[Elros Amandil]

"Good good, Elros," Markner said to the elf, "Now you have the very basic attacks, given enough practice, those are all you will ever need to know. However, you still need to know defensive moves. The most obvious of those, of cource, is the block. There are four basic blocks. High, mid, low, and the brush off. The first three start the same way. By crossing your arms at the for-arm. You then either put it high, low, or in the middle. These moves, however, are not recomended against weapons unless you have some sort of protective gear. Against weapons, it is best to either dodge, or to use the brush off, but that will come in time."

Markner went into his pose and then crossed his arms infront of his face. "This is the mid block," Adjusting his arms to be lower, "The low block, and finaly the high block." Markner then brought his arms up over his head at an angle. "These are easy to do. And quick blocks as well, because of the position of your arms when you are in the pose. It's just a slight adjustment to cross your arms and move them to the right angle. Now, get into position, as I call them out you need to do them."

Elros nodded and went into position waiting for Markner to start the commands. They started going through the commands; high, low, mid, low, high, low, high, mid, low, mid, low, mid, high, mid, high, low, low, high, etc. Until Elros was used to the quick movements and adjustments for one block to another.

"Good, next is the brush off. It is what it sounds like. As someone swings at you, you'll brush away thier attack. One throws a punch, you push thier hand to the side before it gets to you. Same goes for hammers, swords, or anything else you can think of. This even works for arrows and thrown objects. In addition to this simple hand guesture it will help you to move out of the way, in the opposite direction that you pushed it in. The advantage of doing this over just dodgeing is that when your weapon isnt going whare you expected it to, you will generaly fall off balance, this gives you the opertunity to strike them, turn from defensive to offensive. Now, we will practice this. First you will do just the movements, then I will use a stick to strike at you."

Elros struck the pose again and when he was ready he imagined an assailant comeing at him with a sword, when he swong in Elroses mind, he pushed the sword away by pressing on the imaginary flat of the blade and he stepped to the side. It wasnt gracefull in anyway. "Again," Markner commanded. And so Elros did it again, over and over until he had the movements fluid and confident. He would be suprised at just how fast he would need to do this.

As promised Markner weilded a stick and started strikeing at Elros, as expected he wasnt nearly fast enough to block it. The sting on his neck was very distracting and it throbbed under the welt that remained there. Mentaly brushing off the feeling of the bruise riseing under his skin he prepaired himself for a faster brush. He missed several times before he finaly started to get the brush off tactic.