Ethan thought about the little practice that he had with Kaie of the Cutthroat Shadows. Placing a foot forward, his toe point slightly inward while directing his gaze at Titus, Ethan made sure his right heel was in line with the ball of his left foot and was at an angle from his body. Feeling himself step into balance Ethan put his hands into fists. Titus looked at his stance and realized that Ethan must have learnt a little bit of boxing, overall Ethan’s forward balance seemed to be good but he was a little too wide for a proper stance. Titus instead squared his shoulders and step back in with his right foot slightly inward and placed his foot at a diagonal to his body. Titus raised his fist so that the right fingers were in line with his jaw and then moved his left hand forward. “Go!” Titus bellowed, his deep voice seeming to echo off the stone ring, ending with a rumble in Ethan’s chest.
Ethan step forward and extend his left hand in the classic jab. Titus moved to his right, and did a quick snap kick towards Ethan’s groin, the force of the blow stop a hands breath from full contact as the breeze from foot was felt across Ethan’s lower belly.
“A boxing stance is good if you are in a boxing match or if the other person can’t or won’t use their legs. When you are in a fight out on the streets or in the woods, you are in a fight for your life. A street thug doesn’t care about breaking bones, ripping out an eye, or kicking you in the family jewels. Here open up your stance, you run the risk of being hit in the front with a punch or kick, but you gain a great deal of side movement.” Titus told Ethan how to setup feet, “Now sit down a little bit in the stance. Not too much now… better.” Titus put himself in the same stance, “This will also prevent someone from kicking the front leg over and over again. Now,” Titus lifted a large fist using two fingers he pointed at his eyes, “keep me square, and out of arm’s length.” Titus began to move forward slowly at first as he watched Ethan’s posture.
Ethan was able to keep his footwork and stance as he backed up, then Titus moved to the left slide. Ethan moved his legs and then all of a sudden Titus moved forward, Ethan in desperation moved backwards with his front left leg and realized too late that he had crossed his legs. Ethan tumbled backward and fell on the ground. “Well since you are down there we are going to push ups, on the up push, jump and lunge upwards.” Titus quickly hit the ground and squared up with Ethan looking him in the eye with a crazy smile lighting up his eyes. “Go!”
Titus pushed down in a smooth motion, “Keep those buttocks down, Ethan!” Ethan did as he was told, feeling the pressure increase in his arms as his body lowered smoothly. “Up!” Titus push upward and then tucked his legs into his chest and jumped up. Ethan watch the man and moved with him. “Down!” This time Ethan was the only one who went down as he felt his body become a rigid plank. “First thing you need to know about fighting is yourself. Up! Always know where your feet and hands are at. Down! If you do not know, your opponent does! Up!” Titus continued yelling up and down till Ethan had completed thirty push ups and lunges. Titus had started to speed up the lunges faster at the end, making it more of a challenge. Sweat was coming off the Ethan, yet he wasn’t breathing hard. Titus realized that as a smith his upper body strength was probably very good, but his legs needed to be the first thing that Ethan used and then his fists. When Titus had been a squire it had taken him awhile to realize how much a good kick could stop his opponent.
“Take your stance!” Ethan dropped into the stance, as his heart began to beat rapidly in his chest. Ethan realized that his feet were slightly misalign and quickly adjusted them. Titus notice the little shuffle of feet but didn’t stay anything, squaring into his own stance, Titus bellowed out the next order. “On me. Go!” He began moving to his left seeing that Ethan moved as well, and this time making sure that he didn’t cross his feet. For the next fifteen chimes, Titus and Ethan went back and forth side to side. When Ethan did have a good stance or fell behind, Titus told him to drop and the pushup lunges began again. After each rest, as Titus began to refer to the extra exercises that Ethan was doing, Titus would began to speed up with his movements. Ethan started to feel muscles in the sides of his hips scream with every sidewise movement. Yet, Ethan merely grunted as he kept moving. “Stop!”
“Good now you know the basics of moving, lets learn our first combo shall we!” Titus took his stance in front of Ethan and began explaining. "One, my right fist covers my jaw, it’s too protect me from a left cross or kick that an opponent could try for my face or side. I can move the arm down ward to catch the blow if need be.” Titus extend his hand down so that it had the possibility of covering his own family jewels. “If the kick or punch is coming in higher than the jaw line, it’s easier to drop your weight downward and let the blow pass over your head.” Titus did the classic bob and weave, as if someone would come after the 6’6” tall man’s face. However, Titus had taught shorter people before and for them it was helpful. “If your opponent decides to start throwing kicks at your lower parts, you are going to have to use your front shin to block the blow. Once the blow is stop you can land on your opponents foot hard breaking bones; or switch up your front leg to jab the person in the face.” Titus demonstrated the block with his shin and quickly switch legs and instead of doing a jab, did a kick with the ball of his foot too imaginary opponent’s liver.
“So our first combo will be, head duck and weave against my right and left cross, throw a jab and cross, then a knee.” Titus did the combo quickly. First, he bobbed left and then right as he came up and threw a jab with his left and then came in with a right cross, as his body began to come back, Titus used his momentum to spring back with his knee. “When I say switch, you will hop flipping your feet after the cross. It to make sure that you don’t always favor one side during combat, now prepare yourself because I will be throwing punches for you to duck. Stance!” Ethan dropped into his stance at Titus command, his hips had slowly started to ease up from all the movement left and right, but Ethan wasn’t going to get any more time. “Go!” Titus moved his left out in a great swinging arc aimed at the top of Ethan’s head. Just as Ethan bobbed and weaved, Titus started with his right arm swinging, Ethan was just barely fast enough and Titus felt the bottom of his hand graze Ethan’s hair. Quickly Titus brought in his fists to cover him and Ethan did the combo. The movement seemed slow too Titus, but then again all beginners looked like this. Ethan just needed time and practice, just like raw squires. “Again!” Ethan performed the combination of moves with a little more speed, but it was also a lot more ugly. “Keep that fist close to your jaw, or we are going to run laps! Again!”
Titus had Ethan perform the combination ten times and then called for him to switch. As Ethan hop moving his legs, Titus saw him cross his feet and quickly pushed forward with his hand to knock Ethan down. “Feet! Feet! Go on, down!” Ethan dropped into a push up and held it. “It’s important to keep your shoulders square when you switch. Don’t over rotate the hop! Since your down there watch my feet.” Ethan picked up his neck and looked at Titus feet. As the man hopped his feet merely went back wards adjusting his stance perfect to the other side. Titus did this several times and it was when he started noticing Ethan’s arms shake it held back from saying up for a few more minutes, just like any squire. “Up!... Down!” Titus made Ethan do another eight push up lunges before he had him take his stance again.
“Go!” Once again Titus threw the fake punches and watched Ethan as he went through the motions. Titus made sure that at random he would call out to switch legs, as he kept encouraging Ethan to go faster. Then all of a sudden it happened… Ethan didn’t recovered his fist quickly enough to cover his jaw before starting the switch. “Stop!” Titus yelled in an almost battlefield voice. “That’s it we are going for a run, my friend!” In training raw squires, this was the moment that would break them or make them. The run was always fun, and Titus had wished that instead of the Pits, they were up in the training grounds on the roof. Titus had made sure that a hard circular route was laid out for the recruits, in which they would run and then have to climb or run up stairs to get to the next leg. A great deal of recruits would give up once they realized that Titus wasn’t just keeping up with them, but in fact wasn’t even breathing hard. Too many people believe that Titus was slow or didn’t like to run, though the running part was true, he had thanked his sponsor a great deal when he had been forced to run the grounds and build up endurance.
Doing a quick look around the Pits, Titus mapped out a path. “Come on, Re…. Ethan, you want to live forever?!” Titus took off at a light jog for him, for others the pace was usually a little bit more speed than what they were accustomed to. Titus jogged for the exit out of the pits and ran up the stairs with Ethan trying to dogging jog after him. As he got up the stairs, he began to do side step’s shuffling to the next pit. Down he went jogging across the pit, seeing a brick slightly out of place he hopped up and grabbed the edge of it with his fingers and did five chin ups as Ethan arrived at the place to jump up and attempt the same thing. For Ethan, his arms had the strength to lift, but his fingers as he gripped the stone seemed to shake and want to release after the three chin up. Titus was naturally jogging in place and wished that he had other people following Ethan as he would force them to jog in place as well. Once Ethan was done, Titus waved Ethan onward, in between running up and down stairs Titus had Ethan do pushups and sit ups on benches. Halfway through the fourth circuit, Ethan stopped and began to vomit from body exhaustion. Titus kept running in place knowing that this was the moment to see if his friend's character was ready to continue or call it quits. As Ethan stood bent looking down in the mess he just made, his body was screaming to stop, his side had been cramping since the second circuit and he felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. Yet when Ethan looked up and saw the look in Titus face, his mind realized that as strange as it was, he was doing this because Titus viewed Ethan as a friend. Somehow that was just enough for Ethan to stand up straight and put one foot in front of another. Titus turned without saying a word and kept running the rest of the circuit, but when Ethan was out of sight a slight smile came to his lips.
As they finished up the circuit, Titus realized that it had been a nice three mile run. Not too bad, Ethan had made it a little over the halfway point for a standard run. Titus allowed Ethan to take a break for lunch, as he went over to drink some water. The two sat for a moment, allowing Ethan to catch his breath and get rested, quite a few muscles were sore, some that even Ethan didn’t know existed.
For the rest of the day, Titus made Ethan run through the basic combo he had taught him. Correcting little errors here and there, when Ethan seemed to be mechanically doing it and losing his focus, Titus changed up the sequence or shorten it so that Ethan would constantly be focused on his hands or feet. By the end of the day Ethan wasn’t sure if he could walk back to his apartment, but he did feel good about his progress. |
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