Way of the Light Hand

[RC 212]

She also arrived late.

After a visit to Jedha, the young Monk decided that this place called to her. And how right she was. immediately as she stepped through the door she recognized two of her own type. Monks, probably skilled in the force and hand to hand. Herself coming from a different but honorable background simply bowed, and then moved to take a seat.

She made no effort to announce herself or disturb their discussion out of respect. Instead she set down her runed wooden staff lengthwise across her lap and took a cup of tea, sipping as she listened intently to the proceedings...

 

[Tiland Kortun]

[member="Alar Starii"] [member="Zak Dymo"] [member="Jerek Zenduu"] [member="Amilthi Camlenn"] [member="Charlie Nooran"] [member="Vorhi Alestrani"]

A faint frown flickered across Tiland's face as the padawan used the Force to speed back to the other room and grab the tea. Not so much for leaving the tea behind, that was understandable. Who combined tea with training, after all? But it was the deliberate showing off that was a concern.

"To use power when not needed is to reject the harmony of the Force," Tiland said softly, "In favor of our own ego. It is the way of the Sith, not the Jedi." Yet someone else entered as he spoke and he turned. The staff and robes made it clear.

"Welcome, friend. Please, join us. I am Tiland Kortun. I see you too have taken the path of the staff. What is your name?"

Tiland paused to turn back to the Jerek. "Excellent. You are making a good start. Feel the Force flow through you, moving you, and guiding you."

 

[RC 212]

[member="Tiland Kortun"]

She bowed her head briefly in a sign of respect to the elder monk, and then smiled.

"I am Alar Starii. Last of the line of Guardians of the Whills. I was trained by a retired master on Tython, but that's about as far as I've gotten Master. I've come to find interest in your way of the light hand."

She motioned to the staff.

"As for the staff, it's a tradition passed down by my Master before he ascended to the force. Will your Order have me?"

 

[Tiland Kortun]

[member="Alar Starii"] [member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

"Well met, Alar. It is good that you have found your way here," Tiland answered, giving a slight bow of greeting. "Long have I desired to meet one who possessed knowledge of the Guardians of the Whills, though they are scattered and difficult to find. It would be an honor to have you as a member of the Circle. Come, join us."

He stepped aside and beckoned with one hand to welcome Alar into the conversation. "We are discussing the importance of moving meditation as the foundation for how our Circle exists."

The old monk cleared his throat. "While young Jerek is working on that, Amilithi, I have something for you to try." He strode over and rapped a knuckle against the wooden training posts. "Moving meditation and body control are fundamental to our way of life. Velocities using our hands and these help strengthen the meditation and the body. Follow what I demonstrate."

Tiland stepped up to one of the dummies, and gestured for her to move to the one next to it. "To begin, use an open palm and tap this arm." He demonstrated, tapping the left of the dummy, keeping the body loose. "Energy comes from the wrist, not your shoulder." He stepped back and took up a relaxed guard position, before again slapping the wood. Except this time, he followed up up with his other hand to the other arm, before flipping the back of his hand to slap against the first.

"Try this. Become accustomed to the rhythm and the meditative nature of the movements. Begin." He turned to [member="Vorhi Alestrani"]. "Would you like to try a more advanced velocity? I know you have great experience with teras kasi. Much of this is drawn from that style."

 

[Vorhi Alestrani]

[member="Tiland Kortun"] [member="Alar Starii"] [member="Amilthi Camlenn"] @jerek zenssu [member="Zak Dymo"] [member="Charlie Nooran"]


Vorhi mused to himself as the boy moved quickly to grab tea. Eager, reckless, willing to use the Force to move quickly, more out of impatience than necessity. Such a display was a bit much, but frankly, to say he was any less wild at times was inaccurate. However, he wouldn't counter Tilund's lecture. After all, it was his lesson to give.


The grandmaster nodded thoughtfully as the others spoke, and proceeded to remove the outer rob slowly as Tilund gestured to the training dummies, revealing his arms--all one and a half of them. He waved a stub as Tilund asked for his input. "I'm acquainted with the form," he said, understating himself, "but to be frank, I must adapt to a new one," he said with a laugh. "So, I think I shall have to improvise a way to maintain techniquewithin a somewhat new form...." he grinned. "I guess we'll both have a new thing to learn, eh?"


