Sensei of Shambala by Anastasia Novykh (10 ebook reader .TXT) đ
- Author: Anastasia Novykh
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17
At the next training, we warmed up before the beginning of the exercises as usual. A crowd of men with imposing appearances headed by Volodya entered the hall.
âOho, what a crowd!â Andrew was surprised.
Victor smiled and said to Stas, âThis is whatâs known as âa couple of guys.ââ
âWhat do you mean?â
âVolodya called me yesterday and said that he would come to the training with a couple of his guys.â
âNot so bad, thereâs half a regiment here, Iâd guess,â Stas said with a smile.
âExactly, thatâs what Iâm telling you.â
Volodya came up to greet Sensei, who was standing not too far from us. The senior guys hurried to join them.
âSensei, do you mind?â Volodya pointed towards his guys.
âNo problem,â as always, Sensei answered easily.
âDid you watch TV last night?â
âWhen? I barely have time for it.â
âWould you believe they showed our San Sanych yesterday?!â
âOur San Sanych?!â Eugene was surprised. âItâs been ages since we last heard from him!â
âOh! But now he is really famous! He says that he lived in a cave somewhere and learnt a Russian martial art. And now he calls himself a Russian ninja. Whatâs most interesting is that he demonstrated your techniques, Sensei. With the only difference being that he tells everybody that it is a long-forgotten Slavic style revived by him.â
âNot bad!â Stas grinned. âYou see, Volodya, if you hadnât kicked Sanych so hard last time, you wouldâve been his partner.â
âNo, he wouldnât,â Eugene said archly.
âWhy not?â
âWhat do you mean why not? If Volodya hadnât beaten him down so well, he would never have seen the light.â
The guys roared with laughter.
âYou shouldnât have treated him like that last time,â Sensei said. âHe is an old man, and we should respect our elders.â
âIt was his own fault; why was he asking for trouble?â Volodya began to make excuses but added softly, âI barely touched him, just struck him by accident.â
âExactly, exactly, Sensei, thatâs the way it was,â Eugene joined in. âI remember it as if it happened yesterday. Volodya put forward his fist, and San Sanych was knocking it with his head for almost five minutes. And now look how useful it was! The man saw the light and became a Russian ninja.â
The guys burst out laughing again.
âAh, let him amuse himself,â Sensei waved his hand with a good-natured smile. âThe man found his gold mine, let him live.â
âYesterday we were on duty in the barracks,â Volodya continued the story, âand saw on TV how Sanych flapped his legs and kicked his opponents. We had a good laugh, recalling our youth. Even my newcomers are far and away better⊠Thatâs why we decided to come today, in order to gain some knowledge of the real art, to enrich our reserve knowledge.
âItâs a noble deed,â Sensei agreed.
The guys continued to tell stories of bygone trainings and a whole range of funny incidents during them. At the very end, Volodyaâs guys joined the conversation, and it turned from martial arts issues into a philosophical dispute about relations between people.
âWell, I dealt with them this way on principle,â one of Volodyaâs guys impulsively defended his point of view.
âPrinciple is a stupid resistance to reality, akin to idiocy. PrincipleâŠâ
Sensei had hardly finished this sentence when the senior guys almost as one continued his thought, ââŠis applicable only in exact sciences as synonym to axiom.â
âExactly,â the Teacher confirmed.
Volodya got a bit embarrassed, âWell, Iâve done my best to explain it to them.â
âWell, then you havenât tried very hard. And what canât be understood through the mindâŠâ
ââŠwill be hammered in through the body!â
âGood, since you all know this so well, you shouldnât laugh.â
I realized the meaning of Senseiâs last words when the training began. Sensei warned that that day we were going to train in full power, and those that couldnât endure that tempo should step aside to the left corner of the sports hall and polish strikes there, without disturbing the others. We ruffled up, like sparrows, and whispered with pride among ourselves.
âWe couldnât endure?!â Andrew said quietly.
âDonât even say it,â Kostya added. âWe will show right now what we are able to do!â
âIt wouldnât be the first time,â I uttered carelessly, remembering the warm-up of the senior sempai.
But our arrogance flew away immediately after the first few minutes of the warm-up. I have never before seen such a tough training. It was a real school of survival. The crowd was running through the sports hall in a mad tempo, overcoming constantly changing barriers. In less than forty minutes, many of us already were crawling over these barriers almost grappling, including me.
Groaning nearby, Tatyana murmured, âItâs so awful! Almost like a joke, âDear ladies and gentlemen! Colleagues and colleagues! Koryak crooked girls and boysâŠâ The last one is for sure related to us. I feel like Iâm a native of that region.â
The first âvictimsâ appeared in the left corner of the sports hall. But our group carried on stubbornly. However, later it became even worse. After that marathon race with a series of different exercises, we did so many push-ups. I donât know how many times, I just remember that it was over one hundred. My hands were shaking as if I had been using a jackhammer, and my body curved like a caterpillar when trying to get up, not so much due to the vibrations, but due to the jerking of my gluteal muscles. Because it seemed to me that only this part of my body had any power left. I started to look more and more often towards the left corner, where a growing number of people crawled to this saving oasis. Tatyana traitorously joined them and was alluringly waving at me.
