Time to Spar

"Time to Spar" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
For the first time in a few months, Sven woke up at the crack of dawn that morning. Ever since his parents informed him the day before that Malak agreed to be his sparring master, he had been running on adrenaline. As much as he liked the idea of having his sparring teacher, he couldn’t help but wonder what would it be like. Malak used to work for Rhenco, what kind of teacher would he be like? What would he teach him?
Sven didn’t have much time to think about it as Grey and Brandt walked him over to the arena. 
“Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” Grey suddenly asked her son. 
Sven smiled up at his mom. “I’m sure, Mom,” Sven said. “I need a way to just…let loose, you know? And…you always said that your spars with Uncle King Haddock always helped you. Plus…I got to face this somehow. I’m going to be Chief someday. I can’t be a scared kid all the time.”
Grey and Brandt looked at each other completely amazed at their son’s response.
“Okay,” Brandt finally said, “but remember–”
“I know, Dad,” Sven suddenly said. “If it gets to be too much, I’ll stop it. I promise.”
Brandt chuckled. “Okay, all we needed to hear,” he said. “Good luck, buddy.”
Sven smiled at his parents before hugging them both and running to the arena.
Feb 20, 2020
Malak sat in a chair in the middle of the ring waiting for him, and when he arrived, he held out a wooden blade of standard length for a boy his age, and then a shorter, dagger like, stick. “Here you go…” He said with not much more a nod in greeting. “Unless your mother decides to change your curriculum, I think it would be best if you learned to use two blades at once from the get go.”
Feb 20, 2020
“Why two?” Sven said raising an eyebrow as he took the wooden blades from Malak. “Don’t people typically stick with one?”
Feb 20, 2020
“You’ll be using two…” Malak said as he spread his legs out a little wider from his back. “Because I’ll be using four.”
He held up a finger. “Also, it would be advantageous for a target such as yourself to have abilities and tricks that other people are not used to. Granted…this will make your initial sword progression slow, but there will be other training session to balance that out.” 
Feb 20, 2020
The Heir looked at the sword and the dagger in his hands and then back up at the spider half-breed smiling at him. He could already feel some confidence building up inside of him. He was barely able to defend himself in Rhenco’s hotel, and if Olansee had tried to fight him, he would’ve been defenseless. He wanted more than anything to be a great duelist like his parents, and he liked the idea of tricking whoever his opponent would be.
“Sounds good to me!” he said excitedly. “Let’s do it! What do I do first?”
Feb 20, 2020
Malak stood and picked up four wooden swords, one in each hand and another two in his upper legs. “At the end of the days practice I will give you specific drills to refine on your own time. For now…we will have our session be a little more free flowing, to build up your natural abilities for quick reflex blocking, and to get you used to something flying at your face.”
Feb 20, 2020
Sven nodded with a huge smile on his face. “Great!” he said excitedly. “I’m ready for anything, Malak!”
Feb 20, 2020
“Good, just keep your shoulders relaxed. Dont be scared to dance around in ways that might seem silly, just as long as it helps your mobility and dexterity and not hinders it.”
With that, Malak took casual steps forward and made gentle, yet direct sweeps at him with the sticks.
Feb 20, 2020
The Heir didn’t have much time to think as Malak suddenly came at him with gentle, direct sweeps at him. He had learned the basics from his parents, so he was able to meet Malak’s sweeps with his long stick. It was easy to see that his footwork needed work as he was occasionally looking down at his feet trying not to trip. 
Feb 20, 2020
Malak caught him looking down and reached out a hand for pause. He pointed at his feet, and corrected him carefully.
As I suspected…
“You’ll never get exact form and footwork in a real fight. Real fights are ugly and largely uncoordianted, and for this exercise we’ll simulate that. No worries though, we’ll do footwork drills later, but for now dont look at your feet. Look at the center of my chest, that way you can see my arms and legs moving all at the same time…let’s try again.”
Feb 20, 2020
Sven was breathing heavily as he nodded. Taking Malak’s feedback seriously, the future Chief focused his eyes on Malak’s chest as they went again, and then when he did what his teacher instructed, he noticed that he was seeing more out of his peripheral visuals. He could see what Malak was about to do without losing focus. 
