Outside...again [Sol/Hana]

The day was nice. It had started with heavy clouds and some rain. Hanako didn’t like rain. She couldn’t say why. It wasn’t because of the water. She liked to bathe and to swim, but absolutely disliked the rain. However, the sky began to clear up sometime around noon and now, later in the afternoon, the weather was bright and warm. Even the ground was already dry again when Hanako finally called it a day and decided to use the rest of the day with some training outside.

After a nice and easy run into the woods of the Rukongai, Hanako found a small lake and decided it was just the right place for her. She started with some callisthenics: push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups… all the whatever-ups she could think of, to use the soothing, unspoiled nature and the weight of her own body. Of course it was not as effective as some high intensity training with weights, but Hanako’s main goal had been to get away from the busy Seireitei for a while, let the mind wander for a bit while the body was kept busy. So she just couldn’t be bothered to look for some weights, pack them and carry them along, she just wanted to get out. Priorities. Aside from that she had already discovered on a prior trip to the forest that, for example, most tree branches didn’t cope particularly well with her weight plus several hundred pounds of added weight. Still, she knew that even training that didn’t push her limits had noticeable effects and it was enough to work up a sweat in any case.

When she was finished with her callisthenics the afternoon was already quite advanced, but she still had several hours of daylight. ‘Finished’ in this case didn’t mean she couldn’t do any more. She could probably continue for several days, but had something else in mind.

She drew her sword and took a stance in front of a big tree with a strong bark. Then she started swinging her sword. Simple blows: Upper left, upper right, lower right, lower left, right, left, stab, overhead… At first she started slowly and with almost no power, then dialed up her speed and strength, until she struck as fast and as hard as she could...only that her goal was to stop the blade before she would hit the tree. The closer, the better, but preferably no contact. It was to build control with the blade, to strike as precisely as possible. Now this was demanding, for the body as well as for the mind.