Past times coming back

John walked to a side-office whose windows looked at the gym but now were covered with blinds. He knocked on the door.

“Yes,“ a man’s voice answered. John entered straight ahead closing the door behind him.

“You old bustard! I haven’t seen you in fifteen years,“ the man inside the office jumped from his seat.

“Don’t you bustard me, Ralph, you are a worse rascal than me, I must give you the credit,“ smiled John back, accepting the man’s bear hug.

“Where have you been, and what brings you here? Gosh, it is good to see an old face, especially yours.“

“Good to see me? You mean you’ve got nothing to hide? No bodyguards and racketeers in your club?“

“You know, no racketeers and yes bodyguards, as always - a man has to live on something,“ Ralph admitted cheerfuly. “However, my bodyguards never harm anyone except real assailants. You know how I grind it into them to follow the code of ethics. I still kick the but of the person who breaks it, and I do it thoroughly. Anyhow, this town is better off to be flooded by my well-behaved fighters than by someone else’s,“ laughed Ralph. “If I and my children do not provide the service, someone else will, and who knows with what kind of ethics they would have, if any at all.  I even train the boys to be gentlemen now, something I didn’t do with you at the time, and I can see the sorry consequences with you. Where have you been and why didn’t you come for a visit?“

“I’ve been abroad and around,“ answered John vaguely, “and now I have someonefor you to train.“

“To train? I was hoping that you might have come here to help me train the advanced fighters. You were so good with the breath control…“

Ralph bit his tongue. The two men looked at each other’s eyes. They both remembered John’s last fight.

Years ago, on a sport competition, it happened that John’s opponent in the middle of the combat froze gazing in the air ahead of him, while John delivered a series of blows onto his immobile body. John was proclaimed a winner, but his opponent accused him of taking hold of his mind, as he could not move an inch under John’s eyes. John returned the prize and the medal, and never came back to the gym.

“I gave up training a long time ago and never went back to it,” John softly said. “I have changed meanwhile my approach. Now I like working individually with youngsters, mainly with mental exercises. That is new. However, this child I brought to you tonight, I think she may use your ‘ruthless’ methods of disciplining the body first. I have to ask you to keep an eye on her and draw the maximum she can give. She has no experience whatsoever and she is not very friendly with other children. I want you to have no pity on her. She can take it quite well, break through her limits of what she thinks she can and cannot do and surprise us both - or I am desperately old and senile. Train her, and I’ll train her mind at home. Let’s make a fine fighter together.“

“Certainly,“ said Ralph surprised by John’s demand of a pitiless approach. “If you say so. But why don’t you train her yourself? You can, we both now that.“

“Well, Ralph, old fellow, first, I want her to hate someone else in the beginning, and then to love someone else later on. She has been orphaned for a long while now, lived on the street until recently; sje doesn’t know what kindness means and she does not know how to be close with people. It would do her good to have more than one old man to have to cope with. Annabelle, your assistant trainer, do I remember her name well? Annabelle was so young when I left the club, but so gifted and stubborn. She doesn’t remember me, fortunately. Also, a female authority in Lara’s life would do her good as well.“

“I see. Her name is Lara then. How old is she?“

“Nine. But treat her as if she was older. And one more thing I have to ask you,“ added John seriously.

“What?“

“I have to ask you not to mention anything, first, about me, neither to Lara nor to anyone else, and second, nothing about Lara being an orphan from the street to your trainees. She’s got a lot to cope with now. Could you do that?“

“Yes, dear old fellow, I can do that although I do not understand why. Annabelle knows about your last fight, it has become a part of the gym folklore, but if she did not recognize you now, I shan’t refresh her memory. Where is that girl of yours?“

John walked to the office window and discreetly opened the blinds. He showed Lara to Ralph. The trainer evaluated her quickly.

“Weedy, may be strong. Quick movements, good. Asymmetrical posture, feet in different directions, bent spine and head held low. You haven’t worked with her yet, right?“

“No, I’ll let you have all the pleasure of straightening her up.“

“Look at her fervent to jump and start exercising, isn’t she?” Lara was indeed restless on the bench, with her eyes burning.

“Yes. You know how it is. Those who have lost everything do not lack motivation in life.”

“Heh, which trainer can resist such a thing!” Ralph thought a bit. “Well, it will be a lot of work, but I’ve handled much more difficult cases.“

“You handled me, and I was not an easy one,“ John patted Ralph’s back. “Just treat her as you treated me, and she will hate you and love you the way I did.“

“Thus it shall be done then,“ responded Ralph with a wide berth and grasped John’s hand. “If not for the eager way she stares at my children, then for the weird pleasure of seeing you more often.“

Lara started training regularly. She walked to the gym several times per week and exercised hard with the other trainees. Sometimes she cried to herself. It was difficult. Sometimes it seemed that the trainers, the old man and the woman, were picking up on her, demanding from her too much all too quickly, and they were never satisfied. Lara hated them sometimes silently, fallen on the floor, under the sweat, breathless, and yet she longed for their praise, for the perfect movement and posture that would elicit at least lack of criticism if not recognition. That hardly happened in the beginning; they seemed always to have something to correct her with.

She sprinted with the other trainees until she was fainting from fatigue, wondering often why she put herself through such a senseless ordeal. On the other hand, everyone around her just kept on pushing forward, falling from exhaustion, and then getting up, repeating the motions silently under the instructors’ stern commands. No one was giving up, so neither could she. And yet, after the training, while walking home alone from the gym, a new sense of lightness would overcome her, and she would laugh off the idea of quitting. Thus exhausted in body, spirit and will, pushed across her boundaries of endurance, Lara experienced quiet for the first time in her life.

John told her the two stories of the naewa the beginner students were learning. Each movement and position had a short sentence going with it. The forest story for the body was relatively simple: Turn around, face the forest. – Open up the branches. – Jump into the forest. – Turn left, kneel to the ground. – Remove high branch on your right with a kick. - Turn right, jump high. – See the beast ahead. Kneel on the ground. – Swipe left and right, hold the beast's paws. – Jump behind the beast. Turn around. – Left kick, right kick, left punch, right punch, throw the beast outside the forest. – Turn around, make three steps into the forest, low to the ground. – Open up the branches. – See a well in front of you, flip over the well. – Drink water. – Three deep breaths… The story went on like a little adventure in a forest.

The story for the mind went on differently: Turn around, face the darkness. – With your hands, make an opening into the darkness. – Jump into the opening. – Turn left, hide close to the ground. – Bring down the fear on your right. – Turn right, jump behind the fear. Face it. – See the fear ahead.– Take hold of the fear’s root. – Jump behind the fear. Turn around. – Release the fear from the darkness and throw it into the light. – Turn around, three stealthy steps into the heart of darkness. – Make a second opening in the darkness. – Find a source of light in front of you. Open it up with your body. – Drink the light. – Breathe in three breaths from the light…

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