He approached the dummy, mimicking the movements Tilund did, minus the left arm. "I've yet to find a prosthetic that suits me yet, but perhaps, that is a better way to train. Less weight," he said with a snicker, puzzling out the thought. He hadn't really had to do much since his recovery from every thing that went sideways in Skor II. Hell, maybe some spirit was riding his sacrificial hand, waggling it around the thicket and picking pockets. Okay, enough daydreaming, focus. How does a one-armed blind man keep up with a well-trained group of force-wielders? No, focus on the brick ahead of you. How do you move a man with one arm less than you prefer.....

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Amilthi was happy to follow Tiland's indication and rose from the ground. She listened with interest to his words, noting that a velocity appeared to be the equivalent of a lightsabre kata in his terminology. She watched his movements observantly and let him finish. She inclined her head in grateful acknowledgement of Tiland's lesson, but gave herself time to ponder what she had perceived before moving.

What could it mean that energy should come from the wrist? In this case, the wrist wasn't even supposed to move, except perhaps in the final backhand slap. But even then it was preposterous that this is where energy should come from.

Perhaps it was time to experiment. Instead of actually executing the movements, she started by imagining them, slowly. After a few repetitions of this exercise, she did move her arms, very slowly and deliberately, following the sensations, and touching the wood so lightly that there was no appreciable impact.

Only after a little while did she execute the velocity with any velocity. Her palm hit the round wooden stick not quite at a right angle, and her hand was tilted limply as if to adjust to the round shape, and at the same time lost its grip and slid a bit along the polished wooden surface without transferring any impulse to it. Amilthi noticed this with surprise and withdrew, not even continuing with the other hand. Suddenly, she chuckled delighted when the realisation came to her.

The Master's words were meant to get people to pay attention to their wrists and keep control over them. Of course strength came from the shoulder - but if one thought of it that way, one was liable to forget about one's wrist and hand, and then they would turn into a loose appendage that wasn't being directly controlled as part of the movement.

Amilthi tried out the movement in her mind again, but this time her attention was on her hand and wrist as the leading parts that directed the movement as the locus of strength, even if they drew it from elsewhere. This time, when she repeated it in reality, she found that her hand quite automatically stuck to the point of impact and adjusted naturally the direction in which pressure was applied without sliding off, and Amilthi continued with the other hand. She repeated the motion a handful of times and then, satisfied, took a step back. A question that began to exercise her was how this particular combination of movements would actually be applied to a real situation.

[member="Tiland Kortun"] | [member="Jerek Zenduu"] | [member="Vorhi Alestrani"]​

 

[RC 212]

[member="Tiland Kortun"] [member="Amilthi Camlenn"] [member="Vorhi Alestrani"]

"It would be my pleasure and honor Master," She replied to Tiland.

Having practiced Martial Arts in conjunction with offensive staff works, she was well seasoned.

Or at least she imagined.

Alar nodded and rose, keeping her staff on the floor for now. She seemed to glide effortless and graceful, up next to Amilthi and gave her a respectful but curt bow. The woman was rather quick to pick up the nuances of the movement. She watched her go a few rounds, and then get better.

"May I interject Master Jedi?" She asked Amithi.

"I have a few tips that might help you."

Whereas they were both practitioners of the force in varying degrees, Alar was more skilled with hand and staff, as she was sure Amilthi was more skilled with Force and Blade.

Perhaps they could learn from each other....

 

[Jerek Zenduu]

The Force was an ocean.

At least, so it appeared for Jerek in his mind's eye. Appeared might not have been the best word, but corporeal terms were often inadequate for describing the Force. Call it poetic license. As a small child, his father had taken him, along with his twin brother, to the coast of their homeworld. It stretched on forever, and seemed to swallow the sky itself in its vastness. His brother had played in the sand, and his father had made himself busy with the details of lunch or snacks or whatever it had been. But Jerek stood captivated, lost in awe at the sight of an ocean for the first time in his life, his mind unable to fathom how such a thing could even exist. So much water blanketing the horizon with its uniformity, yet as he continued to look, he could find variations and changes in the sea before him.

When he had meditated for the first time, Jerek had been faced with another such entity, vast in its expanse, uniform on the surface, but far more nuanced underneath. It only made sense that the Force would be an ocean to the young padawan.

The rational part of his brain wanted to reject that explanation. The Force was an energy field that bound all life together. No, the Force was the metaphorical term for his body's cells interacting with the midichlorian parasites inside them. Not even that, the Force was access to a higher dimension beyond the three, or perhaps four, in which he normally existed. The myriad of explanations were incomplete and inadequate, compounded with enough errors and faulty logic that could be quickly used to collapse the explanation's entire foundation, leading to even more confusion.

No, it was better for him to think of the Force as an ocean, as irrational as that was.

As much as he could be impulsive and emotional, Jerek preferred to think of himself as a rational and logical being. He frequently relied on self-reflection and analysis of a situation facing him as a means to discover how to proceed. Even his approach to meditation followed this formula, he might discover a new method by accident, but he was rarely venturing forward with new approaches and instead relied on his trusted means of slipping into a meditative state.

Which was why he was struggling so much with this technique.

Entering a meditative state wasn't difficult for Jerek, he simply repeated the process that had worked for him a thousand times before. Once there, he could evaluate his body, observe his continued breathing at a regular pace, notice if his posture slipped or was compromised by some external force, but he had always left his lower brain functions to regulate that alone, never interfering. Even in a standing position, the teacup held in both hands in front of him, Jerek's body was locked into the pose, his muscles relaxed but firm, not changing their form.

So how was he supposed to drink tea in this state?

Each time he raised the cup to his lips, he found himself slipping out of his meditative trance. As he attempted to reassert control of his body, he lost whatever connection it held to the Force, and he washed up back inside of himself. It took a few minutes to return to a meditative state before trying again, but each time gave him the same result.

He cleared his mind.

He opened himself to the Force.

He drank the tea.

He lost his open connection.

After a while, the boy stopped, and opened his eyes to the room once more. He shook his head wistfully, letting out a sigh of exasperation. Making his way to the wooden dummies where Master Kortun was standing with the others practicing more physical moves, eyeing them with a tinge of envy, Jerek waited in deference until there was a point to speak. "I'm not having much luck, Master. I'm meditating, and every time I try to drink the tea, it kicks me out and I have to start all over again." He looked down at his cup, and then back to the bearded Jedi again. "Plus, I'm out of tea. Maybe this would work better with something like fizzyglug?"

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"] | [member="Tiland Kortun"] | [member="Vorhi Alestrani"] | [member="Alar Starii"]​

 

[Tiland Kortun]

@Jerek Zenduu @Alar Starii [member="Amilthi Camlenn"] [member="Vorhi Alestrani"]

"Indeed," Tiland replied, pulling on his beard as he spoke to Vorhi. His eyes remained fixed on Amilthi, however, focusing on the minutia of her form and technique. It was visible when she began to approach it differently, as he stepped forward. "You are doing better, young Amilthi. But be mindful of your shoulders."

He stepped up to the dummy next to her and settled his feet into the stance, one in front of the other and slightly shifted to one direction, with knees bent. Yet his arms were pulled in closer to his body.

"The key here is efficiency. Everything revolves around energy and its movement. When eschewing lightsabers or blasters, we must use energy far more efficiently than those who do. Watch careful." He shifted so that he faced the dummy square on, with a triangle formed by his arms and torso. "When a strike is thrown from the shoulders, subtle movement reveals when and where it comes from. Then when using the shoulder, the body commits itself to the strike. Drive from the elbow and wrist in a straight line."

He paused to demonstrate, hardly moving his shoulders at all. Then he did it again, swinging from the shoulder, yet he did not make contact with the dummy, continued forward. It carried him forward and off-balance, just slightly, but enough he would have to catch himself. "That is energy lost that can be used to a better purpose. Try to focus on the movement of energy from the ground through your hands, in as straight a line as possible."

Tiland turned to inspect the others as they progressed. "Why don't you demonstrate what you know, Alar? I would be curious to see what Guardians of the Whills have training in and how they view the process."

He circled the room before returning to observe Jerek. "Fizzyglug would be even more difficult. The constant popping and sensation of the carbonation makes it even more difficult as you will have to keep those consistently in account."

As he considered, he ran a finger through his hair. "Separate meditation from what you have learned, from form, and posture. Return to meditation in its purest, most essential state. It is existing in the moment. If you must think to meditate, the process has turned backwards. Simply drink the tea and let the experience wash over you."

He truned back to Vorhi. "When I was young, training under my uncle with the Anzati assassin guild--" A dark frown flickered across his face at the mention, but it passed, "We had a way of training with one hand tied behind our back." His voice drifted off as his gaze went vague in recollection. "What we learned was that even an arm has more than one joint and way of being utilized."

Absentmindedly, he moved one hand behind his back and flexed the fingers as he took up the same stance. "It relied less on striking and more joint-locks. Even the elbow and shoulder were necessary to stay effective and minimize the advantage of the opponents."

