Sensei of Shambala - страница 17

“Is it possible to do something against nunchaku?”

“And do you know how to use them?” Sensei replied with a smile.

“Of course!” bragged Andrew self-satisfied. “I haven’t put them down for four years. One could say, I eat and sleep with them.”

Andrew demonstrated a couple of, in our opinion, complex movements.

“Not bad,” Sensei said.

“And still, is it possible to do something against nunchaku?” Andrew repeated his question, obviously provoking the Teacher.

“Of course… For every Vijai there is a Rajah.”

“What?” Andrew asked again, not understanding the last phrase.

“I mean, for every power there is a counter-power. Nunchaku is not an exception.”

“Can you show me?”

“I can, but then it will not be fair, you with nunchaku against me… Take somebody else with you.”

We looked at each other with astonishment. Nevertheless Andrew went along to look for a partner, and our company to look for the second weapon. To our regret there were no more nunchaku. Instead of that, we found a lot of two-meter-long poles in the sports equipment room.

But although we found weapons fairly easily, fin ding a partner for Andrew was more difficult. Senior guys flatly refused the proposal to take part in this fight and laughed: “No, thanks, guy. You’d better do it alone.”

Finally, Andrew managed to convince a man among the newcomers. Meanwhile, Sensei was peacefully chattering with that skinny old man in the white kimono.

“Here, I found one!” Andrew happily announced to the Teacher.

“You have found one, great. Let senior sempai second us. At his clap, start to attack with full contact. Is that clear?”

That was all Andrew was waiting for. He nodded with obvious pleasure. Sensei walked out into the middle. Andrew stood facing Sensei, and the man with the pole chose a position from the rear right of Sensei. It came to a thrilling moment. All participants were battle-ready, except Sensei. He was standing relaxed, thinking about something and slightly playing with the tips of his black belt, embroidered with gold hieroglyphs.

At the senior sempai’s clap, Andrew zealously rushed into a frontal attack, spinning his nunchaku with the speed of the blades of a working propeller. Meanwhile, the other man jumped up quickly and started striking with the pole. What happened next happened in an instant. Sensei hadn’t changed his position from the moment the attack was begun but rather kept standing in a deeply thoughtful pose. As soon as his opponents achieved a critical distance with regards to his body, he, without changing his stance, quickly threw his hand forward… if “threw” is the right word because in reality his hand shot out like an attacking snake. The nunchaku folded, spun on it, and flew towards the second fighter. The Teacher accompanied them with a twist of his wrist, slightly changing the trajectory of the flight. The nunchaku made half a turn in the air, aligned, and like the butt-end of a stick, hit the exact middle of the forehead of the man attacking from behind. The second nunchaku’s stick, continuing its flight, hit the pole. And the pole, correspondingly changing its trajectory of movement, hit Andrew right in the head. As a result, two unsuccessful fighters clumsily fell down to the floor, not even realizing what happened. And Sensei continued to stand thoughtfully, as if all the turmoil around had clearly nothing to do with him. And then, having come to himself, he asked his “opponents” with care: