fandomhigh | Basic Sword Skills [Thursday, Period Three]

Max had reviewed the class roster and was oddly relieved that he didn't have any repeat students. It saved him the time it would take to break a bunch of bad habits. Because while Slacking had been a relatively relaxed class, even though he took the subject seriously, Max had a very different approach to teaching the blade. The relatively small class size was also likely to give him more time to spend one-on-one with his students, and he was hoping that turned out to be more of an advantage than not.

As the students arrived at the Danger Shop ~~where they had handwavily been told to meet~~ the first thing they were likely to notice was the ridiculously extensive collection of blades. Max apparently had everything from Swiss stilettos to Japanese naganaki to Javanese kris. The second thing they might notice was that their instructor was wearing Roman-style legionary armor. A steel breastplate, a studded leather armored skirt, and steel greaves and bracers. He also had a short sword strapped to his waist. Max didn't wait for any stragglers, as soon as class was scheduled to begin he started.

"All right, listen up!" he barked. "You are here because you wanted to learn about swords, someone else wanted you to learn about swords, or the universe itself conspired to make you learn about swords. I don't care what your reasons are because regardless you're going to learn about swords." He looked around to see if anyone had any problems with that. And if they did he planned to ignore them. "All sorts of people draw distinctions between swords and other weapons in all sorts of places, but for the purposes of this course we will consider a sword to be any hand weapon which is a blade for more than half its length." He nodded at the rack to illustrate.

"We've only got seven weeks and there's a lot for you to learn, so we're going to get straight into it. Each of you will step up to the front and select a weapon, or two if you prefer. You will then explain to the class why you selected the one you did. There is no wrong reason to select a blade. If it looks pretty, that's fine. If it feels good in your hand, that's fine. If you're familiar with it already, that's fine. Once you've made your selection we'll do a quick practice match in which you'll, hopefully, learn some of the strengths and weaknesses of your selected weapon."

His eyes narrowed suddenly. "The safety systems here will not allow any injuries today, but don't even think about using that as an excuse to be sloppy. Treat every potential hit as a real one, and don't take a strike just because it won't leave you bleeding."

"You!" Max snapped as he pointed to a random student. "You're first!"

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Zayne was quickly realizing that his major issue in this class was going to be getting used to the weight of a sword. Lightsabers were, well, pretty light. Everything was in the thick hilt and the blade weighed nothing. That meant that everything felt weird in his hands.

He ended up deciding on a colichemarde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colichemarde).

Max watched Zayne closely. He seemed to know how to handle a blade, but something was... off. Still, Max had a standard question.

"Explain your choice."

"It's pretty light, so it should be pretty good for speed," Zayne said. "And the guard should make it tougher for me to drop on my foot."

"Are you likely to drop it on your foot?" Max asked as he swung his own blade up into a guard position.

"More likely than you'd think," Zayne said. He'd seen Max go through the rest of the class so far, so he held his sword up in a decent stance, ready to either parry or attack if Max demanded it.

It was probably obvious that he wasn't quite comfortable with the balance of the sword.

Max considered Zayne for a moment. "You seem a bit uncomfortable," he suggested casually. Which was really just a distraction while he threw a punch at Zayne's face with his off hand.

No reason to get all predictable with the swords and stuff.

"Eep!" Zayne said as he jumped backwards just in time. "This is just different than what I'm used to."

"What are you used to?" Max asked as he stepped back before sweeping out with a quick slash at Zayne's wrist.

"A lightsaber," Zayne said, taking a step to the side as he parried the slash. "It's kind of like a sword, only the blade is a focused laser."

"I don't even know what that means," Max admitted. He noted the parry and quickly followed up with another slash to the other side.

"It's okay," Zayne said, leaping to the side and rolling out of the way. "I'm not very good with it anyway."

"You seem decent enough," Max commented, stepping back to see if Zayne would counterattack.

"I'm very good at running away," Zayne said, getting to his feet. He checked to make sure that he didn't accidentally stab himself when he rolled away.

It was probably clear that he wasn't going to take the initiative and attack.

Max could deal with lack of initiative.

"Attack me."

Max wasn't all that complicated a guy.

Zayne wasn't really the type to argue with a teacher, so he rushed forward and slashed at Max's arm.

Zayne didn't realize that his sword was built for thrusting, not slashing.

Max didn't have a problem with unconventional uses of a weapon, but that was mostly when they were well-considered. He brought his sword around to block Zayne's attack hard. Then he stepped forward, reaching out to shove at Zayne's wrist in an effort to deflect the weapon down and away and create an opening.

That tactic worked pretty well, breaking Zayne's stance and leaving him wide open for an attack.

With an opening like that Max had a lot of options. The one he settled for was a quick, hard strike with the flat of his blade to Zayne's ribs.

Then he stepped back to give the boy a chance to recover.

Basic Sword Skills [Thursday, Period Three]

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