Art: https://aikidoclube.blogspot.com/2012/09/29.html
To welcome their guests, and also to keep them away from the monastery proper while they deal with even more last minute logistics issues, Sensei's Wu top (and only so far) students have organized a bōjutsu demonstration.
On paper, it is a by-the-book session. A series of kata, then two-people exercises, then a sparring match. The setting however is unusual. Spectators watch from behind a set of ropes that define the training grounds, a grand name for what is nothing else than the side of the mountain in its leaning glory, a descending pile of rock and ice stretching between the monastery and a thicket below.
It is cold and there is a light wind, but the sky is clear and visibility excellent.
The two youngsters certainly know what they are doing, and even total neophytes about martial arts will notice that their form is truly impressive, the like of which would not be out of place among the militant orders or in a bushi dojo. They tirelessly strike, shift position, parry, jump, unhinged by the difficult terrain.
It is sometimes difficult to identify who's Hiro and who's Haruhi when they're circling around each other as they are in close to perfect sync, with no easily noticeable gap in their skill or form.
Only when they, from time to time, turn to address their audience, to give a few explanations or tease what's coming next, does the difference becomes really obvious. Haruhi talks of practical usages of the techniques, how they can deflect blows or disable an assailant. Hiro discusses of the good there is in learning them more than using them, how the training itself improves the body and thus the mind.
