Martial Arts Interest

The scream of the alarm clock drew Jasmine out of her drowsiness enough for her to silence it, but she didn't leave bed. Flinging her arm above her head onto the pillow, she stared at the ceiling of her room and recalled last night's dream.

Thinking of that black-haired and silver-eyed angel swinging a sword on the battlefield, she was enthralled by his performance. While Levana's freezing up in the battle had disappointed her.

'Maybe I should write my short story about Azazel. He's a heroic, duty bound character that bravely fights with demons and desires to teach humans how to defend themselves. It would be pretty easy to write about that,' she thought to herself.

Her mind being made up, she roused herself from the bed and got ready for school.

Grabbing a quick bite to eat for breakfast, she noticed the time and that she was already too late to catch the bus to school, so she decided to ride her bike instead.

She made it to the campus just in time to hear the warning bell for classes to start.

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The day progressed quickly, and Jasmine was able to complete a rough draft of her short story in English class. While a pop quiz in math in the afternoon caught her off guard. Naturally, she felt she probably didn't do so well on it.

Her mind was elsewhere though as she kept playing back the vision of the battle in her dream. As for some reason, it sparked her curiosity in martial arts.

Her brother would go to a dojo a few hours a week where he practiced judo and kendo. It was the idea of the swordsmanship from her dream that inspired her to see about learning kendo.

So, when the end of the day came and she got back home, one of the first things she did was call her brother to ask about the dojo. She then proceeded to convince her father over dinner to allow her to join Ethaniel for learning martial arts.

Initially, Jakob wasn't happy about the idea, but with a little more consideration, he finally agreed. Afterall, Jasmine's arguments about needing to learn something for self-defense was convincing and let him have some peace of mind. 'It's good that she wants to be able to defend herself,' he thought.

After promising to call the next day to see about getting her enrolled, Jasmine let her father off and turned in for the evening.

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The rest of the week was a blur, but quite a bit happened during that period.

True to his word, Jakob managed to get Jasmine enrolled in evening classes at the dojo while reminding her that she needed to focus at school so that her grades wouldn't drop. Else, she wouldn't be allowed to continue until her grades improved.

The tests at the end of the week were difficult, but with as much time as Jasmine spent studying with and correcting Liliana, she felt confident enough that she passed them. For the best way to learn for her was by teaching others.

She had finished writing her short story focused on Azazel and turned it in to be graded before the weekend came, and even got around to painting her artwork for the contest that was approaching.

By the time the weekend was upon her, she had little to do for school and happily took up Ethaniel's offer to take her to the dojo to introduce her to their sensei.

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Takana-sensei looked to be in his 50's with the streaks of grey in his black hair. He had a wizened expression as he kindly looked over Jasmine after Ethaniel introduced her to him. Jasmine was a bit nervous in meeting him, even with her brother's presence there with her.

The dojo was small and in hidden in a nook of an old shopping center, but the equipment looked to be well maintained. It was broken up into two areas with a smaller padded one for tai chi and judo lessons while a larger area of tatami mats was for practicing kendo.

The larger space was reserved for kendo because of the amount of space required for footwork and the swinging of a shinai by the students.

Not surprisingly, the kendo class size was smaller than the judo and tai chi ones as it wasn't as popular with the American public. On average, new kendo students would spend at least a year on learning the basic footwork alone before being able to advance to learn other moves and swordmanship styles.

Jasmine was sent to change into a borrowed uwagi and hakama, then lent one of her brother's earlier shinais that was shorter and no longer proper for Ethaniel to use. Takana-sensei demonstrated the footwork and the basic men (head) strike, then instructed her to perform it a few times on the tatami mats while he judged her aptitude.

[[An uwagi is the rbe-like top of a kendogi (kendo uniform), while the hakama is the pleated skirt-like pants. A shinai is a bamboo training sword that students use before they graduate to a boken or wooden sword.]]

To the shock of all three of them, she performed the moves flawlessly as if she had been practicing kendo for years, but not completely convinced of it, Takana-sensei had her do a few more sets.

"She has some of the best aptitude and potential I have seen," Mr. Takana commented softly to Ethaniel.

"How so?" her brother asked.

"Well, if I had to compare her to someone like yourself, she is showing similar skills as you did after your ninth month of training here," he replied and clarified.

Shocked, Ethaniel asked, "Really?"

To which Mr. Takana just silently nodded in response, then added, "I can probably start her off with the some of the older students. It looks like she has the potential to catch up with them quick enough and maybe even surpass some of them."

He then fell silent as he thought to himself and then turned to face Ethaniel, "Do you think she would be interested in participating in some small competitions in the future?" he queried.

Ethaniel shook his head and said, "I don't know."

Afterwards, Jasmine changed back into her casual clothes and accepted a catalog for ordering her own uwagi and hakama, while taking note of the website that Takana-sensei recommended to her for ordering a shinai. After bowing to the sensei in respect, she left with Ethaniel to head back home.