A small smile snuck its way onto his face as he continued. He didn’t seem to be as worried about his footwork. He was able to block more blows. 
Feb 21, 2020
Malak continued this exercise for about half an hour. When he saw too big of an opening he’d tab or poke Sven with one of the sticks. It was with just enough force that it didn’t hurt him, but also enough that is was uncomfortable, and made the boy want to block the strokes all the more. He didn’t allow Sven to counter attack, telling him that at this stage, full defense would be his best weapon.
After that, Malak made notes of all of Sven’s positional, footwork, and alignment errors while free fighting, and gave him some rigorous technique drills to practice. This time doing them perfectly was key to the exercise. “You practice for perfection in training so that it comes out as muscle movement while free fighting.” He told him. 
Feb 21, 2020
Sven nodded as he resumed his stance waiting for Malak to give further instructions and readying his sticks in his hands. “What do I do first?” he asked. 
Feb 21, 2020
Malak walked him through some basic drills, strikes matched with footwork, and made sure he had his stances correct. This went on for another half hour, and then they took a break for some water.
They sat down, and Malak handed him a canteen. “So…another good part of training is asking question and getting answers. Think about a situation that would call for self defense…what do you imagine your approach ought to be?”
Feb 21, 2020
Sven took the canteen breathing heavily before taking a sip as he thought about Malak’s question. He took a deep breath and stroked his chin. What would his approach be? What would the situation be? His thought immediately went to Rhenco. If Rhenco physically attempted to attack him. Normally, he would try to use words first as his parents taught him, but Malak was asking about self-defense. 
“I guess…if someone like…ummm…you-know-who…” he wasn’t sure how sensitive Malak was toward Rhenco being mentioned, “was attacking me…I would try to find their weakness…like…a way to incapacitate them.”
Feb 22, 2020
Malak mulled his words over, and then glanced at him. “You can say Rhenco, Sven, it’s alright…” He drummed his fingers on a knee. “Finding the weakness…that’s good, and even better that you know what his is. As for incapacitating…what do you mean by that word? What is incapacitating to you?”
Feb 22, 2020
“I guess…not killing the opponent…but stopping them from hurting you,” Sven replied. “Like…with Rhenco, his weakness to fire…stopped him from pursing me for a bit. So, I guess I want to slow them down…but not kill them…unless I have no other way out.”
Feb 22, 2020
Malak nodded, and then pulled around some parchment to sketch a graph. The one half listed ‘enemy types’ so to speak. While the other listed five defensive actions. Avoid, Run, Hurt, Maim, and Kill. “This is the general order of defense.” Malak pointed out. “Avoid trouble as much as you can. Run away and escape from it if that fails. If avoiding and running are no longer options, or were never viable to begin with, then harm your opponent to deter them, and escape. If just hurting them doesn’t work, maim them. If they persist despite maiming, you must use lethal force.”
He tapped the other half of the graph. “Now…some considerations must be made. If you’re simply dealing with a bully or scoundrel who, despite being violent, is not serious in causing physical damage, refrain from maiming and killing. However, there are others, like Rhenco, where you’ll want to start with maiming and jump straight to killing, post escape attempt obviously, based on what you already knew about him…” 
Feb 22, 2020
“So…what you’re saying is…” Sven said looking at the graph, “I have to study the opponent…and his motives, but for someone like Rhenco, it’s obvious from the beginning what they want. I would have to…physically harm him…and kill him if it came to it.”
Feb 22, 2020
“Y-yeah…basically.” Malak said, and rubbed his chin as he tried to get his wording right. “So, lets say you’re walking down the street, and someone grabs a hold of you. No one really should have any good reason to do that, so your first response ought to be to hit them really hard and attempt to get some distance. Scaling up from that, lets say you’re in…well…where you were once before. If you’ve been kidnapped, then there is no studying needed. Just get away, and hold nothing back from any enemy that traps you into an altercation.”
