After a night of restless sleeping, thanks to all the bruises and scars I had acquired during training which decided to ache and flare up during the night, we woke up at an early time to make breakfast and make preparations for the start of this day's training.

“Ok boy today we’re going to start your training in fighting fundamentals. This will technically be the real start of your Path in Martial Arts. Today you’re going to learn how to fight!”

“Now that's what I'm talking about, let's do this old man.”

“Calm down brat, we're just getting started. I don't want you getting a big head after today, 5 year old girls in Martial Citadel could probably kick your ass. Remember measure your steps and stay humble.”

“Old man, you're probably the least humble person I’ve ever met talking about ‘the greatness of your ‘Method’ and’ how those old koots back in Martial Citadel are going to pay for what they did to you’. Please keep your moral advice to yourself. I'm here to learn Martial Arts.”

“Looke’ here brat my Method is as spectacular as I say it is, its destiny is to become the backbone Philosophy of all Martial Artists, I can’t afford to be humble when people are too dense to even open their shit full eyes and see the treasure that’s in front of them. No matter you shall be the herald for the new age of Martial Arts so whether you accept it or not you have a stake in this too, so pay attention less you make me look bad.”

I didn't have any intention of becoming part of whatever grudge and conflict he kept on blabbering about. All I cared about was improving my strength. So it was best if I ignored his incoherent blabbering and listened to the important stuff only.

“Like I said today we will polish your fundamentals, the basis of all fighting mechanics and actions you will do can boil down to these 6 things, posture, stance, general defense, attack technique, tactical skills, and tactical moves. Well, start off with posture and stance. In fighting if you do not have good posture you might as well be a tree without roots you will easily be toppled over and will not be in control of any of the movements you attempt. The key to posture is good body positioning and balance. The key good balance is a proper stance. A stance is where everything begins in fighting. A tree must be strong or in other words, have good posture, in order to maintain that strong posture, he must have strong roots, your stance is your fighting roots.”

He gestured to me to come over, after I did so he started to position my limbs in a certain manner.

“Yesterday I made you repeat an action that made you strengthen your posture and stance. I'm sure you recognize this stance as the Fierce Fort Stance, this is what you call an open stance. It's strong and makes you sturdy but leaves you prone to attacks in the groin and lacks flexibility.”

He moved my limbs again, but when he did so it made my muscles react as if I was performing the motion myself in a fluid fashion. It helped me feel the intent and understand the purpose of his instructing much more clearly.

“This Fluid Stance is a closed stance, many Martial Artists consider it a trash stance since it offers less balance and stability, but its merit is that it also leaves you less open to certain attacks and makes you more flexible to change your stance.”

By now I was much more cooperative with his instructions, requiring him to use less force.

“This is a Quick Game Stance and this is a Patient Tiger Stance, the first one makes you agile but very unstable, the latter makes you stable and strong, but not very agile. These are short and long stances respectively.”

This time he pushed me down and positioned my body.

“This is Crouching Fiend stance a low stance.”

He then stood me back up and raised my hands.

“This is Sniping Wasp Stance, a high stance, the first gives you the most power and surprise at the cost of mobility and commitment, the latter gives you reach, mobility, and the ability to reposition and adapt the best.”

He put me back in what looked to me was Patient Tiger Stance except he closed the distance between my feet a little and made me lean forward.

“This is Crushing Giant Stance a heavy stance”

Then he made me lean backward.

“This is Observing Owl Stance, a light stance, at the cost of form commitment and risking overextension you get the most offense or defense in that order.”

He put me back to a normal standing stance.

“This is your normal stance, the one you see everyone use, good for walking and meticulous tasks, as you can see the principle of a stance even carries over to everyday life, without a good stance you have no posture without posture achieving success in any action will be nigh impossible. In a fight, your opponent will always seek to break your posture and stance, because once he does everything you have that makes you a threat in a fight gets thrown out the window. You cannot attack or defend or even run all you can do is curl up into a ball and if you have bad posture even that will fail.”

He walked over to me and pushed me to the ground without any warning.

“So remember never let anyone break your posture and stance, if you do it's game over.”

I stood back up annoyed and pretty pissed but by this time I was already used to the old man's style.

“Ok, I think I get it but isn't there a stance that'll help me achieve that without worrying what stance I have, wouldn't Patient Tiger be the best it has the most balance between strength, mobility, flexibility, and defense it might be slower than Quick Game stance but you can still move, unlike fierce fortress stance which seems way too static in that stance the chances of getting my stance broken are slim right.”

“There are no perfect stances every single one of them has a deadly flaw; it's just the nature of martial arts. Remember the first lesson that I thought you don't tell me you've forgotten already in martial arts ‘SPEED’ is everything. How can you be the best Martial Artist if your stance hampers your speed? And who said stability is the end all be all Balance is what’s important when preventing stance breaking, how can you move if you’re worried about stability all the time. That’s why it’s dangerous to overcommit to any particular stance, what I taught you right now were just singular examples of certain traits many stances can share, but there are many different stances in the Martial Art World some that can even be called hybrids and some that may even appear to be perfect but that is usually nothing but a deception as there is no such thing. The best stance is all stances, the best style is no style, let that be my third great lesson.”

He took a sip of tea he had brewed during breakfast.

“And by the way, these are only stances relevant to stand up striking more or less, there are stances specialized for each type of fighting but we will get to those once we get there. For now, let us continue with the fundamentals.”

I was starting to get a headache, aren’t fundamentals supposed to be simple. Was this a matter of memory or action cause if it was a matter of memory I was screwed.