Re: Lazy Man's Training Regimen [Joshua/Hana]

Sat Oct 07, 2023 5:30 pm

Joshua raised an eyebrow slightly, but was otherwise quite relaxed with a blade pointed at him. There were multiple reasons for it, ranging from him not believing that Hana was actually going to make a go at him and confidence in his own skills, but above all others Joshua was simply used to having blades pointed at him. Once you get used to that, you don’t really stop being used to it. He let her speak, a lazy smile on his face as she finished.
“You’re misunderstandin’ what I was talking about Hana. I know your technical skill in Hoho is good, what I’m getting’ at is your practical application of them. A point you got to as you were talkin, I know; guessin’ I phrased that bit wrong. I meant that between improvement of skills and using them you’ll get the instinct to use them in place of stumblin’ back. Granted, ya still want to work on your regular footwork as well; never know when you’ll find yourself in a spot where Hoho techniques don’t work so good.”

Joshua considered his next words for a few moments. There were...holes in what he was instructing Hana about, and he knew that. Things he didn’t want to expose Hana too just yet, because she hadn’t been exposed to it herself. Yet, there were bits of it become an impediment now.
“You’ll also have to find a way of coping with yer fear of steel and pain, eventually. Right now its just slowing ya down, which in training ain't that big a deal. Out there on the battlefield though...lot more dangerous.”

Sat Oct 07, 2023 5:58 pm

Lazy Man's Training Regimen [Joshua/Hana] - Page 3 Hana_PostingHeader20

Enter: Hana Aoyama

"Well." Hana said to correct him. "You said 'don't work so good.' It's 'don't work so well. 'Good' is..." Hana physically shook, shuddering at the ickiness of his word usage. At least there was something that Hana could correct the man on.

Well, he figured part of her out. Hana was scared of getting hurt, so she hesitated, panicked, and often stumbled. Her mind went back to the wound she received trying to help Yumiko. Remembering that, she put her hand where the wound once was. She didn't have a scar or anything, thank kaido, but she remembered the pain, the fear of dying. She hated both. Currently, she didn't see a way to push through it.

"I would prefer going back to training, and focusing on my zanjutsu, not just my swordsmanship," Hana said, looking down to her zanpakuto. "I want my shikai."

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Sun Oct 08, 2023 5:23 pm

Joshua didn’t have much of an answer for Hana correcting him; this he chalked up to a matter of two different upbringings. He gave a bow of the head as a gesture of ceding the point before he moved on. It seemed he’d hit a nerve when he brought up her fear, which was rather the point he supposed. She seemed to consider his words for a bare few moments before simply attempting to dismiss that topic by redirecting them back to training. At the very least though, she brought up a focus she wanted to be working towards and a goal she wanted to pursue. She probably missed the more serious look that crept into Joshua’s eyes for a few moments though as she tried to change the subject. As quickly as the seriousness entered his eyes though it faded away to something more akin to his normal expression.

“Yeah, alright. We can try workin’ some on that. That fear though ain’t gonna go away just because you opt to ignore it though. May inhibit you in the long run on that hunt for your Zanpakutou spirit. Depends on what your Zan values,” he said, because of course Joshua wasn’t going to just drop the subject quite that easily. He recognized though that actually pushing for an answer or anything right now likely wasn’t going to help if Hana wasn’t gonna be receptive. He’d have to wait and see if she’d come at it on her own.

“There are other bits we can work with though,” he continued with barely a pause. “Zanjutsu is grounded in two pieces really; your actual martial skill and your energy control. They build off eachother; that’s why we started with your swordsmanship. Gotta get yer base solid before you build on it. So with that in place, now we start workin on infusing your strikes with your energy. Before we start trying to throw energy around though, let’s put in some work on puttin that energy into your blade. More often you’ll want to be able to do that to help your striking power. So ta start out, see if you can focus your energy just into your sword.”

Wed Oct 11, 2023 12:09 am

Enter: Hana Aoyama

Hana rolled her eyes as Joshua tried forcing the point. That was none of his business. She wasn’t scared. Leave it alone! She did not need anyone seeing her as weaker than she already saw herself. That was the point of this training, wasn’t it?

Finally, he moved on! Hana let herself pay attention again, calming the annoyed expression she had held the entire time he pushed the "fear" subject. She looked down to her zanpakuto again, holding it with both hands and in a kendo stance.

"I will attempt; I have only succeeded once, and only when my life was in danger," Hana explained. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tried focusing on her reiryoku. This was always a strange concept to her. What allowed reiryoku into a blade? Was it the material the blade was made of? Or was in the zanpakuto spirit that possessed the sword? Was it a matter of understanding the blade's makeup or the bond being born? Was it a combination of both? Hana did not know.

As she focused her reiryoku and tried pushing it forward through her hands and into the blade she held, she was met with some resistance, like trying to squeeze water out of a small hole in a bottle cap. There was movement, but barely any. The more she pushed, the more she felt her own reiryoku stall and even push back like it had nowhere to go. Feeling no movement, she opened her eyes and sighed.

"What am I doing wrong?"

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Fri Oct 13, 2023 8:19 pm

With her drive to improve and her generally quick progression, it was sometimes easy for Joshua to forget his initial assessment of Hana; talented and driven she may be, but she was also still a sheltered young lady with enough brattiness to cause her some real headaches in the long run. She was a noble, even if she didn’t speak of it very loudly; Joshua could tell. She didn’t like him pushing the point, and there was a part of him that considered and wanted to do it more just to prove the point, but he was also pretty sure that would be counter-productive. So instead he continued on, and to her credit Hana did start listening again. She moved on with his instruction, and began to try and call up her own energies and push them into her blade.

Joshua focused and began to Listen as best her could. That was the best description he could bring to it at least; the sensing of spiritual energy was something most Shinigami learned to do as they figured out how to control their own spiritual power. Joshua was no different, and he Listened as Hana attempted to channel her energy. He heard the ‘dissonance’ as she made the attempt. As she stalled out and asked, he gave her a wry smile.
“Well, I think I know what yer first problem is. Congratulations, I think your Zanpakutou spirit is mad at you. Don’t worry, happens to everyone,” he said, immediately brushing aside the concern because of course he would.
“Now it is rather rude considering, far as I know anyway, your Zanpakutou spirit ain’t bothered to make contact with you yet so you don’t have a way of knowing exactly what they are mad about. But something is giving you some resistance as you’re trying to channel your energy.”

“You also might be thinking too hard about it. Channeling up your energy isn’t as complicated as it might sound. Think about how it feels when you’re working up a kidou to throw out. You got a pattern in yer head I imagine of what specific kidous feel like as you’re putting them together. You want to be trying to do something similar here, but instead of fitting it to that pattern for the kidou you instead just want to bring it to the ready and be able to throw it about following yer blade.”

Fri Oct 13, 2023 9:01 pm

Enter: Hana Aoyama

The look Hana gave Joshua at his first assessment was almost comedic. Her cheeks puffed out, face turned red, eyes narrowed, and if it were a cartoon, smoke out the ears would have been expected. Her grip tightened around her zanpakuto and she stomped one foot in a childish frustration. "That is ridiculous!" Hana said, glaring at her zanpakuto. "Exactly, we have yet to communicate; I have tried, but they are quite stubborn. In fact, extraordinarily stubborn is an accurate description."

If only Hana realized how often that described herself. She scoffed when he mentioned kido. "It took me a long time to figure the simplest of spells. I am uncertain that is an apt comparison for someone like me. My control over reiryoku has improved, I am sensing reitatsu with greater accuracy, but my kido is at the level of a beginner. Truthfully, I only began using kido as often as I do now because I felt like a completely failure with my zanpakuto. I want to speak with them, but..."

