Week 23 — Friday Who: Sasha, open (to anything/anybody else willing to brave it) What: Fencing practice and malfunction Where: Fencing gym/piste When: Evening Why: Practice makes perfect—but perfect isn’t real.
Sasha was always vaguely surprised as the size and quality of Halcyon’s fencing “gym”. First off it was a large, effective practice arena. Second, it was always religiously spotless and tidy. All in all, it wasn’t what one would expect from the typical school sports club.
Then again, what was typical about Halcyon?
She’d done the earliest of her warm-ups running with Dreizen. God knew Dizzy set a breakneck pace if she let him—and she sometimes did. That’d always been the “quantity” portion of her fencing regime; a good, solid run to flush life into each tendon and nerve, to get the sinews humming and loosen her pulse. Back indoors, Sasha shed her tracksuit, wiped down, and kitted out in her practice uniform: white jacket over a white tee, black pants instead of “knickers”, thin-soled shoes. No gloves, no mask. Not yet. The rest of her gear went neatly into its bag, the bag itself deposited unceremoniously at the corner of the gym. Dreizen parked next to the bag, and immediately proceeded to fall into a drowsy heap of doggy boredom.
She started with footwork.
I sing the body electric...
First, advances. Half advance. Shift weight forward, shift weight back. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat—finish. Switch to retreating. Repeat as before, only backwards. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat—finish.
She could feel her body really wake up, proprioreceptive sense kicking in to knit together muscle and memory. Words lit like beacons in her mind, orchestrating the exercise. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
Next, the lunge-jump back. Kostya had composed the exercise to emphasize strength and balance. Sasha lunged, then—from the lunge position—she jumped back, landing with both feet simultaneously. It was much easier this way instead of jumping from the traditional stretched out pose.
Advance-to-retreat, then advance-to-accelerated long advance. Reverse: retreat-to-advance, pause, retreat-to-jump back. She concentrated on making a balanced change of direction during the advance-retreats and retreat-advances. Lack of balance could, and usually would, ruin the execution. Worse, it robbed the fencer of control.
And control, Sasha understood, was everything.
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
The doubles were next. Three strips of double advance-to-retreat and double advance-accelerated long advance, then a reversal. This time the bulk of her concentration went on accelerating explosively. Sasha worked on two tempo changes within the drill: a swift advance became even quicker on the next beat. The final movement was closer to a jump than an advance, though not a classic ballestra. Her back leg drove hard, almost as if in a lunge. With these sorts of doubles, acceleration was vital; to effectively sell the idea that you were going for a simultaneous or stealing time, you had to floor it—then retreat and parry with distance or blade. It’d taken a lot of patience, hers and Kostya’s, to smooth out both actions with the double advance, but the end result was a prizewinner.
She held the saber for a minute, then two, then three. It felt good in her hand, familiar and serious. Really, she could do this, she would do this, she would—
The shaking started. Only a tremor at first, a hiccup in her palm. Sasha tightened her grip instinctively, hoping to choke it. That was wrong; you never choked the blade. Not that it mattered either way, because a fistful of heartbeats later the trembling shivered from palm to thumb to fingertip.
No. No, Sasha wouldn’t allow this. Not again, no. I sing the body electric—
The saber clattered down to the floor like a silly child’s toy. Sasha slumped down against the wall beside it, her hand throbbing full of pins and needles. If she’d been anybody else—anyone except herself and one other—she would’ve cried. Or cursed. Or quit.
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul...