The Basics of Swordplay

[Tiberius Varro]

"Have you ever wondered why you just can't seem to hit me, Tskolo?," the human said with just a hint of his amusement.

"Some kind of...Force trick," the Rodian guessed in his squeaky voice.

"Wrong," the Jedi replied without anger "It's because I practiced enough hours to know what to do without thinking."

The young alien frowned up at the much taller human. That wasn't any fun. Tskolo wanted to be a Jedi hero like the stories. But his Master kept saying it'd be many years.

"You don't have to like it, my young apprentice," the human said with the barest of smiles "You just have to practice."

Tskolo sighed as he drew his training weapon. More blast deflection drills. He took the blindfold and covered his eyes. He thumbed the saber's activation stud and it hummed to life.

"Ready?," came his teacher's familiar voice.

"Yes, Master," the Rodian squeaked. Tskolo couldn't hear the click but he knew Charon had activated the remote. Time to train. He brought his blade up to middle guard.

 

[Tiberius Varro]

Tskolo couldn't see anything past the blindfold. That was the entire point. It was a builder of trust in the Force. He wondered if maybe the Jedi did it for the laughs.

The young Rodian had done this drill more times than he could remember. It never seemed to get any easier. Of course the difficulty had gone up as he got older. Too easy and there was no point.

It was still discouraging every time he got zapped. Not to mention that it stung! But he'd watched older Jedi using six. On the hardest difficulty too.

Master Charon had told him to stop comparing himself to others. He'd tried but it was hard. Tskolo wasn't the best in his clan with training saber. He really wasn't the best at anything.

Sometimes he wondered why a Jedi like Charon Starchaser had picked him. It'd been a year since being chosen as his student. Master Charon said Tskolo had gotten better. The youth wasn't so sure.

Tskolo let out a yelp of pain and surprise. A stun bolt had gotten by his blade. His shoulder felt like an angry swarm of bees at stung it. He just managed to sidestep the next shot.

"You're thinking too much, Tskolo," came Charon's baritone "Relax and trust in the Force."

 

[Eugen Aker]

From her corner of the hall, Arisa observed the session between the master and apprentice with a sense of amusement as she sipped from her canteen. Watching the apprentice struggle brought her back to her early days as an initiate, getting her fair share of stinging shots from training drones. When everything did finally click, however, working the drones became child's play.

The use of stunning bolts wasn't just about negative reinforcement, though. The real lesson she had learned was in remaining composed in the face of adversity. She could feel the man growing more frustrated with each failure, which would only hurt his performance as the session dragged on.

Without a partner to keep her occupied, she decided to insert herself into the training to help out the Rodian.

"Excuse me, gentlemen. Mind if I could get in on this?"

[member="Tskolo Ree"]