Feb 22, 2020
Sven nodded. “Makes sense,” he said thinking about it. “I mean...I killed that doctor...” his memory flashed briefly to the operating room at Rhenco’s hotel...when he saved Boriss, “but there was no other out.”
“Hm…Jarrod…right.” Malak sat in quiet for a moment, and then came back to the present. “Circumstance.” He declared. “Based on the threat someone else was facing, matched with your situation, called for a more extreme approach…” 
He held up a finger. “Now, those are good examples of what you did right. What about what you would do differently?”
@lbigreyhound13
Feb 22, 2020
Sven took a deep breath and assessed the memory…of that day in the operating room at the hotel…him sneaking up on Jarrod and shoving the knife into his back. Malak told him that he did things right at that moment, but what could he have done differently? 
“M-Maybe I could’ve tried to sneak out of the room…leaving Boris there?” Sven suggested. “No…no, that’s stupid. I…I could’ve tried to tackle him. I mean…he…he didn’t have any weapon on him. I could’ve knocked him out.”
Feb 23, 2020
“No, no…not that situation. That situation you acted appropriately. There was a man much larger than you, with a sharp instrument, about to hurt someone, who would kill you or worse, in an area that was at his advantage. A direct and fierce attack was needed. Think about other moments about threats you’ve encountered where things didnt go so well.”
Feb 23, 2020
Sven quickly nodded, thankful for Malak’s words about when he killed Jarrod. His parents had told him the same thing, but…it was different hearing it from someone who used to be under Rhenco’s thumb. However, he didn’t have time to dwell on it as he wanted to answer Malak’s question. 
“Mmm…” Sven said thinking about his experience in the hotel and everything that happened after he returned home. “W-Well…in the hotel, I was basically fighting for my life, and I didn’t have anything to defend myself with. So…I think I did…okay there. But…other times…” Boriss blowing up the Great Hall wasn’t his fault…he couldn’t do anything different about that. Then…he stopped. “When Boriss was threatening to blow up the Hall, I…could’ve ran. I could’ve gotten more people out of there before he could do anything. Instead of trying to use words…I could’ve used more action…not to attack him…but to prevent casualties.”
Feb 24, 2020
Malak hated to bring up such grim memories. But not learning from one traumatic experience hadn’t been enough to save Sven from avoidable danger. So he was unwilling to risk it again, even if it meant re-vising painful memories.
“Yes…” He sighed with a quiet nod. “Yes that’s right…how to defend yourself is a set of mixed concepts. On the one hand, you had Jarrod who was only going to hurt one person, but jumping straight to lethal force was appropriate. Whereas on the other, you have Borris who was out to harm many, but rule two, escape, was the best option. We will train you physically, in both sword and fist, but these mental concepts are perhaps even more important.” 
Feb 24, 2020
“Because it helps you figure out the best course of action, right?” Sven asked. “I mean…if you can’t figure out mentally what to do, you can’t react physically.”
Feb 24, 2020
“Yes.” Malak nodded, and then sighed after a moments pause. “Well…I think that ought to be enough for the day. And a good day at that, I think you’re going to be just fine Farris…” Malak patted Sven’s back once as he stood up.
“Get some practice,” He grunted as he began to pick up all the training tools to place back in their storage chest. “And then get some rest okay?”
Feb 25, 2020
“Did he just call me ‘Farris…?’” Sven thought to himself. 
The Heir shook his head deciding not to question it for now at least, and then he stood up and assisted Malak in putting their weapons in storage. “Definitely,” he replied. “Are there any particular moves I can work on before the next lesson?”
Feb 25, 2020
Malak shook his head. “No, just the basic sword swipes, lunges, and blocks matched with careful footwork. And next lesson we’ll see how your freelance fighting has improved.”
Feb 26, 2020
“Sounds good to me!” Sven said smiling. “Thanks so much, Malak. I…I really appreciate this. I…I think it helped, you know?”
Feb 26, 2020
Malak allowed a smile to touch his lips. “You’re going to be just fine Sven. We’ll see too it.”
Feb 27, 2020
Sven’s smile widened. “I hope so,” he said.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act I
Category:Malak
Category:Sven Felman
Category:Grey Bergman
Category:Brandt Felman