Hana sighed. Her expression became somber, but only for a moment. Hearing a certain voice in the back of her head, Hana brought her zanpakuto back to both hands and kept a firm grip. "Again!" she said with determination. "I can do this." The young woman closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried again, but failed. Thirty minutes went by before she finally felt something shift. She was on the verge of giving up, and in doing so lessened the force she put behind her reiryoku. With that calmer flow of energy, it pushed through and soon enveloped her blade in a light blue reiryoku, barely visible to the eye, but clearly sensed. It wasn't sharp, and in fact likely dulled the effectiveness of her blade, but it was there.

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Sat Oct 14, 2023 3:28 am

“So because it was hard, it ain’t worth learnin’ from?” was Joshua’s answer to Hana’s comments about her experience with Kidou thus far. He raised an eyebrow, the tilt of his smile conveying a bit of a challenge. Whether it was that or something else, Hana seemed to get something into her head that forced her back to working on it. And working on it. And working on it. After about ten minutes Joshua laid down on the ground, still paying attention to Hana as she worked but succumbing to his lazy tendencies. After a few minutes more, he moved his hat over his eyes and seemed to all but fall into a lazy nap as Hana continued her training.

Maybe Joshua was dozing slightly, maybe not. Who is to say? When Hana finally got it though, Joshua reached up and moved his hat back off his eyes, looking up at the young woman as the energy took hold.
“There ya go. Knew you’d get it after a bit; seems like it might need a bit more work still, but its a starting point!” he said with a jaunty little smile as he sat fully up.
“Starting from here, we’re gonna want to sharpen that energy. Unless you’re wanting to go around smackin’ yer enemies with the equivalent of a stick.”

Mon Oct 16, 2023 9:37 pm

Enter: Hana Aoyama

“That's an interesting assumption,” Hana gave Joshua a rather unamused expression. “I do not recall saying kido was not worth learning, Joshua.”

There was a extraordinary feeling of relief when things worked. She looked to Josh with the intention of maybe allowing herself a bit of excitement, but her expression soured completely. Disappointment set in when she realized he was just laying down. Had he just woken up? He sat up and she dropped her focus, her reiryoku removing from her blade and her unamused stare still fixated on him.

Hana still said nothing as he offered more to their session. Instead, she pulled out her denreishinki and took note of the time. Ah. "Are you implying my sword is dull," she asked, still disappointed, and held up her zanpakuto. Catching onto her own methods quickly, she reimbued her weapon with reiryoku, though it still held that blunt edge that her last attempt did. "How does one sharpen their reiryoku?"

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Tue Oct 17, 2023 1:02 am

“Mostly? Through trial and error,” Joshua said as he stood fully up, dusting himself off some.
“By which I mean this is another one of those things that’s mostly gonna come about by feeling it more than explainin it. You got the first step down right it looks like; projecting yer energy over the blade and reinforcing it. Next, you’ll start working on shaping it. Like I said, roughly the same thing as shaping up a Kidou in the long run. Visualizin it might help ya some as well; seeing the energy over yer blade and imaging it growing sharper,” he said, doing his best to explain something that mostly came about by feel. He gave a roll of his neck to stretch as Hana studied her weapon.

“Ya got other places to be Hana?” he asked after a moment. The question held no accusation in it, and was in fact out of genuine curiosity. He’d obviously seen her checking her denreishinki as she’d not been trying to hide it. They’d covered a lot of ground today as well.

Tue Oct 17, 2023 5:13 am

Enter: Hana Aoyama

Hana examined her own reiryoku as it covered the blade. She knew how to shape kido just fine; it was often the amount of power behind kido that she struggled with. If these two methods were really that similar, she doubted that she would struggle with it, and hopefully soon she will be able to communicate with her zanpakuto.

Right as she was about to attempt to shape and sharpen her reiryoku, Josh stopped her with a question. "If you are talking about why I checked the time, I was merely curious about how much time passed. I assumed it must have been enough that my attempts here bored you to sleep, since instead of offering any advice the last thirty minutes, you chose to lay back and relax. Reputation beheld once again."

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