Chapter 19: 19. She Knew Every Form Perfectly and Couldn’t Do One With Her Eyes Closed

The four students left, but not before Kaela gave Catherine a look that was probably meant to scare her but mostly seemed aggressive curiosity.

"Kaela... please respect her." William sighed.

"I do respecting her right now... for having a close position with you." Kaela replied while walking out of the room.

When they were alone, Catherine sat down in one of the student seats and let out a long breath.

"Phew... Teaching is already more tiring than I remembered," she said, rubbing her temples. "And we haven’t even begun training for real combat yet."

William said, "Yeah, welcome to my world," as he sat on the edge of the teacher’s desk.

"Each of those four will be a lot of work on their own."

"They will be a total nightmare of competitive personalities and egos that clash. And now we’re adding you to the mix, which means that five different people need individual attention while also learning how to work together."

"Do you wish you hadn’t choose me as an assistant?" Catherine asked again, this time with a hint of weakness in her voice.

"To be honest..." William said honestly, "Not even a little bit."

"You’re going to be very helpful with the political nonsense so I can focus on real teaching, just because... I don’t have time for bullshit like that." William sighed. "And selfishly, it’s much more interesting to train someone who used to be good but lost their confidence than to just polish up students who are already good."

"Why’s that?"

"Well, you have a good chance to find something you thought you’d lost forever."

William felt a little uneasy when Catherine looked at him because her expression showed too many emotions that he wasn’t ready to deal with before lunch. "Thank you for not interpreting this as a joke or a demotion."

William said, "It’s only a demotion if you think administration is more important than teaching."

"Which, with all due respect to administrators... I don’t."

"The people who are really making the next generation of warriors are much more important than the people who are filling out forms about it."

"Now that I think... you really are unique." Catherine said, "Unique in the way of your vision, like you see the world in a very direct way."

William stood up and stretched.

"Yeah, I’ve heard that before," he said. "Most of the time, it’s right before someone tries to hit me for being too honest."

"But that’s something that William Wade will have to deal with later."

...

For the next hour, they talked about the details of the logistics. Catherine discussed the rules for conducting private training sessions, while William attempted to find ways to circumvent rules that appeared designed to make learning as difficult as possible.

William had a new appreciation for how much bureaucratic nonsense Catherine had kept him from seeing without him even knowing it by the time they were done.

The rest of the day was a blur of classes, paperwork, and students sending him more and more frustrated messages about what they expected from the training session. When 18:00 hours came around, William was more than ready to do something physical instead of being buried in paperwork and political issues.

Private training ground three was one of the older places. It was in a corner of the academy where most students didn’t go.

It had stone walls that had been through a lot, not many magical enhancements, and enough room for serious combat practice without worrying about breaking expensive gear. William got there fifteen minutes early to set up and saw that all five women were already there waiting for him.

"Excited, I see," William said, noticing how they had spread out across the training ground instead of staying close together. "I’m still trying to figure out how this group interacts with each other."

"I don’t like wasting time," Kaela said, already in her fighting stance and ready to start throwing punches.

"I wanted to make sure I was in the best place to see everyone’s techniques," Clara said as she stood by the wall with her journal open.

Ellie said, "I was worried about being late."

Lia just shrugged and put her hand on the handle of her training sword. "It seemed like the right thing to do."

Catherine, who was the oldest and thought to be the most experienced, looked the most nervous, which is intriguing. She had put on real combat gear instead of her dress uniform, and William could see that her hand kept going to the sword at her hip and then pulling away, as if she wasn’t sure she still had the right to carry it.

William walked to the middle of the training ground where everyone could see him and said, "Okay, let’s set some ground rules."

"First of all, what happens in these sessions stays in these sessions..." William raised his finger. "I don’t want anyone spreading rumors or gossip about how hard it is for each of you to train."

"Second, we’re all here to get better, so we need to help each other instead of tearing each other down."

"Competition is fine, but mocking is not. Unless you want me to give you the same treatment as Reinsoft."

"Third, I’m going to push all of you past your comfort zones, and you’re going to hate me for it sometimes." William smirked. "Deal with it or be a bitch about it and leave."

"Any questions?"

"When do we start?" Kaela asked with excitement.

"Right now," William said, and then he pointed to Catherine. "Catherine, you’re first."

"Everyone else, pay attention and learn... This is true for all of you in different ways."

Catherine’s eyes got big with shock and worry. "I-I thought we’d start with the students first."

William said firmly, "You are also a student... My student, to be exact.

"You’re not any different from them, and you just need to knock off more years of rust." William crossed his arms. "Now draw your sword and show me your basic forms."

Catherine hesitated for a moment longer before agreeing. She pulled out a sword that was in excellent shape but clearly hadn’t been used much.

She took a formal stance that William immediately recognized as textbook academy instruction. It was technically perfect, but it didn’t have the fluidity or confidence that set good sword work apart from great sword work.

"Start," William said.

Catherine went through a simple combination, and her movements were exact but stiff. William could see that the four students were watching closely, probably hoping to see something impressive from someone with Catherine’s reputation.

Instead, they were seeing exactly what William had said before. Catherine was someone who knew the theory inside and out but had lost the natural flow that made it effective.

"Stop," William said when she was done with the sequence. "Do it again, but... this time I want you to shut your eyes."

"Huh...? Shut my eyes?" Catherine said again, unsure.

"Believe me," William said. "You’re too focused on how it looks and not enough on how it feels."

"Close your eyes and do the same thing."

Catherine closed her eyes and began the forms again. As soon as she lost sight of her reference points, her movements became less sure, and the mechanical precision fell apart.

She lost her place halfway through and had to stop.

"Do you see the problem?" William asked softly. "You’re depending on your visual memory of the form’s appearance rather than your physical memory of its sensation."

"That’s what happens when you spend years teaching theory instead of practicing execution." He could tell that Catherine was upset and embarrassed, and he could also see that Lia was nodding thoughtfully, clearly thinking about her own problems with perfectionism.

William went on, "Don’t feel bad about it."

"This can be fixed, and all it takes is retraining your instincts."

"We’ll do blind combat drills until your body remembers what your brain has forgotten."

"For now, everyone should take their positions around the training ground. We’re doing a group exercise in environmental awareness and tactical positioning."