been Jorin making all the mistakes this fight. The other man had made mistakes, but like the novice fighter Jorin was, he had not been able to spot them, to say nothing of exploiting them, he was so busy defending himself. And that was the problem with being on the defensive. If the opponent was smart he'd not give any opportunity to return to offense. And that was just what happened here.

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[Jorin Ertihan]

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The other problem with the opponent being so fast was that Jorin had little to no time to react. Even a reactionary defensive stance was insufficient to blunt the rain of blows that were as painful as they were endless. For his part Jorin wanted to believe that he put a dent in the other man, or at the very least that he'd done some sort of damage to him, but ultimately it didn't matter.

Even if one of Jorin's wild swings managed to do something serious like break the man's leg, the fact remained that it would have been an accident and not a deliberate attack. And what that meant was that he could not recreate such an event reliably. It seemed every opponent he faced was significantly better than he was, to the degree that he made little to no headway despite the progress he thought he had made.

The twist the man gave to the staff between Jorin's legs had an immediate and deleterious effect on Jorin's ability to stand. To be more precise, he dropped like a sack of rocks, back landing against the hard floor of the Kendoka and shoving the breath right out of him. If it hadn't been for the fact that Jorin had gotten somewhat used to being knocked off his feet, he would have had it a lot worse.

As it was, he knew at least not to lay there on his back. His opponent was already preparing his next attack, not looking to give Jorin any time. There was no 'fair' at the Kendoka. No waiting for one's opponent to get back up, no sense of sportsmanship. If the opponent was down that was the best time to attack.

Jorin rolled to the side, avoiding the falling staff of his opponent as he tried to rise to his feet or at least to some approximation of it. The fight had already been going on for only a few chimes and yet to Jorin it had felt like bells. His opponent was already on the move, whirling around to do another version of the spinning attack he saw from before.

This time, however, he spun in the opposite direction that he had the first time. Jorin was unprepared and his block was nowhere near enough to blunt the momentum the man had built up and it shoved Jorin back a few steps. Enough for his opponent to wind up for a follow-up that slammed into Jorin's side, once again driving the breath out of him. This was followed up by one final powerful strike that nearly struck him full on the head, but Jorin managed to duck out of the way just in time, simultaneously surging forward with a desperate thrust to the man's solar plexus.

The dodge and counterattack had been one fluid motion, courtesy of days of practice. But still, it was still days, and not Seasons, and his opponent obviously was far more experienced with the quarterstaff. The attack, desperate as it was, ended up hitting nothing but air, having been deflected once again by the end of the man's staff.

He was not using a center block like Jorin did, and it was obviously a block that Jorin had never been taught, but unfortunately there was no time to think about it or even observe before Jorin's opponent decided he'd had enough of this round and charged forward, slamming the full force of his weight against Jorin, bearing them both to the ground.

Jorin at least this time had the presence of mind to keep a firm grip on his weapon, but it served little purpose as the two of them were too close to make proper use of the large staff. It was at this moment that Jorin remembered the small wooden knife tucked into his belt. It was something Sohryn had insisted on Jorin taking every time he entered the Kendoka.

Jorin had never used the thing, continuing to stubbornly only practice with the quarterstaff. And there was little that Sorhyn could do about it as Jorin had only requested training in Quarterstaff. However in this current situation, with the man now grasping his arm with the obvious intention of twisting it until he dropped his weapon, there was little choice but to use whatever weapon he had available.

Jorin quickly let go of the staff, thus causing his arm to no longer be weighted down. Simultaneously he reached into his belt with his free arm and wrapped his hand around the warm wooden handle of the training blade. It was shaped much like his actual hunting knife, a fact for which Jorin was grateful. He wouldn't want to learn a weapon he didn't actually own.

Bringing his arm outward he stabbed into the man's back repeatedly with the wooden knife, and his opponent let go, scrambling backward and eyes wide with surprise. It was clear he hadn't expected the assault; and of course, the fact that Jorin had just 'stabbed' him several times in the back meant that, according to the rules of the Kendoka, the man was 'dead'. Jorin had won.

But Jorin felt no joy from the victory. No sense of accomplishment. Even as the other man grinned at him and offered him a hand up, congratulating him on his victory, Jorin could derive no joy from besting him. If this had been a real fight, Jorin would have killed him. There was no getting around that. And while he understood on an intellectual level that sometimes in a fight it was kill or be killed, he still couldn't shake his own feelings of remorse.

If this had been real, and that knife in his belt had an actual blade, could he have done the same? Could he have taken a life? Could he have 'won'?

Jorin didn't know.

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