 

[Vorhi Alestrani]

[member="Tiland Kortun"] [member="Jerek Zenduu"] @amilthi camlen [member="Alar Starii"]


Vorhi grinned a little, adjusting his hat. "That is true. If everything's a piece of me, than even what's left....hmmm." The blind monk shook his head for a minute, shaking out a cobweb, probably. "Then we need to feel the flow, and ebb...heh." The grin widened as he removed his hat and put it on the dummy. He cocked his head to the side. putting both arms behind his back. A deep breath. "Mind your movement and breathe..." he followed Tilund's instructions and movements. The plan was simple. Breathe and move.


I am one with myself. I am one with my body. Flow breathe. Be. Do. Doobie-doobie-doo.


He leaned forward slightly, adjusting his movement, and led with the "sawed-off" arm, adjusting and locking a a limb on the dummy, shifting it forward ans moving his foot for a quick tripping movement. He laughed. "better," he mused out loud. "You're right about the joints. Even as you eschew a sword, I have to consider extraneous movement. Not so much abstaining from the limb as we are abridging it," he said with a small laugh.

 

[Jerek Zenduu]

Fizzyglug would be more difficult? Jerek could hardly believe what he was hearing from the Jedi Master. The cola's sweet and smooth taste would be far better than the tea's bitterness, and the very popping and sensation of carbonation that garnered so much of Kortun's disdain were the very thing that would aid in meditation, their mesmerizing sensations would contribute much more to the necessarily-ethereal state of mind than the tea's astringency on the youth's tongue. That was before consideration of the various flavors that could add to the soothing experience of fizzyglug. All in all, Jerek would eagerly argue that consuming fizzyglug was the ideal contemplative experience for the moment.

Or, put simply, the old man had no idea what he was talking about.

Still, when it came to the actual act of meditation, this was a practiced master of the Jedi. The teen had no clear way to know how old Master Kortun was exactly, but he surmised the old Jedi must be at least twice or thrice his age, and surely had been diligently studious in all that time. If those decades had not conferred a more esteemed, and more importantly trusted, position of authority upon the master, then he was being duped in a most elaborate scam. Since nothing here felt off to the padawan, such a notion was easy dismissed.

As the master had moved on, Jerek considered himself dismissed as well, and made his way back into the front of the tea shop. With more than a little consternation, he refilled his cup with tea again, trying to dispel the thoughts of frustration at having his suggestion for a substitute beverage shot down. Choosing a seat this time, instead of a standing position, the padawan tried to follow the master's advice as best he could.

Simply drink the tea and let the experience wash over you.

Fine, then that's what he would do. He sipped the tea, trying to ignore the bitter taste as it spread across his tongue. He sipped the tea again, and again, and again, and again, and again. When he needed to refill his cup, Jerek decided to simply move the teapot over to the table near him, and sat down once more. The process repeated, sipping the tea, letting his open mind accept whatever it brought to him, and then sipping again. The movements became mechanical, then routine, then automatic. Soon, the boy was no longer focused on the act of filling his cup, of bringing to his lips, of feeling the warm liquid enter his mouth, of tasting the tea spread across his tongue.

Soon, there was simply the tea.

And the boy.

And the Force.

And the Force was an ocean.

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"] | [member="Tiland Kortun"] | [member="Vorhi Alestrani"] | [member="Alar Starii"]​

 

[Tiland Kortun]

[member="Vorhi Alestrani"] [member="Jerek Zenduu"]

"Indeed," Tiland agreed as he stepped in closer to watch Vorhi's movements. "The philosophy is the largest change, rather than technique or style. As a duelist might learn to use a shoto in addition to a saber, and how a shoto is not a saber, so it is necessary with one arm." He considered Vorhi's movements before nodding to himself. "And it can lead opponents to underestimate you, which is an advantage." His hand stroked his beard for a moment. "Let me know if you wish to attempt a practice spar."

He continued to make his way around the room as he inspected the others, making minute corrections as part of encouraging comments. As he reached Jerek, however, he stopped and paused to watch. While the boy was doing nothing but drinking tea, that was not what Tiland was watching. He was reaching out with the Force and sensing the mental state that the boy found himself in. He had begun to understand the process of moving meditation, but this was but the beginning of a long journey that would take him places he would never expect. Tiland certainly hadn't.

"Well done, young Jerek," Tiland murmured, resting two aged hands on the staff. "Now you begin to understand. And this is but the first step of the journey." He stepped aside and gestured to the training dummies within the room. "If you wish, you may practice moving meditation with the techniques I demonstrated. But it is something you must practice constantly, for many years, until you can slip into the meditative state as instinctively as breathing. That is the foundation of the Light Hand."