[Aratar Mori'ithil]

(OOC: Just as with my other training, I will be self-modding this in accordance with GM Steve and Eyvind.)


Timestamp: Early Morning; 46th brightening in the Month of Kalendryas, Winter
Era I of the Celestine Mandate, Era XV Post Fractum


Shield Daekin Maximilian Venture Of the Silvered Blades was, in general, a decent fellow. He had been training most his life, and currently he was very skilled with a sword. Only slightly lesser-well-known was his skill at unarmed. Not quite as talented, but enough to teach a greenhorn a few tricks. So, when he'd heard that the new Mercenary, Aratar Mori'ithil was looking for a trainer compliments of the Imperial War Ministry, the curious Max Venture had answered his call. He could have taught the youth earlier, but he was already occupied with his longknife training with one of the Blades of Carmelya. With his crash course in that skill complete, the next task was to learn how to defend himself if he was ever without his knives.

So, Aratar stood before Max, smiling politely. There was no one and nothing else there except for a single wooden, rope-wrapped training dummy. Aratar had left his knives at his bunk so as to be unencumbered. He was a far more congenial man then the mongrel elf's previous trainer, but he was just as strict a trainer.

"Alright, I know you've spent the last few brightenings conditioning your body with your knife training. I know you're tired, but the more you learn, the better able to defend yourself you'll be. You're no use to the Legions dead, after all." He chuckled softly at the joke, even though there was a note of sad seriousness to it.

"To start with just start warming up until your muscles are loosened out as I really don't want to have to stop half way through the lesson because you've pulled a muscle. Concentrate on the leg muscles, that's where the damaging work is usually done from experience..." Aratar nodded and stretched a bit.

Stepping forward with one leg, he stretched his back leg to full extension, so that his front leg, his left, made a ninety-degree angle. All the while he kept his back straight, leaning even farther forward ever so slightly, so as to stretch the calves. After that, he switched legs, and did the exact same procedure.

Then sitting down on the ground, he tucked his left leg into his right inner thigh and has his right leg fully extended, toes facing skyward, as he leaned forward, keeping his leg straight, reaching for his toes, to stretch his quads. He switches after a few repetitions.

Standing up, he spread his legs to just over a shoulder-width apart and shifted his weight over his left leg, bending it, as he fully extended his right, then after a few repetitions, switched.

Now for the arms. He then proceeded to pull his right arm across his body as his right foot lifted off of the ground to bend behind him, the heel of his foot touching his glutes. He then switched arms for a few seconds. Next he reached behind him with his right arm and touched right between his shoulder blades, then using his other hand to help push it back slightly farther still, then switched arms. Finally finished, he glanced up at Max to see what was next.

"Good. To start there are three basic stances. We start with stances as they are perhaps the most important thing in a fight. There's no good being the strongest or fastest fighter if someone can simply outmaneuver you or take out your legs because your not stable enough. Once I try something, you then repeat it as best as you can and if you feel the need ask any questions such as it's use and so forth." Max took the Forward Stance as he spoke.

"You already know the Forward Stance from your knife training, so lets help you learn the other two. The second stance is the Back Stance. It's primarily used for defensive fighting rather than aggressive which you'll find the Forward Stance is more than capable of."

Still in his forward stance, he started to shift his body in some minute ways until it was apparent that the entire stance had in fact changed. Turning his hips firth of all, his body now faced forwards the left before he then shuffled his right leg backwards so that both of Max's feet were in line with one another. When he did this, his left leg which was previously straight and behind him was now bent at the knee slightly and on his side. Once all this had been finished to Max's approval, he then turned his upper body to almost look over his right shoulder.

Ar watched carefully as he took the stance, and shifted his own body to copy it. He was slow in doing so, but quickly became comfortable with it. His training to fall into a Forward Stance easily seemed to carry over, so once he became familiar with the Back Stance, it felt natural to fall into it too. It seemed his longknife training was having additional benefits on top of what he'd thought. Aratar noticed that most of his weight is now shifted to his rear leg, so that the front leg may also be used for blocking of strikes with faster reaction times. He found himself nodding in amazement at what a few simple shifts could accomplish. Max smiled appreciatively, nodding.

"Good! Your body's already getting intimately familiar with falling into stances naturaly. Good thing. Try and widen your stance a little bit more and it'd be perfect. The final stance you'll be taught is a simple and one that some feel is absolutely useless in a fight. It's called a Squat Stance. It's basically just a squat which is designed to keep your center of balance low and even." He demonstrated quickly by pulling himself from his current stance into a normal standing posture, then spreading them out on either side of him, trying to land with his legs just over a shoulder-width apart, bent VERY low, trying to keep it under a foot and a half from the ground.

Aratar mimicked the stance. It was an easy one to shift into, so he'd have no problems with that one, but he quickly felt why it would probably be the most difficult to maintain. It was absolutely killing his calves and thighs. He could see the benefit of the stance, but it'd take a lot of training to be able to maintain regularly. Max nodded.

"Good! Very good. Now, next is the very basic attack. The punch. All I'm going to ask you for is a standard one-two punch as that's about the most basic combination you'll ever find that you use. Open with a jab, follow up with a reverse punch."

Stepping forwards as a simple example, he doubted it was necessary, but some people were rather slow, and he wanted to make sure the merc's chances of survival were as high as possible. There wasn't much tot he punch as he first of all gave a quick jab towards the head before following through with a return punch from his other hand, his hips being used to help give the punch more power.

Aratar nodded and took a forward stance, offering the quick one-two combo that he was being shown. Max grinned. He'd heard of the basic training style Ar's previous instructor had used, and decided to use a similar approach to help condition and train him at the same time.

"Alright, I'll be back at mid-brightening to progress the lesson. Until I come back I want you to practice the Back Stance and the Squat Stance, and shifting between the three as well as falling into them from a regular walking posture. In addition, I want you to practice fifty repetitions of each punch type from each stance against the dummy. Repeat them over and over until I come back. It'll hurt, especially with your body still hurting from your past training, but push through. This is conditioning. We're helping build you a fighter's body." Aratar nodded, and when Max headed off, Ar turned to the dummy, doing as requested.

His body was screaming in pain after a few candlemarks, but he did what was necessary. He was conditioning his body to hold up better, last longer, and punch harder. By the time the suns were at their peak, his knuckles were bloody, but his body was becoming adjusted to the sensations, and he could feel calluses already beginning to form on his hands. Inside from his weapons training, and outside from his punching. They were painfully sore, but he was surviving. He was toughening up. After all, this was nothing compared to fighting off orcs.