Kyuden Shika

"Sure."

Mitsuki put down her bokken on the ground, in-between them.

"We will start at a distance of three lengths of bokken. I'm going to try to grab you. Your objective is to always keep a distance of at least one length of bokken between you and me. You're allowed to run, jump, roll, whatever, just keep your distance.

The exercise will go on for a minute. After that, we'll take a short break to discuss your strategy, and what could be improved, then we go on again.

Are you fine with that?"

"Um... okay... but between you and me, I'd probably just... blast whoever was trying to attack me, toss them back, and then ready for their attack. I've already destroyed their dojo once before though, so- Anyway, I get what you mean. I'll just run away from you while you try to hit me. Should be easy enough. I'm pretty slippery!"

"Can you really blast someone that quickly? Like, motor-mouthing the prayer and all?

Well, let's say the exercise is about an opponent trying to rush you before you have time to do so. Which should pretty be realistic if they know you're a shugenja."

Mitsuki took position, jumping on her feet, ready to start running at any moment.

"Ready?"

"It's not really difficult. Even knew a shugenja that spoke to the kami with gestures, so they didn't even need to speak... Granted, they couldn't speak anyway, but anyway."

"I am... prepared to run around this dojo like an afraid child." It was a bit awkward to say, as they never expected to have to say something like that before. Then they slipped into a loose and airy stance, ready to bolt away.

"Whatever works for you."

And then Mitsuki rushed forward, almost getting to the Seppun before they could react.

"They say in the east warriors jog on the beach because running on sand is far more difficult than on solid ground.

We run in the sand for all our warm-ups because there is nowhere else to run."

There was a bit of an ugly, high-pitched shriek as the Moto charged and like the lesson was supposed to be around, Unsei turned around and started running away like a bitch. It was totally because it was because that's what the lesson was about...
totally.

They were decently agile, surprisingly, as they ran around like a chicken with its head cut off.

"Okay. First break. Let's talk about your avoidance technique in relation to your stamina. For how long do you think you can keep up running like that against an opponent that does not give you breaks?"

"No idea. I actually feel pretty cowardly doing this, especially when I do know at least the basics of fighting and do also have offensive spells." They admitted with a tiny bit of a shrug in between breaths. Physical exercise was, in fact, the devil.

"It was you who decided to interpret the exercise at getting away from me by running with all you've got. All I asked of you was to maintain a minimal distance between the two of us, in the same way a spearsperson make sure to always leave the full range of their spear between their opponent and themselves.

In doing so, you turned this into an endurance race between the two of us, that indeed doesn't leave you much room to counterattack using your own strengths.

Let's try again, but with a focus on avoidance, rather than escaping. Sidesteps, sidejumps, everything that allows you to keep your distance without actually needing to run yourself."

"That's still a lot more physical exercise than I'm used to on a daily basis. Besides, if I'm running, I can't mess up and get hit by you when you lunge or something. You're faster than me and sharper reflexes, so running would be the best way to avoid any incidents with you lunging, me not reacting quick enough, and then getting hit." They tried to explain their thought process to the best of their ability.

"There was also no mention of trying to get a counter attack on you, but trying to do that would mean I fail the course anyway since I'd then be voluntarily jumping into that shape that was told to be seperate."