Welcome to Gaia! ::

Luke evaluated the sword critically. It was a well-built sword with an interesting shape, and the guard on the hilt would afford a valuable additional layer of defense. More importantly, it appeared to be of the proper size and weight. "It looks good. How does it feel? Do you like it?"

He nodded, "Well if you like it, that's what's important." That was probably completely untrue and there were probably any number of additional criteria that were infinitely more important than gut instinct in selecting a sword, but being able to hold it and liking it were good enough for Luke. "All right, we'll buy it then," he said approvingly. It was not much longer before the sword and a sheath to contain it were in Emil's possession.

Luke dismissed the thanks with a passing "no problem." The gestures that Emil so appreciated didn't seem do register with an significance to the one performing them. "Well," he said, "we can go and get started if you want. Go over basic stance and swings and stuff." It seemed the most logical course of action, unless Emil wanted to wait until another time for the sword business and begin with techniques for training pokemon instead.

"There's an area of the park that doesn't get much traffic," he said. "'Swhere I do my training. It's far enough out of the way that people don't complain about it." Had he considered it properly, Luke might have been some degree of amused at how familiar he had become with Camphoreon's central park and all the areas that comprised it. He really spent too much time there.

What first - that was a good question. Well, he had taken his sword into his hand, so grip was probably as good a place as any to begin. Luke took his own weapon in hand and stood in a way that Emil could easily observe.

"Well, grip is pretty important. When I started learning, I was always afraid that it was gonna fall out of my hand or something, so I held onto it with a fist," he clenched his hand around the hilt in demonstration, "but this doesn't really help your grip much and it'll wear you out quickly, so keep a lighter grasp." He adjusted the positioning of his hand so that his thumb and first two fingers bore the bulk of the task, his remaining fingers curled loosely to support ease of movement. "Like this."

Luke gave a nod of approval in response, "Yeah, looks good." He was a little bit jealous, actually; Van had reprimanded him countless times for keeping an improper grip when he was first learning. Well anyway. What was next? Probably stance. Stance and then swing. That sounded like a correct enough order of things.

"Stances is a lot like grip - you have to keep loose in order to move around quickly and not get worn out too soon," he explained. He described the basic elements of posture, "Mm, I guess it's... feet shoulder-width apart," he separated his feet to the appropriate distance, "with the leading foot slightly forward," he repositioned his left foot, "knees relaxed," again he demonstrated the same as he spoke, "and your weight focused around the balls of your feet. The keyword here is 'springy;' it's easier and faster to move around with a stance like this, and it's harder to get tossed off balance."

"Yeah, that's right." Or at least, it looked like the posture that that Van or Guy used; Luke wasn't one for standing in front of mirrors while practicing, so he couldn't really judge it against his own stance.

"The basic resting position of the sword is called on guard," he continued. "Arm down, elbow loose, and the tip of the sword pointing slightly upward." Again, he demonstrated. "The reason this is standard is 'cause it's easy to shift into offense or defense depending on what you're opponent's doing." He was rather impressed with himself for remembering all these little facts, but it wasn't as though he'd had many other hobbies at home.

"From there, you get to a basic top-to-bottom cut," this would be the difficult part - explaining something that had become to him as a second nature. He tested his own movements a few times before offering the explanation, "Swing from your elbow, or from your shoulder if you need a wider hit. At the end of the swing, tighten your grip to stop the sword." He demonstrated once more, then added, "If you were fighting someone for real, you'd tighten your grip like that just before the impact and use the full strength of your arm to land the hit, but that's only if you seriously want to hurt someone." Or if they were hitting dummy targets or something, but for now they were just cutting air, and such techniques weren't important.

Luke nodded at Emil's experimentation and continued his explanation, "At ground level, single-handed swords have eight different forms for attack and seven different forms for defense that match up with the areas of the body." He rested the tip of his sword in the earth to free up both of his hands for counting, "Let's see, there's head, left and right shoulder, left and right midsection, and left and right leg. The eight form of attack is a thrust, which usually hits at the midsection but isn't defended against with a standard guard form. Starting with attacks," he unsheathed his sword from its temporary casing and swung it slowly to show each form of attack, naming them as he went.