At that time, the senior sempai counted push-ups. In order to raise peopleâs mood, he jokingly kept saying, like a toastmaster, âSensei has a sheep dog that lets everybody into the house, but doesnât let anyone out. So letâs do ten push-ups for the quick wit of this smart dog that doesnât eat its bread in vain.â
While everybody was getting more exhausted with each counting, Sensei walked around the big human circle of sweating people, searching for someone to whom he should add weight with his palms. When he presses you with his palms, it feels like a truck has driven over you. During the second round, when he came up to me jerking through the push-ups as if in convulsions, I thought, âThis is the end! If he puts his hand on me, I will surely be flattened like a fly against the glass.â Despite my expectations, the Teacher seized me by my kimono from above like a kitten by the scruff on the neck and started to help me come up from the ground, evoking laughter from the surrounding guys.
While Victor went on, âSensei also has a cat Samurai, which became so self-confident that it started to fight with dogs. Let us then push-up ten times for his desires to always correspond with his abilities.â
My bones were aching because of the strain. While Victor continued telling his funny puns, I was cursing Samuraiâs flea Mashka that jumps so far, and the mice that live in the shed and run so fast, and those Siamese battle fishes that have lightning reactions and a piranhaâs manners, in other words, all those living creatures that dwell in Senseiâs house. Finally, the last round of push-ups was for the parrot Keshka, which made an effort to breed five nestlings, and we felt down to the floor completely exhausted. However, in less than one minute, we were laid out again in stacks, and the crowd started to jump over its long-suffering brethren, accidentally crushing our extremities on the way. In the hall every now and then under staring eyes, one could hear a restrained howl. I couldnât stand it and joined the left flank of weak-nerves.
âItâs high time,â Tatyana said.
But our rest didnât last for long. When the warm-up was finished, we started intensive work on base techniques and exercises of strikes and movements. I noticed that Sensei devoted more time to Volodyaâs guys, explaining and showing them a series of new techniques. They were throwing each other so easily while practicing strikes that I was simply shocked by their endurance and inexhaustible force. It was as if there had been no wearisome warm-up.
After two and a half hours of intensive training, we had power enough only to think about how to survive additional training. Of course, nobody forced us; if we wanted to leave, we could have. But our curiosity was bigger than physical tortures. Since Volodya had brought his guys, the most interesting should be ahead. And we werenât mistaken.
18
When the main crowd left, Sensei started to show some special techniques on how to use counterforce. Divided in pairs, the guys started to practice them. Tatyana and I also tried, but our feeble bodies ended up hanging on each other, like tired out boxers in the last round. Having seen our parody of sparring, Sensei separated us, placing us into pairs with the guys. I immediately mobilized all that was left over of my power. Who could have expected it?
Exercising one of the kicks, Ruslan, who looked like a skinny ant against his partner Eugene, complained to Sensei, âIs it even possible to knock out such a giant? He is so impenetrable, like solid armor. If he initiated an attack on me, I could at least use his own force against him, as you said. But what if I need to attack him? Then what can I do against this stubborn rhino? Heâs a heap of muscles!â
âA heap of muscles is nothing. In martial arts, power is not essential. In the East there is a saying, âHands and legs are nothing more than a continuation of the body, and the body, in its turn, is a continuation of the mind.â In other words, the most important things are knowledge and skills. Then even the weakest woman, with just a touch of one finger, can knock out the strongest athlete in the world or even kill him.
âWell, theoretically itâs possible,â Eugene smiled. âEspecially if she is beautiful, then one glance is enough⊠But seriously, in my opinion, it is practically impossible.â
âIt is possible,â replied Sensei.
âAn athlete?â
âAn athlete.â
âWith one finger?â
âWith one finger.â
âWithout force?â
âWithout force.â
âI donât beliâŠ.â
Eugene had hardly finished his sentence when Sensei touched one of his throat muscles, a little below the right ear, with a light movement of the middle finger of his left hand. Unexpectedly for all, Eugeneâs face distorted as if he had chewed a dozen lemons with the right side of his mouth. His right leg quickly gave way, and he fell on the ground, with no time to understand why. His right hand was not obeying and looked like a rag. Eugene glanced at Sensei with frightened eyes, twitching with the left side of his body.
âOhsh, notsh shou bash,â Eugene could only mutter, trying to say something coherent. We stood shocked by this scene, as a young, healthy man was turned into a helpless, half-paralyzed old man.
âWhash shush i shu?â
Sensei bent over the living corpse of Eugene and touched some points on his back and stomach. He did it so quickly and skillfully that I didnât even see where exactly he pressed. Eugene started slowly recovering, massaging his suffering extremities.
âNosh sho bash!â
âSo, how are you doing, doubting Thomas?â Sensei asked.
âShenshei! You should have letsh know beforehand. I gotsh almosht crazy,â Eugene hardly enunciated in his broken, hissing
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